Chapter 3

“Good morning, admiral,” said the young officer who had stood to attention as the admiral had entered his outer office.

“Good morning, to what do I owe this early interruption to my routine?”

“Sir, I am Lt Polts, I am the current military liaison to the Orbital Trade Centre Committee. I have an urgent and confidential message for you.”

“Well, you had better come in then.” said the admiral leading the way into his office and indicating to the young Lt that he should sit.

“Sir, the latest Trader ship came with a messenger, he says he has a communication that is for you and you alone. I agreed that I would let you know that the messenger is here.”

“Do we know what it is about?”

“No sir, just that it is important and confidential. I do have a shuttle ready to take us up to orbit if you have time this morning.”

“Ok, give me an hour or till my ADC gets in.”

A while later, the admiral was stepping onto the trading station on his way to meet the messenger.

“Admiral Malenkov, I have a message from the head of my trading house. The message concerns Captain Ptoll, his ship was ambushed by the K-Tal, and it is feared that he has been killed. The captain was ambushed trying to aid what he thought was an attack on a freighter; it was a deception. The K-Tal had staged the ambush to look like that. The reports from the Benar as they approached the site indicated that they had targeted his ship with a view to capturing it.”

“I will alert our ships to be aware of this tactic and that there is a chance that the Benar is now an enemy ship.”

With that, the admiral thanked the messenger and returned to the control centre to send reports of the attack to his ships.

It was just over a month before the expected attempt to ambush a Terran ship occurred. One of the Terran patrol ships received a call that a trader ship was under attack. As before, the K-Tal ship was reported as still being there.

Aboard the Terran patrol ship Berlin:

“Commander, we have received a signal from an Alliance ship. The report indicates that it is a cruiser called the Tipnar, not one we have heard of before. They are requesting assistance as they head to the site of an attack by a K-Tal raider on a trader ship. Sir, it is also worth noting that we have not heard any communications from Trader ships”

“How far away are they?”

“Approximately two hours in FTL, plus any intersystem travel.”

“Do not respond yet, and I will get the captain.”

A short while later the captain enters the bridge, as he does so, he touches the small plaque with the ships name and commissioning date on it. It’s a sort of talisman all the crew have taken to doing as they enter the bridge. The plaque shows the ship to be the patrol ship ‘Berlin’

“Ok, Commander, what do we have?” he asks.

“Sir, we have a report of an attack by the K-Tal and a request for assistance from any warship in range. As per your prior instructions, we have done nothing so far. It could be another potential trap, as the signal from the admiral warned us of.”

“Let’s have a look at what we have so far.

Comms, what do we have from the ships in question?”

At that, the timeline of all the signals was laid out for the captain.

“Yes, the timeline is a might too sharp. I too, am suspicious. Nav, show me what we have on the system where the attack is supposed to be happening?”

“Sir, the system is uninhabited, it’s a red giant star, it has a close-in gas giant with no moons and three ice giants further out. A small debris field is in the orbit between the first and second ice giants.” Reported the navigation officer.

“Ok, the normal entry would be outside the system and then head inwards. I want us to exit FTL inside the system close to the gas giant; I think our navigation is good enough to do that. I intend to mask our arrival using the star and the gas giant’s electromagnetic radiation.

I want us on full stealth as soon as we can on entering the system, I also want two stealth drones launched as soon as we exit, one to head to the supposed K-Tal and Trader position and another toward that debris field. If I wanted to ambush someone, that’s where I would set up.

“Sir,” interrupted the second in command. “May I offer an alternate idea? We could stop short of the system and launch a further drone on a time delay that would match our arrival, one that exits where we would be expected to do so. This would focus all the attention on that region. If it then moves, toward the supposed Trader and K-Tal ships in slow time but not in stealth they would be doubly surprised by our counter-ambush.”

“Excellent idea, make it so.”

Comm, make a signal to the Alliance ship, tell them who we are and say we will be with them in four hours. Navigation, set a course to put us just outside the system where we will launch a drone and then a course to be in the shadow of that gas giant.”

Two hours later and after its stop to launch the decoy, the Berlin exits FTL in the shadow of the gas giant. Almost immediately, two stealth drones are fired off.

A short while later, the first decoy drone exits FTL and moves into the detection range of the K-Tal and Trader-linked ships, but still moving slow, slow enough to not be seen as a decoy so as to retain the ambushers’ attention.

“Sir, we are getting good visuals from the first stealth drone; it seems like a standard K-Tal raider boarding action. My only concern is that the Trader ship has next to no damage. Also, there is no communication from either ship.

The second stealth drone that is heading to the debris field has not detected anything so far.”

“Thank you, what we need to do now is wait till our decoy drone arrives and see what is flushed out.

Weapons, I want the K-Tal ship and the Trader ship targeting with railgun rounds. If, as I suspect, they will engage the decoy drone as soon as it closes. But do not fire until I say, I suspect that we have a third shooter out there, and these are the decoys.”

A short time later, as the second stealth drone approached the debris field, the sensor officer made a report.

“Sir, I am getting an image on the LIDAR. The image shows two ships linked together, the smaller ship is almost certainly an Alliance cruiser, and if I was a betting man, it would be that it’s the captured Alliance ship Benar. The second ship is almost certainly K-Tal it looks like a bigger version of the one that’s attached to the Trader ship.”