[AgentZero]

I can do intrigue? Cool, I never knew. Anyway, here's Part 3, and hey, something big blows up!


The Tauran battlecruiser Zehkleck slipped unnoticed into the Narf Trinary System. Not thanks to any kind of stealthiness, the Taurans wouldn't know the meaning of the word, but due to the simple fact that nobody monitored the Narf System, because there was nothing left to monitor. There had once been a number of thriving colonies in the system, built in the ruins of a dead civilization. But in the dying days of the Earth-Tauran War, a colossal battle had been waged here. A Battle To End All Battles they called it. And when it was over, the Narf System was dead, every scrap of life extinguished from the surfaces of it's worlds.

However, First-Among-Fourths Plaetek had no interest in Narf's scorched worlds. It was far more interested in the wreckage it's ship's sensors had detected two light minutes out from the system's main star. The floor plates rumbled under its feet as its navigator brought the ship up to full sublight.
“Second,” Plaetek spoke to the officer beside it. “What do your eyes see?”
“Very little, First,” came the reply. “Distance still to great. Our ships, definite. Another, near certain.”
“Advise when near certain is definite,” Plaetek instructed.

Several hours passed before Plaetek's Second spoke again. “Another definite. Wreckage now. Survivability probability minimal.”
“Identity?” inquired the First.
“Transponder functional,” replied the Second. “TSN Galahad. Definite.”
Plaetek nodded slowly. “Destruction of our ships, most ungood. First-Among-Seconds will be not-pleased. Loss of target, double ungood. First-Among-Seconds will be double not-pleased. But destruction of Galahad, double double good. Redemption likely.”
The Second nodded in agreement. “Return?” it inquired.
“Return with haste,” the First instructed.
The Second returned to its station and began plotting a course back to the jump nexus. The First settled back on his hind legs to observe it's tactical plot. Tauran plots were a series of two dimensional screens, unlike the Humans 3D holographic 'tank'. Tauran minds did not function well when more than two dimensions were involved, and all their information about the three dimensional space around them was relayed via two dimensional displays. Noticing something odd, Plaetek leaned forward and tapped the tactical plot with a thick knuckle.
“Malfunction?” asked the Second, peering over the First.
“Probability high,” agreed Plaetek. On the tactical plot, the icons representing with the systems three suns were steadily growing larger, even as they moved further away. Plaetek moved to the primary command deck and requested the rest of its officers to report similar malfunctions.
“First!” one of the Thirds cried suddenly. “Malfunction probability zero!”
Plaetek's seven eyes whipped back to his plot just in time to see the three stars seemingly shrink into nothing, then expand again with terrifying speed.
“Flee!” the First ordered desperately, knowing already that it stood no chance of escaping the raging storm of destruction racing towards them. The Zehkleck was a third through her emergency turn when the combined fury of three supernovae ripped her to pieces a split second before ship was vaporized.

Two days later, James Thereaux, sleeping aboard the decommissioned assault cruiser Daedalus was woken from a most pleasant dream by the spectacular death of a star system.