[capnq]

CEO Davdi was startled out of his reverie by someone pounding on his office door. He started to reach for the intercom button to ask Loscu what was going on, then remembered that he'd sent her home early. She'd been almost as shaken by the news as he was; it was obvious that they weren't going to get much else done today. He looked at the report spread across his desk, and realized that he had been looking at it without really reading it for quite some time. "Come in," he called to the door.

Soctu Timho bounced into the room, looking as bad as Davdi felt. "I've got terrible news," he said as he skidded to a stop.

"I know, I was one of the first ones notified," Davdi replied. "It happened so suddenly, I can hardly believe he's gone."

Timho gave him a puzzled look. "I didn't know that you knew any of the crew personally."

Davdi returned his puzzlement. "Crew? What crew? You mean the people he was with?"

"Who was with?"

"Sinta, of course. Isn't that what you came to tell me?"

"No, I have a report from the _Appreciation_. What happened to Chairman Farki?"

"He died this afternoon. Had a massive stroke while watching his favorite skyball team from his private box."

Timho was taken aback. "I hadn't heard anything about that. I've been busy going over the _Appreciation_'s Last message with Node-25."

"What did they find that would interest Node-25?"

"You may recall that the _Appreciation_ was exploring the spinward edge of the cluster. They'd reached the frontier that the Tyreans share with the Katana Imperium."

"Yes, I remember that. The Katana never replied to our First Contact message, correct?"

"Right. The _Appreciation_ crossed the Duviniax system with no response, then entered the Candida system. They were intercepted there by a Katana light cruiser." Timho paused, seemingly reluctant to continue. "The Katana ship closed with them, then opened fire with some kind of energy weapon. Node-25 has been analyzing their final transmission, trying to identify the Katana weapon. The transmission cut off in mid-sentence; as far as we know, there were no survivors."

Still stunned by the death of his mentor, Davdi was slow to react to this new tragedy. "The Tyreans warned us to be cautious in that area. I guess it's true that trouble comes in threes. I've been going over the cost projections for screening Tophin imports for that parasitic fungus from Seginus. Even the most optimistic figures have us taking bigger losses than we would by simply cutting off trade, as the Tyreans have been recommending all along. But we can't cut off trade while we've still got scoutships deep in Tophin territory, because we don't know how they'll react."

"Especially with those two Tophin light cruisers that have been shadowing the _Investment_ for the Last few months," Timho agreed. "It's going to take them a year to get back to Ampolis for refuelling."

"A year of losing profit. Malwi is going to be livid, and Sinta isn't here anymore to help me hold him off. The next board meeting is going to be even worse than the budget fight two years ago."