Location: Inside the Atlantian Molecular Cloud
Date: 190.04.23

The TTS Ephemeral was en-route from the Tri-Tachyon military base on Culann to reinforce the blockade of the Valhalla system when news of the lifting of the siege of Raesvelg was received. This was a shock even to the Strategic Predictor, which could only offer "human factors" as an explanation for the oversight. Nonetheless, the Predictor had created a contingency plan for this result case and placed it in sealed orders for the Captain-Director of the Ephemeral. 

The Ephemeral reduces engine output to avoid detection and makes an abrupt course reversal.

By pure chance, a Hegemony long-range patrol detected the Ephemeral just before it re-entered the Atlantian Molecular Cloud. The patrol's is led by the tenacious Baikal Daud, who climbed his way up to a Hegemony command rank from the hive-slums of Chicomoztoc. He makes a gamble and plots an intercept course using the Ephemeral's last known trajectory as a guide for, in the words of the after-action report, "where *not* to look for the TriTach carrier".

Thinking Daud's patrol will be easy prey for his advanced vessels, the Captain-Director of the Ephemeral orders systems powered-up for combat maneuvers and deployment of all fighter wings. The distinctive high-energy sensor pattern of the mighty Astral carrier emerges suddenly from a bank of the molecular cloud on a course headed straight for the Hegemony patrol. 

It's time for a boy from the bottom of Chicomoztoc to show these shiny corporate princelings how to fight.