Module 2: Background

The main problem facing an interstellar Emperor is that of revolt in the more distant of his provinces. There are several measures which tan be taken to counteract this; splitting up the provinces into small units to ensure that it is as difficult as possible for a rebel lord to control the whole sector, keeping the masses happy so that they don t feel like revolting, separating military and civil rule, and so on. The Terran Empire does ail these, and amongst other measures, the Emperor has control of the Imperial Inspectorate, a body of picked high-ranking officials who travel widely with their own armed forces and pay periodic surprise visits to the provinces to check up on the sector dukes and sector admirals.

Of course, 'surprise' is a loose term when applied to a visit by several thousand tons of shipping with a half-dozen marine battalions on board; the alert sector duke keeps his eyes open, and tan spot such an unexpected audit several weeks away by means of high-Jump couriers and intelligence estimates Similar methods inform most of the other officials with their hands in the cookie jar in time for their activities to be covered up, unless they are plotting something really major, like a revolt, in which case the mobilisation of troops and ships would be difficult to conceal, and the only hope would be to destroy the visiting Inspector and his men.

Yelov Salash, Sector Head of the Covert Survey Bureau for Sector Antares, has read the computer compilations and siftings of reports from detached duty scouts and other sources, and realises that an Imperial Inspector is on the way to audit the sector and tan be expected to arrive in a few weeks. This gives him some cause for despair, as he has been augmenting his private fortune by the somewhat illegal method of using CSB shipping to smuggle the contraband narcotic hyperdexamine, popularly known as 'yag', and an addictive form of combat drug. This would be bad enough, but could be covered up in the normal way of things. However, the latest shipment of yag has gone missing; the ship carrying it had filed a flight plan in accordance with normal procedures, and by collating the various sources of data at his disposal, Salash estimates that the ship disappeared in the Shangrila system. He realises to his horror that Shangrila is one of the stops for the Inspector, according to his computers predictions from earlier checks. Quickly he transmits the necessary orders; a group of agents are to be assembled from nearby systems at Shangrila and search for the missing vessel and its load of yag, using the cover of asteroid miners searching for a strike in the system's outer moons and planets. The agents won't, of course, be aware of the fact they are searching for yag.