Writing in 2677, eight years after the war, military historian Wilhelm Schwarzmont says,

Goes like this: Before the war, or rather, before the attack on McAuliffe, Admiral Banbridge sends his friend Winston Turner, together with Vance Richards and young ensign Geoffrey Tolwyn to a place out in NO-man's space, a long way off the Landreich, to gather intelligence about the cats. Strange assignment? You bet!

The place is called Gar's Emporium; an old ore container cylinder turned into space station, orbiting a black hole near its event horizon, belonging to a kil without clan, but with entrepreneurial spirit; –a gathering place for many races to trade and gamble and do all things illegal as long as they don't involve compromising the Emporium's pressure containing walls. Technically inside Kilrathi space, but well outside Imperial control.

The four of them (including Hans Kruger, their hired “taxi driver”) spend about a month doing just about nothing there, until one day a cat wants to buy some glasswork from them. He comes into their ship, checks out some artsy glass contraption, asks for the price, then pays with a bill and a coin; and takes off with the artifact. Turner suddenly tells the others to follow the cat. The cat runs, then gets gunned down by assassins somewhere at the far end of the corridor. Out of nowhere, a smoke bomb gets thrown over the fallen cat. Richards and Tolwyn would have been next, but are saved by the fat body of a drunken Wu that took some blaster shots that were meant for them, so they run back to their ship. At the same time, Gar's Emporium's general alarm is going off, and announcement speakers blare out that Imperial ships are coming. They, like everybody else, power up their engines and take off; but within a minute are followed, and get attacked by, an unmarked ship that had also just launched off Gar's Emporium. All hell is breaking lose: ships colliding in the rush to leave, there's kat fleets everywhere, but, to make a long story short, they make it back to the Landreich in one piece.

At one point during the trip, Turner says to the others that the ship that attacked them after leaving Gar's Emporium was Kilrathi Counterintelligence, and shows them a chip glued to the coin the cat who bought the glass contraption had paid with.

Later, Landreich's President Blucher manages to decrypt and translate the cat chip, and it has basically an Imperial order to attack the confederation, signed by the Emperor.

So the big mystery nobody out there in WC fandom seems to figure out is where the lost orders came from… (Certainly the average IQ of crius regulars, not to speak of that of their big Wu-like chief, doesn't help….)

Obviously Vakka sent the chip.

Why?

Because:

• 1) He doesn't want to kill the human prisoners; –he has orders to kill them all, but really doesn't want to… Well, this is peripheral; but related to the sub-mystery…
• 2) He wants the throne for his clan (Vakka/Ki'ra), –and for the ruling clan (Kiranka) to lose the war… as it would spell the end of Kiranka rule, –which, needless to say, would be good for the Vakka/Ki'ra clan.
• 3) The Vakka clan has Fawcett's World, which is in the general direction of the Landreich, a short trip for the courier who delivers the encrypted chip to Gar's Emporium.
• 4) Most importantly, Vakka probably has Intelligence connections (otherwise, how would Baron Jukaga become Chief of Intelligence for the whole empire later? Remember this is a patriarchal society, not a meritocracy), and such connections help answer a much better question to begin with: How did Banbridge (“Skip”) know to send Turner to Gar's Emporium in the first place? Then the answer becomes simple: just like the CIA and the KGB had many open communication channels and double-agents during the Cold War, Fleet Intelligence and Kat Intelligence have got something going under the table. Or the channel could be between Vakka and Blucher. Details aside, Skip sent Turner to Gar's Emporium, not because he read that in a chrystal ball, but just because that's where an agent for Vakka said the delivery would be made. Pure and simple.

Besides, there's another “sub-mystery”: After repelling the kat offensive in the Landreich, Hans Kruger supposedly chases some ship all the way to Fawcett's World (?!), and starts bombing the ground defenses there, and then crash-lands. Nothing is explained as to why he went there, in Action Stations. We hear about this sub-mystery again in another book:

Again, nothing much is explained why, of all places, Hans ended up at Fawcett's World, or what became of the prisoners who were there, or of how he managed to steal a frigate while walking around with just a hand-gun.

To me, he was sent there specifically to take those prisoners back home, and the kat frigate was probably a gift. Blucher probably sent him there because a message to come get those prisoners was probably in the same chip that Turner brought back, –but Blucher forgot to mention that part to Turner, of course… Which also explains why Blucher drafts Hans Kruger into the FRLN right then and there: He had just seen the message about the prisoners on Fawcett's World, and wants Hans to take off on a rescue mission like immediately.

In other words, Vakka has a lot of intelligence connections, and through smugglers and whatnot, establishes connections to Landreich intelligence and Blucher. Blucher was in touch with Banbridge. Banbridge says to Blucher “We need evidence about the kats' war plans”. Blucher says “Let me see what I can do” and sends a request to Vakka. Vakka says, I'll have the evidence delivered to Gar's Emporium; send your people there. Blucher phones Skip back and says “Gar's Emporium; next month”. Vakka puts the Emperor's order in an encrypted chip, then adds “P.S. I got some of your people prisoners here, and the Emperor wants me to kill them. Care to come and get them? But make it look like you took them by force, will you?”. Skip sends Turner to Gar's Emporium. Turner brings back the chip. Blucher gives Turner the part Turner wants, and keeps for himself the message about those prisoners; then sends Kruger to get the prisoners. Makes sense?

• For those of you reading all this and saying “What the hell is he talking about?”, just buy Action Stations (go to Amazon, where you might find a copy for 1 cent and then only pay 25 bucks for shipping), and read the damned thing.

• Sure, this is a bunch of speculations and circumstantial evidence; but then again we're talking about a fictional universe coming out of people's minds; and Forstchen is a writer who, like most good writers, likes to keep some of his best cards close to his chest. He likes to make his readers think (which too often fails, around some other WC fans' website…). We see this in False Colors, where Geoffrey Tolwyn regrets having had to say half-truths to Bear, and where interesting things about Belisarius and Whittaker are hinted at, through his private musings, which contradict the story he told Bear moments before, –and which the CIC take literally, of course… But I digress…