Please read the following story, and tell me what you think happens next.
Panther
Ruissel is a non-aligned world on the edge of Rigellian space. It had maintained its independence since settlement, but, over the last twenty years, the growth of piratic activity in the sector had taken its toll, and Ruissel had appealed to Rigel for help. After deliberation and some negotiation, Rigel despatched a light cruiser, supported by a tax levy from the local inhabitants. The pirate threat receded, and the light cruiser was assigned elsewhere. The taxation continued.
In 2781, Markus Aspic had a chance meeting in an off world bar that promised to change the fortunes of Ruissel for ever. Six months later, two weeks before tax time, a stranger made planetfall at Ruissel's rudimentary space port. The stranger booked himself into the only hotel, which doubled as a goods warehouse when free-traders visited the planet. His business card, beamed from his ship to the port authorities (the port authorities were an elderly former space pilot and two sleek but lazy cats) during descent, said that the stranger was a tax-consultant, and that he went by the name of Smitt.
Mr Smitt did not stay at the hotel long. He soon took up residence with the mayor of Ruissel, who explained that for the sake of Ruisselian hospitality, the visitor could scarcely remain in a guest house more than three days.
A week later, one week before the annual visit of the tax freighter, the Mayor held a public meeting. Ruissel is not a particularly modern world. There are no holo-decks, no VR terminals, and no mind-conferencing facilities. But there is an effective makeshift system for meetings. Across the planet, communities gathered around video screens and comms units. A couple of local traders, for a notional fee, put into space to act as the satellites which Ruissel no longer had -- they had been among the first victims of piratic attacks.
The mayor was the first to speak. He explained how Markus Aspic had met Mr Smitt, and explained Mr Smitt's credentials, and explained that Mr Smitt had found a way for them to cease to pay taxes. Then Markus Aspic spoke. He confirmed the mayor's account of affairs. He thanked all those assembled for courteously giving their time. He thanked Mr Smitt for making the extensive journey. And he explained that, in return for some small services that he, Markus Aspic had rendered, Mr Smitt was giving his valuable time and yet more valuable advice on a strictly charitable basis.
Then Mr Smitt spoke. The citizens of Ruissel had had little experience of tax consultants before, but if they had, they might have been surprised by Mr Smitt's manner. Perhaps they were surprised anyway. Smitt did not mince his words. He described the Rigellian taxation as an offence against humanity. He referred to the Rigellians more than once as 'the oppressor'. He referred to the assembled company frequently as 'comrades'. He once went so far as to call them his 'brothers in arms'.
The citizens of Ruissel might equally have been surprised by the content of Mr Smitt's proposals. Mr Smitt did not raise the issue of deductibles, or of transferable assets, or indeed of legal redress. Smitt's solution was simple and dramatic. Ruissel must simply refuse to pay the taxes. Rigel had no right to levy them, and the non-aligned worlds, the independents, the Democratic league and the Magellan Confederacy would exert pressure on Rigel if it pushed forwards its demands in the face of a gesture of opposition.
Smitt may have had an unconventional approach to tax law. But it was clear that he was well equipped for the task of rabble rouser. He spoke quickly, and for only a few minutes. Then the mayor welcomed comments from the floor. At first the questions were few and cautious. But, with each response from Smitt, the assembly grew more agitated. After an hour the mayor was having difficulty keeping control of the meeting. After two hours somebody proposed a vote. At first the mayor gave the impression of trying to restrain the meeting. He suggested that there had not been time for everyone to express their views. He recommended caution, and proposed an adjournment for people to consider their positions. The calls for a vote grew more strident. The mayor reluctantly acquiesced. A vote was held. There were two abstentions - the Mayor, as chair, and Mr Smitt, as an outsider. There were no votes against. Ruissel's adult population (and some non-adult) voted unanimously that they should communicate immediately with Rigel to indicate that no taxes would be forthcoming. The mayor asked, somewhat whimsically, if anybody wished to request a recount. There was no call for a recount.
Mr Smitt made a further speech, followed by various community leaders from across the planet. At midnight the meeting broke up.
It was early the next morning that Smitt, unshaven and in his shirt sleeves, sat with Markus Aspic and Mayor Short in the warm summer breeze, eating breakfast on the veranda,
"So, my friend," the mayor was saying, "you have the result you were looking for. But you know as well as I do that the Rigellians will not back down. Like as not they will send troops with their tax collector."
"I'm counting on it" Said Smitt, who was more often known as Belan Mordillo. "In the last seventeen incidents of this kind the Rigellians have despatched a gunboat to demand their tribute. In each case except one the citizens paid their taxes forthwith. On the single other occasion the taxes were not forthcoming, and the Rigellians bombarded the planet until it surrendered."
"This is scarcely encouraging." Remarked the mayor, and tore off another hunk of bread to dip into his coffee.
"This is where I come in." Said Markus Aspic. "You remember that your original instructions to me were to make contact with the Fortuna pirates and see if there were a way to negotiate a stand off with the Rigellians, which would leave us free."
"And you succeeded?"
"I failed. I was unable to locate anybody who could speak for Fortuna, or was willing to identify someone who could. That was until I met Belan Mordillo. With him, they were willing to speak."
"And?"
Mordillo leaned back from the table, and put his fingers together in a pyramid, as if thinking. Then he said: "Fortuna is willing to produce a stand off with Rigel on one condition. That we give to them a Rigellian signature chip from a current vessel. I told them that once they had helped us, we would obtain their chip. They told me that they would not put a ship into space until the chip was delivered. I told them that we would have it within two months. That was three weeks ago."
"And do you have it?"
"Of course not. But we will get it. The Rigellians will send a gunboat, and we, as good, cowed citizens, will fly up to it a leaky tug to negotiate our surrender. A gunboat carries a crew of 24 when up to full strength, but ours will be lucky if it has fifteen. We will arrange for a contingent to be visiting the planet when we make our negotiations, which should leave no more than a half a dozen on board. The leaky condition of our tug-boat will mean that we have to make the trip in space suits. A gas charge in the air-ducts will fill the gunboat with somnin for about five or six minutes before the life-support detects it and clears it. Long enough for the crew to succumb while we conveniently breathe from our suit tanks.
"Over the last five years a growing number of Rigellian crews with their ships have deserted. Most have gone over to the Magellans as defectors, but one or two have gone over to pirate companies, which is why the Rigellians changed their signature chips a few months ago. We will simply pilot the gunboat to Fortuna, hand over the chip, and return with the fleet to stand off whatever the Rigellians try to do."
"And you really think this will work? Has it ever been done before?"
"It has never been done before. That is why it will work."
"I just hope you're right."
The revenue-freighter Cresson made planet fall in the early evening. It was customary for the Mayor to invite the captain and his officers for a meal on arrival, and, naval rations not being what they once were, Captain Désrues had timed his arrival carefully to ensure that the meal was not overly delayed.
He waited in dress uniform, having carefully instructed his crew and ensured that his officers were well preened. At eight o'clock he found that the time had begun to drag. At nine o'clock he began to be impatient. At ten o'clock he sent out a junior officer to find out what the devil was going on.
At ten-thirty the junior officer returned with the mayor, and two others with whom Captain Désrues was not previously acquainted.
The mayor explained that he was very sorry he had not come earlier to welcome the captain, but he had been entertaining guests, and felt it was appropriate to wait until after dinner to recommence their acquaintance.
Captain Désrues replied, somewhat stiffly, that he felt sure that he and his crew would have the pleasure themselves of dining with the mayor the following evening.
The mayor once more expressed his regrets. He feared that a message which had been transmitted to the Rigellian revenue authorities had in fact not been communicated onwards in the appropriate manner to Captain Désrues. He was, of course, referring to the democratic referendum which had taken place shortly before on the continuance of the mutually beneficial relationship between Rigel and Ruissel. He felt sure that there had simply been an oversight in informing Captain Désrues, and that this would be straightened out once the Captain returned to Rigel. He explained once again, because it appeared that Captain Désrues had not entirely followed his line of thought, that Ruissel had allocated the budget previously set aside for support of a Rigellian cruiser to another account heading, since it was felt that the cruiser was no longer necessary, nor, indeed, present, in the Ruissel system. He explained how grateful the people of Ruissel felt towards the Rigellians, and that they wished to express that gratitude by rectifying an error which had no doubt been an administrative nightmare for the Rigellian government - that is, dealing with the overpayment of taxes for so many years. And, finally, he presented Captain Désrues with an invoice for the said overpayment, backdated fifteen years, and wondered aloud if Captain Désrues would perhaps give a personal cheque, in the absence of an official Rigellian credit transfer.
It says much for Captain Désrues that he did not explode with anger on the spot. Instead, he courteously thanked the Mayor for clarifying the misunderstanding, and at once returned to his ship and raised Rigel on the comm-link. Instantaneous communication by gravitic propagation cannot function close to a massive object such as a planet or sun. In the normal way of things Captain Désrues would have relayed via one of the four geo-stationary satellites which circled every inhabited world, except, of course, that there were no satellites around Ruissel. This was an unexpected obstruction, but Désrues kept his cool, and punched his message out through a relay satellite on the edge of Ruisselian space. The citizens of Ruissel were used to the four hour wait on each end of a message, but it was an additional trial for Désrues.
While he waited, he put his crew on full alert, which is how the scanner officer came to notice the descent of a new star in the sky, a light that appeared from nowhere, and hung for a moment, before sliding swiftly to the horizon. It was like nothing that the officer had ever seen. A ship approaching under power begins as a pinprick of light as it leaves dimensional travel to enter a solar system, far enough from its destination to evade the ubiquitous force of gravity It grows slowly for hours before it makes braking orbit, suddenly growing brighter as the shields spark against atmospheric dust. A ship coasting in - a dead ship - creates no light until it begins to burn up in a planet's atmosphere, slowly falling through the clouds as its orbit decays, brightening as it falls.
Désrues included the strange light in his follow up report. It caused more consternation at Rigellian control than the original message, but this fact was never revealed to him.
Twelve hours after planet fall, the Cresson lifted from Ruissel, four days ahead of schedule, and to cheers from half the town.
It takes eight days to despatch a gun-boat from the Rigellian base on Propus to Ruissel.
Eight days while the general population celebrated, but those close to the Mayor Short waited nervously.
On the ninth day Belan Mordillo walked out of the Mayor's house, and looked disconsolately at the sky. Mayor Short came up behind him.
"You think they've just given up?" He said.
Mordillo shook his head. "They won't give up. It's possible they didn't have a gun boat available at Propus. Sending one from Polaris would take two days more. Our package may arrive tomorrow."
On the tenth day no gunboat appeared in the skies.
"You know, I really think they might have given up." Said the Mayor at dinner that evening. Mordillo shook his head again. "They will not give up." He said.
On day twelve, just as evening was beginning, there was a new star in the sky.
Mordillo, Aspic and Mayor Short went to the veranda to watch it grow from a pinprick to a discernible form. Short took out a binocular scanner and looked covetously over the ship. He could make out the glistening Rigellian insignia, the engines and control decks, and what he took to be gun ports. Then he passed the binocular to Aspic, who finally passed it to Mordillo.
"So, your plan is working." Said Short. "Tomorrow we will arrange a bull-fight here on the planet, and offer to meet them in space to discuss our terms."
He rubbed his hands together.
Mordillo took the binocular, and gazed long and hard at the ship. Then he folded it back together and replaced the cover.
"Something is very, very wrong." He said. "We must consider our next move carefully."
"But the ship is here, just as you said. A few days late, but who is arguing with that. Mr Mordillo, we must press on and take our gunboat." Said Short.
Mordillo turned sharply to look at him.
"That isn't a gunboat." He said. "It's a battleship."
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M A R T I N T U R N E R
So watch out! You're going
hordes of insidious nanites (27th century technology would permit this), 
a horrible mutagenic virus, (d) nothing. In the case of (d), it is implied the undetectable and deadly (