Captain’s Log April 5th 001 SDE,

We are currently holding position in the Delta Four star system. The system is not far from the Valorian border, but we are have been waiting in the system for R&D to finish deciphering subspace radio technology which we have stripped from the probe. Something they finally finished yesterday, now we are working on enhancing our comm systems to use subspace radio. Having access to ftl communications technology will be invaluable and will allow us to communicate with our contacts when necessary. As for this system, it is not very interesting. The system is also a navigator’s nightmare, littered with asteroids and debris. Some of these asteroids are quite rich with valuable ores and minerals, but the debris has made the system valuable to space pirates. Which we cleared out the day after we got here. So in addition to upgrading our comm systems we have also been using the system to test our new asteroid mining rig. Which is basically a modified cargo shuttle outfitted with a mining equipment. Initial test show it works well, and is actually bringing back excellent yields per trip. As such I have ordered three more mining shuttles to be put together. To save power I have ordered the hull plating turned off since we are just holding an orbit over a dwarf planet.

A young Valorian woman was studying her sensors. They had arrived in the system to subjugate some pirates who had been getting unruly of late, just two hours before. Only to find an unusual lack of pirates. Her ship was currently orbiting the remains of what was clearly a former pirate base. However someone had bombarded the former asteroid base with heavy weapons fire. As for the former pirate ships moored at the base, there was nothing left of them except for a few clouds of charred debris. Then she heard footsteps behind her to her captain approaching.

Her captain was a lovely woman of about average height at ‘155 cm’. Her skin was a lovely light blue, her silver hair was kept in a braid. Her uniform was kept tidy and sharp. See her looking her way she smiled, her blue eyes sweeping across the room as she gracefully crossed the distance.

“So Reia, figured out who dusted our pirates?” said her captain.

“No, but I did find what we were looking for. Whoever did this used particle weaponry, and fairly powerful ones at that. The weapons left behind a unique signature that we can use to identify them if we can find them. Unfortunately the trail is already cold, I was unable to find an engine trail for the attackers,” said Reia.

“No trail? Any evidence of warp, inversion or hyperdrive use?” asked her captain.

“None of those markers were seen, either. So I am inclined to believe they are still in the local area,” said Reia.

“In that case run a long range sensor scan and see if we can’t pick them up. I’m going to confer with the rest of the task force,” ordered her captain. After acknowledging the order she turned back to the sensors and started the scan. It took her multiple sweeps before she found what she was looking for. Hundreds of ship signatures were on her screen, most of which were hardly bigger than a shuttle. Often moving around in groups, it seems they were moving to various spots in the debris field. Most of the points of interest were near locations of suspected pirate bases. This system was a well known pirate nest so every few years a subjugation force was put together to clear them out. Of course, those bases deeper in the system often escaped since they were too deep to reach. Especially since a mineral common to this field interfered with shield generators making even the smallest collisions deadly. The small ships would remain near these bases for a few minutes before returning to the motherships which were orbiting the largest planet in the system, which was a dwarf planet. Being a trinary system with a large amount of planetary debris and several gravitational anomalies, the system did not lend itself to large planets.

Reaching the ships she had found would be tricky, the debris was quite the navigational hazard and the pirate clans in the area liked to leave booby traps in the system. Fortunately, the new aliens probably cleared those out given how they were moving with impunity and she had found a possible route to meet them. Turning around she found her captain already finished with her conference with the other task force captains.

“They are still in the system, but much deeper than is considered safe, sir,” said Reia.

“So where exactly in the system are they?”

“Rizmar, the rumored location of Gremin’s Raiders stronghold,” said Reia referring to one of the most powerful pirate clans in the sector. Then she continued, “ they seem to be holding position in orbit of the planet in a low power mode. While dispatching shuttles to salvage the debris left behind from their attack on the pirate bases. They do seem to have patrols around the planet however, but it doesn’t look like they are expecting company.”

“Can we reach Rizmar?”

“Yes, I found a route big enough for the task force to follow, that leads close to Rizmar,” replied Reia.

“Transfer it to navigation, I guess it's time to go meet our new neighbors,” said the captain. Navigating the route took several hours, but near the end of the shift the task force of thirty ships was finally nearing Rizmar. Reia had spent most of the time studying the sensors and the alien movements. What bothered her most about the aliens though was the lack of transmissions between them. Now the debris field here was known to disrupt sensors and comm signals, but not enough to account for the lack of signals she was getting from the ships. She did however manage to get some decent readings on the alien ships when they started getting closer, but those scans had caused her more questions than they answered. Her scans only ended up giving her vague general idea of their capabilities, and many of their systems had modifications that were completely unfamiliar to her.

“Sir, we are nearing their position,” reported the navigator. Her captain then turned to her and asked, “I assume you can give rundown on their ships in case things go horribly wrong by now?”

“Yes, sir. While their technology has some question marks, I have a general idea of their capabilities. The alien task force contains three ships, two destroyers and a Heavy Flagship Cruiser. None of which are small, the destroyers are ‘970 meters’ long and the flagship is full capital ship measuring ‘5020 meters’ long. Materials wise they build their ships with a Titanium based plassteel alloy ..”

“That choice of materials, early interstellar era primitives right?” interrupted the captain.

“Maybe, but that alloy is actually quite remarkable. A material analysis indicated that it has a strength and resilience comparable to duranium. Although it does weigh more. Their ships seem to rely on a thick layer of heavy armor reinforced by a high density energy field, and integrated dispersion generators. The result makes their hull incredibly tough, and invulnerable to most known weapons. Scans of their warp engines indicate they are comparable to the faster designs in the confederation. Also their weapons appear to be quite advanced for an early interstellar era civilization. One of the big questions though is how they travel between star systems. I have been unable to find a system resembling a deflector or a proper shield generator. Nor have I found anything resembling a sublight engine. Judging by the complete lack of thrusters, I suspect they use some type of reactionless drive. Just I don’t think they are using one of the known types of said drive. Although their method of dealing with waste heat is interesting,” said Reia.

“Oh what is interesting about it?”

“They seem to be using a waste heat recycler setup without radiator. While that is not uncommon for civilian ships in the confederation. It is very odd for military vessels, and these are clearly military vessels. Anyway I would recommend being very careful, any fight here will favor them greatly. Between the debris making maneuvers difficult, and the dust weakening our shields we won’t last long in a fight and the only weapon we have that can penetrate their armor are short range torpedoes,” said Reia.

“I have to concur, this is not a good battlefield. Let’s hope first contact goes well,” said her captain.

Countryman was settled in his bridge while watching the alien ships approaching. It was a small task force of roughly thirty ships. Mostly fast corvettes, but there were a few light cruisers in the force as well. In general they were fast, and had strong shields but they were lightly armed and lacked armor. They had been spotted just a few minutes ago, and the ship’s reactors were already warming up. While the armor was starting to charge again. Countryman didn’t think they were going to be hostile, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Contacts are entering visual range now, sir,” said Misaki. Just as the alien ships began to enter view coming out from behind one of the many asteroids in this part of the debris field. They had an elegant appearance, a long cylindrical hull, with a large ring near the end and tapered to a point near the front. The hulls were painted purple and gold. Then Countrymans enhanced eyes noted the flag painted on the side of their hulls, one he had seen before when talking with the traders at Illeria. They had described it as Valorian flag, so he figured it a good bet these were Valorians.

“Any response to our hails?” asked Countryman.

“None yet, sir,” reported Misaki.

“Try signaling, tell them to check the sublight bands. Apparently not everyone listens to the sublight bands,” said Countryman.

“Aye, sir,” said Misaki turning back to console. Only before she could try signaling twelve of the ships opened fire. Low yield plasma pulse rippling across space to strike the hull for little effect.

Reia stared at the screen, shocked. They had not gotten any response so far from the aliens, so she was about to try signaling them. When suddenly several of the other ships opened fire. Looking over to her captain, she saw that she was just as surprised. Then the aliens returned fire on all of their ship simultaneously. Her ship shuddered under the impact the lights flickered and while she felt and heard the rumbling of something exploding. Then suddenly air began rushing from the compartment as the hull ruptured. She immediately braced herself against the chair holding on for dear life. A few seconds later just when she was worried that her arms were about to be torn off, the emergency containment field kicked in sealing the breach.

Looking over she saw her captain injured with a head wound, who yelled, “ damage report”

“Shields are gone, hull breaches on decks one through four, seven through nine, and twenty three. Weapons control offline, main power has failed, engines are not responding, we are dead in space,” said the officer at the engineering station.

“What about the rest of the task force?” asked the captain.

“Twelve ships lost with all hands, the other seventeen ships have been disabled, damage is almost identical to ours,” reported Reia after consulting her screen, then she said, “All twelve sunk ships were the ones that opened fire, and I can now confirm that these are the ships that dusted our pirates. Also sir, they appear to be standing down.”

“Theories as to why?” asked the captain while holding her head.

“They may be one of the more honorable races, in which case they will demand our surrender. If they do it would be wise to accept,” said Reia.

“Damn this situation is nothing but a pain. What on Valoria possessed those trigger happy fools to open fire?” asked the captain.

“I can’t say, and we may never find out seeing as they are dead,” replied Reia. Just as the alien lead cruiser started painting their hull with low intensity rapid laser pulses. Recognizing it as signaling, she turned to her console and began trying to decode it. It took her only a couple of minutes to find she was dealing with two signaling languages. One completely alien to her, and the other was Krall.

“Figure out what they are saying yet?”

“They are telling us to check the sublight bands,” replied Reia confused as to why. Almost noone used the sublight bands, after developing FTL technology.

“Well scan them,” ordered the captain just as the bridge door opened and another woman entered. She was one of the ship’s doctors. She went around checking on the injured. Reia began scanning the sublights and quickly discovered that they were being hailed on one of the mid bands. She then turned discover the doctor trying to order the captain to sickbay.

“We are being hailed,” reported Reia.

“On screen,” ordered the captain. It took a few moments while the computers exchanged language data. The image on the forward screen shifted to reveal a rather dark alien bridge. It was just barely bright enough to see, and the camera was focused on an older looking individual in a large chair mounted on a balcony, overlooking the rest of the bridge. The individual was surprisingly familiar in appearance with a build not unlike a Valorian male. However his skin was a color not found in there species and he was clearly larger with a sturdier build. From her viewpoint she guessed he was around ‘160 cm’ tall. He was well dressed in a dark blue military uniform with grey trim, she guessed the marks on his collar were an indication of rank. His eyes glowed a gentle blue in the dim light and his hair seemed very dark, but flecked with grey. His face was rugged, and well shaven.

Countryman studied the bridge shown on his screen briefly before speaking. The bridge had some debris strewn across the floor. In one corner a shimmering energy field could be seen in one corner sealing a breach in the hull. The consoles in the background were covered in alien text. Three alien females could be seen in the camera's field of view. One was wounded with a head wound. She was wearing a skintight uniform that was purple with gold trim. On her right breast was a series of four slashes over a solid bar. She had a very human like figure, but with light blue skin and silver hair that fell to her waist. She had strong blue eyes as she looked at the monitor. Her figure was quite attractive as well with full breasts and a firm figure.

Next to her was a smaller girl, maybe a hundred and thirty five centimeters tall with pale blue skin. She had long purple hair that fell to her waist. A cute round, almost childlike face with large green eyes and a small nose and mouth. She was fairly busty and had a nice toned figure that her skintight uniform did little to hide. Like the first girl her uniform had markings on her right breast. These markings were almost identical but lacked the solid bar which probably meant she had a lower rank. The last woman in the room was clearly a doctor.

Her outfit was a good hint, since it was despite the cosmetic differences clearly a lab coat. The real hint though was the tools in her hands and the way she was fusing over the head wound. Appearance wise she was an older woman. Wrinkles beginning to show on her face, her hair greying and her eyes clearly displayed the wisdom of age.

“Shooting people before you have even spoken to them does not make a good first impression. If that’s normal for you it is a miracle that you have managed to garner a reputation as peaceful merchants. Anyway my terms for your surrender are as follows. I will spare your lives, and provide medical and engineering assistance if you need it. In exchange you will provide me with local star charts, and one of your number will transfer over to act as my liason to your people and advisor. I will also forgive this transgression, I will not be so lenient for a second,” said Countryman. The two younger females looked at each other and the replied, “We accept.”

“Good, now that that is out of the way, let’s introduce ourselves. I’m Captain Jac Countryman of Sol Refuge starship EFS Enterprise, and you are?” asked Countryman.

“I’m Captain Neyla of clan Urko, commander of the Valorian Confederation cruiser Salari, and this is my first officer Reia also of Clan Urko. Call me Neyla. Now do I call you Captain Jac or Captain Countryman?” responded Neyla.

“Captain Countryman, or Countryman will work,” replied Countryman.

“So, Countryman it sounds like you already know a bit about the Confederation,” said Neyla.

“Yes, your reputation precedes you. We learned of you from traders. You’re apparently the largest power in this part of the quadrant and an economic powerhouse. Anyone with something to trade is apparently welcome in your stars. Your reputation is in large part why we are here to begin with. Otherwise we may have chosen a different course. Anyway why did those twelve ships fire on us?” said Countryman.

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know they were going to fire on you. If I had I would have stopped them,” replied Neyla.

“Well, we will see if the debris sheds some light on that then. Now go ahead choose who you will be sending over,” said Countryman moving on to the next item on his list.

Two hours later Countryman stood in the starboard hanger’s observer bay watching a shuttle land. It had a cylindrical design, with a flat bottom and a half ring at the rear. The shuttle came to a stop and touched down gently on the deck plate. Behind her the bay doors began to close at a fairly rapid pace. In under a minute the doors were close and hanger began to pressurize. A process that took several minutes. The moment the bay was pressurized a hatch on the side of the shuttle opened and disgorged a young woman. An officer came over and led her to him. As soon as the bay was clear the depressurization alarm went off and the bay began to decompress so the shuttle could launch.

“Welcome aboard the Enterprise, Reia,” said Countryman.

“Reporting as ordered, sir. May I ask what that noise is?” asked Reia.

“Decompression warning, anyway we have quite a bit to do today. It is not everyday that someone new joins the crew. Now before I forget, this is yours,” said Countryman handing a silver card over to her. That he had pulled from one of his pockets.

“What is this?” asked Reia.

“Your ration card, don’t lose it. It will require activation, but I can do that now. It has twelve hundred ration credits on it. You will need those for anything you might need on the ship. Food, clothing, water, utilities, and even entertainment for example are rationed through those credits,” said Countryman.

“How much are these worth?” asked Reia.

“For the most part you will find that out on your own. Everyone earns credits through their assigned jobs, the amount is heavily affected by your performance and is calculated daily. Rank also affects this, and adjusts the cap. However credits are issued monthly, and the old expire. Depending on your quarters you can scrape by on between twelve to twenty two credits a day. Around here a basic meal, costs half a credit. A dinner serving is a full credit. The public baths cost around ten credits to use. If you have private or semi private quarters you will find that the utilities are rationed, and you will pay up to ten credits a day for their use. As for entertainment, your options are limited, use of the Lounge is free, but the game rooms are ten credits for an hour. The ship has a weekly movie night, but since seating is limited those seats are also rationed at twenty credits. Most things you will need can be found in Aka or Ao sections. Clothing, soaps, toys and other products are distributed there. Our selection though is limited,” said Countryman

“I take it the Enterprise does not visit her homeport often,” said Reia.

“The Enterprise doesn’t have a homeport. However she was designed for extreme range deployments and as a consequence was designed to be as self sustaining as possible. All of our necessities and even the few luxury products we have are produced locally. In fact the Enterprise is perfectly capable of supporting a small fleet on her own. Anyway we do have things to do today. First, we need to stop by sickbay the doctors want to go over your medical records make sure they are up to date. Then we need to visit the quartermaster and get you a uniform issued. Followed by a general tour of the ship, and I will show you your quarters. I was able to find you some semi private quarters, which you will be sharing with three other women ,” said Countryman.

“Lead the way,” said Reia, confused. Countryman lead her out into the corridor and then said, “You will find that since the Enterprise is a large ship, getting around can be difficult. You should memorize the locations of the tram lifts, they are the fastest way to move about the ship.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Reia, while they rounded a corner. “So you said, the Enterprise doesn’t have a homeport, what happened to it?”

“The Cathamari destroyed our homes, you are looking at the remnants of a once prosperous people. However we still retain, our people’s knowledge and expertise. We may not have the luxuries we used to, but we are very well off for people with no home. Especially since most of us are soldiers, scientists, maintenance workers and engineers or their families. That and our ship net contains a comprehensive archive of Earth’s scientific achievements, along with any alien technology we have studied. All of which means, that when we find a new world to claim as our own, we will be able to easily rebuild our civilization,” said Countryman finishing as they reached the lift. Entering the lift he imput their destination as deck 39 sickbay.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Unfortunately it is not an uncommon story. However people like yourselves do not have a good reputation which may cause you problems in the future. Many such refugee groups for one reason or another ended up joining the pirate clans or marauders. The result is that piracy has become rampant across the board and we are just as screwed if try taking them in. Many groups fail to assimilate and end up on the fringes of society joining criminal gangs and syndicates,” said Reia.

“Yes, I am aware of that. We have no intention of coming as refugees. We are not desperate, and would prefer to find a world of our own. Preferably in an isolated region, so we can rebuild and grow in peace. I know you scanned my ship, so I'm sure you are aware that I have a large fuel reserve. We also have all the equipment we need on board to refine new fuel, and produce anything else we might need. With our current stockpiles we should be fine for several years,” said Countryman. Reia briefly remembered the scans and how accurate that statement was. She had seen the factories on the lower decks, and the large fuel cells. The factories were huge, and the ship even had repair arms and external anchorage arms. She wouldn’t be surprised if she learned that they could build ships.

“Sounds like I’ll have to get used to frontier living for a while then. I wonder if anyone is really happy with that here though?” said Reia.

“That depends on who you ask. Not everyone is happy with things as they are, but most are at least content. Williams though makes no secret that she doesn’t approve of me being captain. If you talk to people, or just listen to the ship news everyday you will see what I mean. You will find that general opinion varies heavily based on their demographic. The scientists for example are easiest to please and consequently the happiest. Most of them don’t even care about their living conditions or the food. All they really care about is the funds for their research. While on the flipside the civilians are the hardest to please, and are rather vocal about the overcrowding issue and the privacy issues. We have done what we can, and converted storage into living space, but we can only do so much about that. As for the other issue, well we can’t do much about that,” said Countryman as they came out of the lift. Reia than followed him into sickbay. A quick chat at the entrance and she found herself being taken to one of the back rooms where she was asked a number of questions. Before going through a checkup, which was surprisingly quick, but the whole process still took an hour. When she returned to the main room she found the captain was chatting with one of the doctors.

“I thought you would have more important things to do than wait for me,” said Reia.

“Technically I am doing something more important that simply waiting for you,” said Countryman before turning back to the doctor, “ Robins I’ll see what I can do about that but no promises.” The doctor thanked him and left. Reia stood there confused trying to figure it out.

“Now, Reia you were a first officer so you should understand this to a degree. Leadership is not simply sitting at the top and making decisions for everyone. As a leader you have to talk to your people. It doesn’t matter what kind of a leader you are, you must talk to them. I take every opportunity I have to talk with them. Even if I can’t do something, it makes people feel better to know they are being heard, but more importantly it gives me a better picture of what I need to be doing,” said Countryman.

“Now that I think about it, I guess that is true,” said Reia.

“Now next up is the quartermaster,” said Countryman. The walk to the quartermaster was pleasant enough and the stop at the quartermaster did not take long either. She left the quartermaster dressed in a Human uniform, with her old uniform stashed in the bag she has been carrying. Then Countryman led her to a lift, and took her to one of the lower decks. They came out in a busy corridor. Following him they ended up in a large bay, in which stalls had been set up. Lined along orderly paths, each stall had various goods on display. Metal crates were stacked behind the stalls and some next to them. People could be seen browsing the stalls and making purchases. The entire area reminded her of the frontier markets she had visited on frontier worlds.

“Welcome to Aka section, that corridor over there will lead you to its counterpart Ao section. Most anything you need can be found here, now while I don’t think you need anything just yet it won’t hurt to take a look around. Also don’t be surprised if people come on to you, a side effect of our limited entertainment options is that people find other ways to entertain themselves. Which in case you were wondering is what is causing the noise coming from that storage closet over there,” said Countryman. Reia looked over at the closet he mentioned, not entirely surprised. It was a problem that was common on ships that spent a lot of time between ports.

Being in the market led her to become fully aware of what Countryman had meant when he said their selection was limited earlier. For most of the things on the market she found that most items only had two or three variations and that was when they had a variant. Things were a bit better when it came to clothes, but not by much. Despite the limited selection she did find a few things of interest in the market.

“Yeah you were right, not much here. Anyway, may I ask why the lights are so dim. The only place with decent lighting was the medical bay?” asked Reia.

“It is one of our power conservation measures. Lighting is kept to minimum, the only places with full lighting are those that need it. You’ll get used to it,” said Countryman as they were leaving the market and heading back to the lift. “Anyway it is around lunch time, so I’ll show you the Mess Hall. Normally I eat at the Officer’s Mess, but there is not much difference between the two in terms of food. Furnishing is a different story however,” said Countryman.

“I’m not familiar with your food, what would you recommend?” asked Reia, not worried about weather or not she could eat it since she had already been cleared for it by medical. While they entered the lift.

“Well as long as you stay away from the experimental dishes you should be okay. I’ll help you make a choice, but there aren’t very many options this time of day. Well, Fish and Chips should be on the menu it is also a very safe choice,” said Countryman.

“Fish and Chips?” asked Reia.

“It is one of the more traditional dishes on the menu. Invented in an extinct nation state called England, which is where it got its odd name from. While recipes vary depending on the fish you use, in general it is two to three fillets lightly seasoned and breaded and then fried served alongside french fries. Which are strips of potato a type of vegetable, that have been fried until crispy and then salted. Of course you do have other choices, I think the item of the day is a baked fish served in a red sauce, with bread and Asparagus,” said Countryman.

“That sounds fancier than the first item,” commented Reia.

“Well, that's because the item of the day is three credits, Fish and Chips is half a credit. Although there are more expensive things on the menu. Those come with a wait period though,” replied Countryman. As they came out into the corridor not far from the Mess hall. A short walk later they entered. Reia looked around and found that the room was massive. Rows upon rows of benches and tables filled the room. On the far wall were a number of stalls builtin were people were lining up and ordering their food. The tables looked like they were made of wood, but they were actually topped with faux wood. The benches were topped with the same material. The ceiling had reinforced bulkheads running across from which long lighting strips were mounted. The walls were plated with the same interior plating she had seen everywhere else, right down to the utilitarian paint job. She could see parts of the galley through the large serving windows of the stalls. Dozens of young men and women could be seen cooking and serving the hungry crewman. As Countryman led her into one of the lines, she asked about the plating she has seen everywhere.

“Yes, it is built quite sturdy. Our internal armor plating, exists for several reasons. It provides protection for our more sensitive components from small arms fire and penetrating hits. The armor is of the same type as our hull plating, and as a side benefit gives us expanded energy transfer abilities. In effect we can use any corridor in the ship, as a high energy transfer conduit. The benefits are enormous, the biggest is that when we are at full power, we can transfer enough energy to the hull plating to temporarily overcharge the plating to ten times its normal field value. The other major benefit is increased redundancy. We were able to reduce the size of the normal transfer conduits, which allowed us to mount additional backup systems. The Enterprise is designed to take a pounding that even dreadnoughts would struggle to live through, and you will find evidence of that everywhere you look. This just one example, other examples are every single bulkhead has been reinforced, our starframe has been overengineered and we have blast doors installed every ten meters just to name a few,” said Countryman.

“Yes, I noticed but to rival dreadnoughts I’m not sure about that,” said Reia recalling the scans she had seen.

“The Enterprise was overengineered during construction, the mission she was originally designed for required a very robust ship. A ship capable of resupplying itself and a small fleet in the field. Conducting repairs in the field, and a defense strong enough to penetrate capital world level defenses. The result is the Enterprise can take more than ten times the damage, a Yamato class dreadnought can and continue to fight,” said Countryman.

“Yamato class dreadnought? I take it, that is your most common dreadnought class or something?” replied Reia as they were getting close to the head of the line.

“The Yamato class dreadnought is our only dreadnought class. Only one ship of the class was built, measuring 9700 meters long she was the largest ship we ever built. Due to her size she carried significantly more armament than the Enterprise. She was built during the Third Colonial War, she first fought during that war, and was instrumental in uniting the colonies. She is most famous for her actions during the Earth-Cathamari war, during the course of the war she alone sunk over ten thousand ships frigate class and larger. Ultimately it took the Cathamari half their fleet to sink her, and she took nearly three quarters of those ships with her,” said Countryman.

“That sounds very impressive. How did the ship get a kill count that high anyway?” said Reia. Countryman smiled, and then suggest they get their food first. A couple minutes later they sat down at a table, with a light meal. Countryman pulled something out of his pocket, and placed it on the table in front of them. It was a small silver object, with a circular glass top. Clearly an electronic device of somesort, but with no obvious controls. Suddenly the top glowed and a holographic image was projected above the device. The image looked like a three dimensional schematic for a torpedo of some sort.

“During the war, both sides struggled with the others defenses. Prior to our war with the Cathamari, we had never encountered energy screens. Initially, we could only deal with them by overwhelming them with massive torpedo barrages, but that was very costly. So we need a more effective weapon for dealing with them. This is our solution for energy screens, the Mark V Fusion Torpedo. It has an effective range against maneuvering targets of ninety thousand kilometer. Against stationary and slow moving targets that range increases to five hundred thousand. It is outfitted with a variable yield warhead of up to two hundred megatons, but the true gem of this weapon is the shield penetrator that is built in,” said Countryman.

“Shield penetrator? Wait are you say these torpedoes can bypass shields? That's not possible!” said Reia.

“Actually it is. Our shield penetrators are in their third generation now. They are not one hundred percent effective, but they don’t need to be. Five to six torpedoes is usually enough to destroy a Cathamari ship, and our ships are designed to fire torpedoes by the thousands. The Yamato could fire them by the tens of thousands, and carried nearly a million. The Yamato also carried forty five banks of Super heavy versions of the particle cannons, of the same type we carry. All of which were equipped with a supercharger, which allowed her to vastly increase both her fire rate and yield for ten seconds, but it would overheat the guns. Which meant once she used her superchargers, she would be unable to fire her superheavies until they cooled down. Between the two, they gave her enough firepower to deal with most ships, and until the Battle of Earth she was believed to be invincible, since the Cathamari had never managed to pierce her armor. Anyway most of this is largely unimportant now,” said Countryman, just as the image shifted to display a holographic map of the internal layout of the Enterprise. The rest of the lunchtime conversation was focus on describing where certain sections were in relation to another. Mostly covering what she would need to know.

After lunch they headed back to the lift, and Countryman escorted her to the quarters he had gotten for her.

“Alright, this is the last stop, your quarters. You have the rest of the day to acquaint yourself with them. I will expect you to report for the day shift tomorrow morning it starts at eight local time, so you will be expected to report at least five minutes prior,” said Countryman as he handed her a card with a piece of paper taped to it. She looked at him with a what's this expression. Then he told her that it was her access code and card, something she would need to enter her quarters or use any computer terminal on the ship. She was also told that she was expected to memorize her access code. That was to be expected as every ship she had been assigned to had similar security protocols.

As Countryman walked down the corridor, she went to open the door. It proved simple enough, she didn’t need the card for the door, simply her code and the door opened. Inside was small room barely larger than her quarters on the Salari. A double set of dual bunks lined the right hand wall. In the corner on the left was a small desk with a terminal. On the right was closet that was partitioned into four sections, each with a built in dresser. Under each bunk were a pair of chests on tracks built into the floor and locked with an electronic lock. Near the door she found a control panel, that controlled hidden furniture, that was stored under the floor or in the walls, and the lights. On the door frame was another panel that controlled the local comm, the lock on the door and opened or closed it as well. The hidden furniture were four chairs, a table and a sofa. The table had a pattern stenciled in, so she assumed it to be a game table.

Not having much to do, she put her stuff away in the empty third closet section, and then sat down at the desk. Unlike with the door she had to insert her access card into the card scanner, and type in her access code. Once that was done, she had access to the public net. She spent most of her time reading what was publicly available. She found that she had access to their general history files which painted an interesting picture of their culture, despite the lack of detail. She had been reading for several hours when the door opened and three young woman walked in one after the other, just after she had found something she was pretty sure wasn’t supposed to be on the public net.

“Hello, you must be the new roommate the captain informed us about,” said one of the girls.

“Yes, I’m Reia, and you are?” replied Reia.

“I’m Aya, the redhead behind me is Delilah and this is Seri,” said the first girl. Aya was a young woman, of average height and build with long black hair. Delilah was a tall girl, with long hair red hair framing her face. As for the last girl Seri, it seemed she had dyed her hair blue and she was the shortest member of the trio. All of which had lightly tanned skin.

“Glad to meet you. Anyway, I’m not sure but I don’t think this was supposed to be on the public net, even if it is the history files is not the right place for a blueprint” said Reia pointing at the screen. Aya took a look, and replied, “No its not, it's probably Brennan's work he has a tendency to save things in the wrong place. I’ll fix it later. Looks like he designed another agricultural ship, don’t know why. It’s not like we could afford to build one,” said Aya.

“Agricultural ship? I thought it was an armed merchant,” said Reia.

“Well, it could be employed as one, but you can tell by the size of the hydroponic bays he put in the blueprint,” said Aya.

“Yes, I see that,” said Reia before changing the subject. Nearly an hour later she asked a question she had asked the captain.

“I have been wondering but are any of you happy here?” asked Reia.

“That depends on what you mean, but I would have to say, no,” said Seri.

“Why, would you have to say no?” replied Reia.

“We lost our world, our homes, our friends and family. We lost everything to the Cathamari and while nearly a year had passed, the wounds still run deep. It may be decades before they heal,” answered Seri, than Aya cut in saying, “Yes, we may be looking for a new home, but honestly not all of us are ready to settle on a new world. In fact most of us aren’t.”

“Wait, what do you mean not ready?”

“Well, we have had a few opportunities to settle a new world, during the year we have been in space already. None of them were ideal, in fact most were barely habitable. However the biggest reason we didn’t settle them, it was fear. Fear of the Cathamari, fear of losing a world again,” said Aya.

“But you said they were barely habitable. Doesn’t sound like the type of world someone would want from you,” said Reia.

“Not initially no, but they were all too close to the Cathamari for our taste, and that would change pretty quickly after we settled a world. Our people have become pretty adept at terraforming. Can’t do too much with an airless world yet, but most of those worlds could have been terraformed. The process would have taken decades, but we could have settled those worlds long before the process was complete,” said Aya. They spent the rest of the night talking before going to bed.

Two weeks later the Enterprise departed the system, and crossed into Valorian space. The faster patrol fleet went ahead of them. While Reia started to settle in, and gave them their first destination. The Valorian colony of Cantha, was not far and according to Reia it was the local trade center for the sector. As for why the Valorians fired on them to begin with, it turned out, much to Reia’s exasperation to be simple greed and stupidity. The younger captains on those ships, got blinded by the fact that the Enterprise’s cargo bay was filled with salvage from the pirates they had sunk. Their inexperience led them to believe they had a tactical advantage, when they didn’t and they tried to get their hands on the treasure they saw. The patrol fleet, naturally apologized after they had discovered the reason.

Captain’s Log April 21st 001 SDE,

Our new crewmember seems to be settling in. Which is good, I don’t plan on her staying indefinitely. So I want her time on board to be a good experience, especially since I promised her captain/cousin I would look out for her. She also has been getting along well with the crew. Our scientist were more than happy to talk with her, and while her scientific knowledge of her own tech is limited, she was a great help with the subspace radio, and helped us fix some of the bugs with the original setup.

Countryman was watching Misaki and Reia chatting on the lower level, while relaxing in his chair. The ship was currently in deep space and traveling at warp four point two, so there wasn’t much for him to do. Which gave him a little time to relax, while he went over his plans in his head. At their current speed they were still weeks from their destination, so unless something happened he would have much to do. Lifting his pad from the armrest, he flipped through the electronic pad’s pages going over the report, he had received an hour ago. It was nothing special, just the weekly efficiency report. He had just reached the end and confirmed his electronic signature on it, when Misaki suddenly reported something.

“Sir, we are receiving a general distress call, from a nearby Valorian Outpost. The distress call identifies it as Transfer Station 2378” reported Misaki.

“A distress call? Does it say the nature of the distress?”

“Yes, sir. They are apparently under attack from a pirate fleet,” reported Misaki.

“Reia, what can you tell me about this outpost?” asked Countryman.

“It is a mid size transfer, and refueling station that serves this part of space. Most of the trade leaving this sector for planets near Cathamari space, passes through the station. It also serves the local patrols as a forward patrol base. Not much else of note. The station is armed with concussion cannons, and several missile batteries. She should have shields comparable to a heavy cruiser, but she wasn’t designed to fight off more than a small task force,” said Reia.

“I’m not familiar with concussion cannons,” said Countryman.

“They’re a type of energy weapon, they are energy intensive and bulky so they are normally not found on ships. They fire an energy pulse that cause concussive shock on impact,” said Reia.

“Thank you. Helm, set course for Transfer Station 2378, warp five point eight. All hands to battlestations,” said Countryman, then he tapped the internal comms and called Engineering. “Richards, I want all reactors brought on line, and the main power cycled up to full,” said Countryman.

“Aye, sir,” replied Richards. While the battlestations alarm, went off and red lights strips flashed. Moments later the ship had changed course, and Countryman was being informed that the reactors were cycling up.

“All weapons are charging and on standby sir,” reported Kaori. While the helm officer was calling out their speed every minute, Reia walked up the stairs to the command balcony.

“How long can you maintain, that speed?” asked Reia.

“Only for a couple of hours, on paper. We actually haven’t pushed the engines to their full capabilities, mostly since we are still trying to solve our cooling issue,” replied Countryman.

“Cooling issue?” asked Reia with a hopeful tone to her voice.

“Our engines are perfectly capable of maintaining warp five, but our cooling systems limit our cruise velocity to four point six. That however is something you would have learned just from being here,” said Countryman.

“I was hoping to learn a bit about how you cool your engines. I already know that you recycle your waste heat, but based on what you just told me, your method is at least ten times more efficient than any currently in use,” said Reia.

“Well, now is not the time for that kind of discussion. What can you tell me about these pirates,” said Countryman.

“Not much, the distress call didn’t identify which clan was attacking. I can however say it would have to be one of the larger clans. The larger clans actually have the resources to build their own ships, and as such there vessels will be in better repair and better suited for their line of work than other clans. Expect their fleet to be composed primarily of corvettes, and fast destroyers. With a handful of midsize cruisers, most of which will be outfitted as carriers with expansive cargo bays. For weapons, they will usually carry Ion Cannons and low yield energy weapons usually lasers. As for defense they will be lightly armed and plated with medium armor. However pirate engineers are not known for quality work there ships typically have low structural integrity and their armor does not hold up well under fire,” said Reia.

“Tell me about these Ion Cannons,” said Countryman.

“An energy weapon that has been in use for centuries, most races have them in one form or another. It fires an ionized energy pulse, that saturates shields and disrupts subsystems. Most ships now carry shields hardened against these weapons. Unfortunately your lack of shields makes you vulnerable,” said Reia.

“Don’t be so sure, what are the exact characteristics of these pulses? Are they pure energy, or do you use heavily charged ionized plasma as the medium,” said Countryman. Reia’s response gave Countryman a fair amount of info on these cannons. Although some of his questions confused her.

“It seems these cannons are remarkably similar to a weapon we developed, but differ in a few key ways. Unfortunately for the pirates, I already found a way to adapt our armor against Electro Cannons, and those same protections should stop Ion Cannons completely. If they had Electro Cannons they would actually fair better though,” said Countryman.

“I have never heard of Electro Cannons,” said Reia with a confused tone.

“Well, you already saw them. We are carrying two banks of the weapon, perhaps you will see them in action,” said Countryman.

“I’ll look forward to that then,” said Reia. The next couple of hours were mostly normal at warp operations, and combat preparations.

“Sir, both Umikaze and Coto report their engines are overheating they are unable to maintain this speed for much longer,” reported Misaki suddenly. Countryman glanced at his arm console and checked the ETA. They were still half an hour out from the outpost.

“Order them to drop out of warp, and vent the engines. Engineering will our engines be able to hold up for another thirty minutes?” said Countryman.

“Aye, sir,” acknowledged Misaki.

“Yes, sir, but barely,” replied Engineering.

“Increase speed to warp six, engineering standby to vent the nacelles,” ordered Countryman.

“Sir, our engines are already dangerously close to overheating. Increasing speed risks damaging the engines,” said Richards.

“They can handle it, just do it,” said Countryman.

“Aye, sir,” replied Richards. Richards followed orders and then Eri increased the throttle. The ship then accelerated to warp six. Just as she hit warp six, the previously smooth ride began to get bumpy, due to fluctuations in the warp field.

“Your engine seems to be reaching its limit,” said Reia.

“Yes, I know if we want to go faster we would have to use the back ups in conjunction with the mains,” said Countryman. A few minutes after hitting warp six the ship came out of warp, vents all along her nacelles opened up and superheated plasma began venting into space. Several smaller ships were unfortunate enough to be nearby and were destroyed. The plasma overloading their shields and melting the hulls. As for the Enterprise, her hull and vents were designed to withstand those extreme temperatures, and was fine.

“We are secure from warp speed, captain. Auto venting in progress,” reported Eri.

“Multiple contacts on sensors. The outpost is heavily engaged, scans show she has lost shields and fighting has broken out on multiple levels. Most of her weapons have been disabled, we are detecting 42 ships in the system, not counting fighters. Including two cruisers and ten destroyers. Looks like there were more, but our venting destroyed them,” reported Misaki.

“Launch fighters, Kaori lock forward particle batteries, fire at will,” ordered Countryman.

Following orders, the launch bays on both sides, of the ship deployed the ship’s complement of fighters in short order. While the forward batteries locked onto hostile pirate ships in range in short order. Thousands of blue bolts lanced across space to strike the ships. The pirates slow to react, failed to evade the bolts. The bolts slammed into the ships, the first few being absorbed by the low strength shields, but those failed quickly under the strain. The bolts then tore into the hull, ripping through armor and bulkhead alike as if the ships were made of tissue paper. In an instant a dozen ships were reduced to floating wrecks that resembled swiss cheese. The remaining pirates began evasive maneuvers, while their fighters moved to engage.

Within seconds, the fighter wings were engaged in a dog fight. The differences rapidly became apparent. While the Human fighters didn’t have shields, they were faster, more maneuverable, with sturdier armor, and better armed. As such while less numerous they were able to keep most of the pirate fighters occupied. Two squadrons made a direct run for the Enterprise however. Their ion cannons harmlessly struck the hull, as photon missile batteries along the hull rotated to target the fighters. A string of light missile launches fired into space as they flew past. The light fighters too slow to evade were doomed, as the high yield anti fighter missiles hit. Each fighter exploded in a flash of light, one pilot however got somewhat, lucky as the blast merely disabled their fighter. Causing it to spin out of control, and crash harmlessly into the hull of the Enterprise. The fighter would never fly, again but the cockpit and pilot survived.

The two pirate cruisers entered weapons range, and opened up with their heavy ion cannon batteries and laser arrays. The white-blue ion pulses and invisible laser pulses ripping across space to slam into the hull of the Enterprise. Her hull armor easily absorbed the blasts. The Enterprise returned fire with her heavy particle batteries. The cruisers being outfitted with stolen Valorian shield generators held up easily under the barrage and withdrew. At the same moment one of the pirate destroyers got too close to the engaged fighters, while attempting to line up for a torpedo run. Two human fighters broke off from their squadron, evading several hostile fighters and lining up for a run. The destroyer fired her light guns at the fighters, but missed. Both fighters opened up with their torpedoes. Four micro torpedoes flew across space, one of which exploded on the destroyers shields. The last three buried themselves into the hull amidships and exploded. The ship was torn apart by the resulting explosion, both fighters then vectored off to re engage the pirate fighters.

Three other destroyers were moving to line up with the Enterprise for an attack run. When suddenly the Enterprise accelerated to three quarters of lightspeed, before decelerating to her previous velocity. Closing the distance between her and the three destroyers in an instant. She opened fire with her electro cannons, the shields of the destroyers collapsed instantly. They went dark a second later, as their systems were fried. Leaving them dead in the water. The Enterprise then turned and did the same to the cruisers. Seeing this the remaining pirates, turned and jumped to warp not even bothering to collect there comrades, that were still engaged.

Reia seeing that relaxed her grip on the railing where she was holding on, and looked up at Countryman, “I hope you aren’t going to do that again.”

“No need,” replied Countryman, “Tactical standby all weapons, Misaki open a channel to all pirate ships. Issue a general surrender order.”

“Aye, sir,” was the general response. Most of the pirate’s surrendered the few that didn’t were destroyed. Three hours later, three Valorian cruisers arrived to find the outpost safe, and with more prisoners than they could handle since the Enterprise turned them all over to the outpost, including the pilot from the fighter that crashed into their hull. As for the Enterprise, after turning over her prisoners she recovered her fighters, and then took up a position a fair distance from the outpost. The cruisers seeing the situation resolved, collected the pirates and left. The Enterprise stayed in the area for a few more hours waiting for her escorts before departing herself. During the wait Reia, found an opportunity to ask some of the questions she had, but only received answers for some of them.

Three weeks later, on Valoria several individuals gathered together to discuss the Enterprise. Captain Neyla was among them, having been brought before the council to provide her impressions and opinion on the matter.

“Ah captain Neyla, welcome to the council chamber. Now that you are here tell me you thoughts on these new aliens in our space,” said an older woman at the head of the chamber. She was the chairman of the Valorian council.

“They are quite friendly as long as they are unprovoked. They are difficult to place technologically, but some of their tech is comparable to our own. They have not developed shields, but their armor technology is the most advanced we have ever seen. Their armor is so resilient that most known weapons are useless against it. It would be wise not to provoke them. Fortunately they seem to be willing to ignore the initial blunder at first contact, and also appear to be interested in trade. I think it would be best to open trade relations with them,” said Neyla.

“I disagree, intel has dug up new evidence about these newcomers. They seem to be refugees from a war with the Cathamari, and since they seem to be better equipped than other refugee groups, we need to find them and destroy them. Preferably before they join one of the marauder or pirate clans in the area,” said one councilman.

“I don’t think that will happen, they answered a distress call and engaged the pirates attacking Transfer Station 2378. If they are attacking the pirates, it is best to leave them alone and let them take care of the problem for us. We should also clear them to trade at our ports, and since they seem friendly that will keep them from raiding us,” said a different councilman. The Chairman ended the argument, with a statement.

“Enough, I agree with Neyla it would be unwise to provoke these newcomers without knowing their intentions, but it is too early to open formal trade relations with them. So we will let our worlds decide if they want to trade with them or not. The incident at Transfer Station 2378 is a good sign, let's hope the trend it sets continues,” said the Chairman.

Shortly after the meeting one of the councilman, gathered with some others, “damn the council, why can’t they see that we should be hunting down and destroying these refugee groups. It is the only way to end this piracy problem once and for all. This group above all others must be destroyed,” said the disgruntled chairman. His croneys agreed and they soon started making plans to put an end to a threat that didn’t really exist.