“So was the ship worth what we paid for it?” asked Telkeki, as her engineering project leader returned from the inspection of the cruiser that the Refuge turned over.

“From what we have seen, very much so. In fact I think they gave us a good deal for it. Most of the weapons array is still intact, some of the weapons have been stripped. Our alien friends were very interested in the propulsion systems. The sublight engines, warp and hyperwarp engines have been stripped down to the bulkheads. The shield generators however are largely untouched. If we didn’t have their notes, I could swear they ignored them. All they did with the wrecked generators was scan them and move on. However they did strip out a few force field generators. They also took several meters of the outer hull,” said the engineering leader.

“How long before you can get something useful out of this wreck?” asked Telkeki.

“I think we can adapt something from the weapons within the week. I think we can work out something better in about a month or two. I don’t think we will need more than a couple million credits a year for this project,” said the engineering leader. Telkeki thinking of their current wiggle room in budget and the way the war was going was considering how much she was willing to give to the project.

“I think we can afford that. You’ll have your funds before the day is out,” said Telkeki before leaving the room, her thoughts turning to her alien visitors. They had yet to leave the system as their fleet was still anchored at the edge. They were clearly busy experimenting with the protoplasma they had recently purchased. In the month since they had made their deal, her patrols had picked up an average of three protoplasma detonations in the vicinity of the Refuge Fleet a day. The first detonations had occurred about a week after they got the protoplasma. Each detonation more powerful than the last. She had a feeling they were making rapid progress in the development of those new torpedo weapons they mentioned. Thanks to the stealth devices they were using, it was hard to get any real data on the research the Refuge was conducting. The fleet was generating an energy field that disrupted long range scans. Her scientists suspected this energy field played a huge role in their ability to disappear. Not that they had any idea how it worked. The principles it worked on were beyond modern science. The only races she knew of with similar devices were the Sylnari, and another race called the Yulir. The Yulir were xenophobic, isolationists, and little was known about them. Other than the fact that their homeworld fell to the Cylovans a little over a century ago. She suspected that conquest played a large role in their isolationism and xenophobia.

Her thoughts were broken when sirens began going off. She quickly ran to the lift and ordered it to deposit her in the command center of the starbase. As soon as she was in the command center she asked someone who didn’t appear to be busy what was going on.

“A large Rykoni raiding party just entered the system. They are attacking the station at Yugal, ma’am” said the officer. She was understandably shocked. Pirates rarely had the audacity to attack systems as well protected as Mydorious. Yugal was one of the outer gas giants less than an AU from the Sol Refuge Fleet. The station in orbit was a major deuterium refinery producing sixty percent of the local deuterium supply. Because of this, the local refinery was a fortress. Eighty seven super heavy maser lance batteries, and two hundred maser banks were mounted on the station. Along with dozens of smaller anti fighter turrets and missile launcher platforms.

The station also had several large hangers where hundreds of fighters were based, and a number of defensive satellites were deployed around the area. While nearly fifty patrol cruisers were kept on station in the general vicinity. All to deter pirates and raiders. It was more than enough to thwart your typical pirate, but it wouldn’t hold all that well against a dedicated military attack. However given the proximity, homeworld reinforcements could be there within an hour of the attack.

With a sinking feeling she asked, “How big is this raiding party?”

“It looks like over a dozen local factions are working together. Roughly seven hundred ships,” replied the officer. While she wasn’t a military officer she knew enough about the Rykoni to know how unusual a fleet that big was for them. A typical Rykoni faction had between forty to sixty ships, and would usually send no more than three quarters of their force against a target. It wasn’t unheard of though for groups to work together, but usually no more than two or three factions at a time.

“I haven’t heard any rumors of a new warlord. Check with intelligence. This sounds like we may have a new Rykoni Warlord on our hands,” said Telkeki. She did not relish the idea of a Warlord rising. The Rykoni were numerous, but were hampered by their poor ships and disunity. A warlord because of his strength could easily unite the factions, and a unified Rykoni force was not something they were prepared to deal with.

Countryman leaned back in his chair as he studied the monitor. They had just finished their latest test of the new AMF warhead type as it was being called. It was not the most accurate acronym, but it was one of the better sounding proposals. The latest AMF test had achieved a blast yield of 21 gigatons, an improvement of four gigatons over the last test. Right now they were conducting small scale explosive tests, with devices not much bigger than a grenade. The destructive results of the AMF explosives was not to be understated. Each test device had a small antimatter charge of just a few grams, surrounded by a densely packed casing of protoplasma. They had recently figured out how to compress the protoplasma into a liquid and then inject it into the casing. He was quite impressed with the latest test and authorized research into prototype warhead testing. They now needed a proper warhead design for the new explosive. He suspected they were just a month away from the new torpedo.

He switched off the warhead research report, and started reading the report on the 1205-B. They had finished converting the original A models into the new B versions. Local warp tests had functioned as predicted, and the fighter warp tow had worked as predicted. They could now rapidly deliver fighters anywhere in the system, without having to move the fleet. As for the 1204-B, his engineers had refined the blueprints and were conducting simulated ship tests. So far no glaring flaws had appeared, and if things continue to go well, they would begin prototype manufacturing within a month. Honestly they had needed the 1204-B starfighter earlier, but they had been too busy with other projects. A major factor in why they had only gotten around to bringing their mainstay space superiority fighter into the modern era now.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door to his office. He closed the reports he was reading and signaled to the other person that they could come in. A second later, Selia walked into the room. Her tentacles pulling her along the floor, with practiced ease. “Can I help you?” asked Countryman.

“I was just told that a Cylovan Dreadnought has been dispatched to this region of space,” said Selia.

“I’ll keep that in mind. As things currently stand though it would be best to avoid that ship,” said Countryman. He knew that a Cylovan Dreadnought could easily wipe out their entire fleet. The ship was easily faster than they were, and more importantly its sturdy hull plating made it invulnerable to their current weapons. Worse he doubted even the Enterprise could hold up under the guns of a dreadnought for long. Maybe an hour if they were lucky.

“I guess I can see that, but may I ask your reasons for avoiding the ship?” asked Selia.

“Until we finish developing our new torpedoes it would be best to avoid conflict with a dreadnought. Seeing as those dreadnoughts are too heavily fortified for our current weapons. Nothing we have can penetrate that armor. The shields on the other hand, we have a few tricks for bringing those down. We might be able to disable it temporarily, but that's about it,” said Countryman.

“I see you have thought it through. Our own military officers wanted me to pass along the same recommendation,” said Selia. Before Countryman could respond the comm went off, and Greyman asked for his presence on the bridge.

“We can continue this later. Why don’t you accompany me to the bridge,” Countryman said. The two left the office and walked down the short hall to the bridge, and entered on the upper level. Greyman was sitting in the captain’s chair and got up to greet the captain.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir” said Greyman.

“You said something was going on with the Mydorians?”

“Yes, sir. We detected a large fleet come out of hyperspace from a node, about an hour ago. The Mydorians didn’t listen to us when we mentioned it, but it wasn’t heading for us so we ignored it. Five minutes ago, they attacked the nearby deuterium refinery,” said Greyman.

“Someone attacked the refinery? That place is a fortress!” said Selia.

“How is it holding up?” asked Countryman also surprised.

“They are holding up for now, but the defenses weren’t designed with a fleet that large in mind,” said Greyman.

“What about the fleet? Do we know who we are dealing with?” asked Countryman.

“Pirates or maybe a nomadic faction. The fleet is composed of junk piles, sir. Every single ship resembles junk welded together at random. It's a miracle these ships are even spaceworthy,” said Greyman.

“Put it on screen, high magnification,” ordered Countryman. An instant later a battle entered view. Mydorian patrol cruisers and defensive installation were duking it out against alien ships, that frankly looked just as Greyman described. In fact the attacking ships looked to be worse than he described. Engines and weapon mounts clustered onto the hulls welded on in a haphazard manner. While some of the engines had leaky fuel lines running to them on the outside of the hull. There was no rhyme or reason with the weapon mounts either. The ships mounted everything from mass drivers and missiles to low yield laser cannons. Some turrets even mounted multiple guns, but not a single gun in the turret were of the same caliber. He even saw a few turrets that had one gun being a mass driver and the other a laser. He was getting a headache just looking at it.

“Whoever built those ships should be shot. No self respecting engineer would let those ships leave the junkyard the belong in,” said Countryman.

“Those are Rykoni ships. The Rykoni aren’t very good with technology. They build their ships with whatever they can salvage. As for their better built ships, those were built by slaves,” said Selia staring at the monitor.

“I have heard a bit about them. The Cylovans had some data on them. The most notable thing is that the Cylovans want to exterminate them. Which is odd considering their normal behavior towards other races,” said Countryman.

“I don’t blame them. We have an exterminate on sight policy ourselves. Frankly the Rykoni are nothing, but trouble. They are a race of pirates, who listen solely to the strong,” said Selia. Just as Misaki reported that they were receiving a distress call from the refinery.

“Send fighters and the Firebirds to assist,” ordered Countryman.