She watched the familiar slipstream dissipate. Normal space reappeared before her, and she was not greeted with the sight she had expected. Just forty thousand meters off her port bow was a disabled Refuge Firebird. It had clearly been through quite the fight, her port wing was a shredded mess, the victim of heavy weapons fire. From the side she could see she counted nearly six hundred separate hull breaches. To her even greater surprise, one of her officers informed her that the ship was still operational, and had just scanned them. Most ships didn’t have the structural integrity to survive the number of hits this frigate had taken and still be intact much less functional. She was certain her ship would be dead if it took six hundred hull penetrating hits.

Scanning the field, there were damaged and disabled ships scattered over half the system. Not all of which were of Refuge design. Her scanners had detected a number of disabled Rykoni hulks as well in the system. It was evident to her that a battle between the Refuge and the Rykoni had recently taken place, but it should have been a curb stomp for the Refuge. Evidently, it wasn’t, but she didn’t understand why. At least until, one of her more industrious officers glanced up from a console, and informed her, “I have been scanning the debris, and am picking up both Refuge and Ilyatrian weapon signatures. Looks like some enterprising Rykoni warlord must have gotten their hands on enough Ilyatrian weapons to outfit a fleet. A fairly sizeable one by the looks of it, between the husks and debris I estimate they had somewhere between six to eight thousand ships.”

She froze for a moment as her brain tried to process that. A fleet that big could have only been fielded by the most powerful of the Rykoni warlords, and even then it would have taken most of their resources to do. Only three famous names came to mind, but only one would have been in this part of the belt. It could only have been the Black Flag, and her commander whose name wasn’t known. He was one of the few Rykoni who had not tried to spread his name, and only that of his ship was widespread. She hadn’t spotted the famous Rykoni ship, but she had only looked over a fraction of the battlefield. At a glance, it was obvious that the battle was over.

She glanced at her screens to the four battle-damaged cruisers she had located on her recent foray. The Matriarch had towed them here as the Refuge were the nearest group with a yard capable of fixing their damaged engines. These four had managed to escape the Rykoni after delaying them long enough for the main group to escape, but their engines had died a couple of days later. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the spare parts to fix the FTLs, but they had managed to coax the thrusters into working well enough to hide in an asteroid field. They had been sending a distress call on a frequency that Rykoni comm devices couldn’t detect, and that signal was how she had located these four.

It was a good thing she had arrived when she did. Their supplies were running low, and none of the local planets had materials that could be used to resupply the cruisers. She had resupplied the cruisers, and towed them through several jumps to this system. She had been hoping to trade for the engine repairs they needed, but now she had the distinct feeling that their yard slips would now be filled with their own ships.

Then her comm officer informed her that they were being hailed. The Matriarch accepted the hail, and the familiar alien image of Countryman appeared on her forward viewscreen.

“I see you had some success in locating a few of your comrades,” said Countryman, She nodded slightly, and replied, “I did have some. I was hoping you could help us with engine repairs, but I guess we will have to try our luck in the union. Even if they charge us exorbitant prices for such repairs.”

Countryman frowned, and said, “It might be a while before we have an open slip. We have ships to repair, and we need to build new ones. However, we might be able to patch those drives. Might open up a few better options for you.” he glanced at something off-screen, and tapped a couple controls before looking back up, “Our current repair estimate is about two weeks for the entire fleet. I think we can slip you in if a slip is needed then. After that our slips will be full constructing ships and refitting existing ships for the next two months.”

She didn’t really have a reference for how many ships they were building, but she did know that their mobile shipyards actually had quite a few slips. Each one had slips for four cruisers, and those same slips could be configured for up to twelve destroyers. Although maneuvering that many destroyers into the slips would be a bit of a nightmare so they likely only ever had eight at the most docked at any given yard ship. Their city ships also had yard space, but only about half that of the dedicated yard ships. She had learned this mostly from observation, but the real capacity of these mobile factories was unknown to her. Nodding to Countryman’s statement, she asked for a few spare parts, and some extra labor to get the job done.

While she needed the engines repaired, it was best to get them patched up so that they could reach a friendly port for proper repair. After coming to an agreement on that, she glanced out at the fleet. She notice refuge shuttles towing ships many times larger than them with powerful tractor beams towards the yard ships that had just entered view. The yard ships appeared mostly intact, but not unscathed. One of them had quite a bit of scarring on her starboard side, but there was no evidence of the hull having been breached. Chances were the damage was superficial. Above her was passing the smaller of the two Refuge city ships. It also looked like it had been through quite the battle, but her sturdy plating had apparently withstood the barrage.

The larger one was harder to find. It was the center of their fleet, but she located the Enterprise not far from an oddly familiar Rykoni wreck. The ship had locked a tractor beam on the wreck and was pulling it towards a docking port. Her distinctive black and silver hull was remarkable unscarred. She didn’t look to have taken a single hit during the battle as there weren’t any markings other than the alien calligraphy on her hull. Given that she was the most heavily armored ship in their fleet that wasn’t all that surprising. Not to mention that the ship likely had an equally impressive powerplant to provide power for that impressive armor. Power was one of the most important resources a ship had, and given the importance of that ship she doubted they would have spared any expense in making sure that the ship had all the power she could need.

Countryman closed the channel, and turned to regard the wrecked fleet. This attack had been a bit of a set back for them. Fortunately, they could repair the damaged ships, and even replace the frigates that they had lost without a significant impact on their previous schedule. As for their coffers, those would be more significantly hit by this, but they had recently located a few more Rykoni pirate bases. Those combined with the bounties they had yet to collect should cover the repairs for the fleet, and leave them enough material for a rainy day.

He looked towards Greyman and relayed orders to have a battlegroup visit the Union to retrieve the bounties they had collected on the Rykoni. The recently captured Black Flag was the most significant of the bounties they had collected. It was one of the ships with a simply massive bounty on it. As huge as that bounty was it was still but a fraction of the damage the pirate had inflicted over the years.

Leaving the bridge he considered the battle. They had lost twelve ships in that attack, but fortunately, the Firebirds were unmanned warships. Operated by synthetic crewman those would be fairly easy to replace. He had already ordered work crews to salvage everything they could from the battlefield. Given that no one else was coming to oust them they had all the time they needed to search the field for usable material. They could likely recoup a significant chunk of their losses in the form of raw material. While they were at it, he was hoping they could get some intact Ilyatrian technology to study. It might prove useful in improving their own defenses, and weaponry.

Selia followed him off the bridge, and he noticed her comm suddenly go off. She spent several minutes talking in her own language before turning to him. She seemed to be a bit surprised by something, and then she spoke up, “I have just been informed that the Cylovans have withdrawn their ships from all fronts”

Countryman almost missed his next step onto the lift, and replied, “Withdrawn!? Do you know why?”

“I asked, but they told me it was classified above my clearance level,” replied Selia as she glanced at her tentacles. It was evident he would have to learn why later, but if he had to guess the Cylovans were preparing for a massed assault somewhere. There was nothing he could do, but he telepathically sent his suspicions to all his commanders. While also relaying an order to discuss this with the Union and the Alliance. Sure it likely wouldn’t do much good in the case of a full-scale assault, but it was best to be on high alert just in case.

The primary Cylovan consciousness was feeling irritated and annoyed. Not to the extent that organics would be, but enough. Recent events had culminated in a major setback to its plans and military expansion. It had just lost three fleet bases, twenty-seven shipyards with ten of them being major dreadnought yards, along with most of the ships assigned to protect these assets. The worst part was the fleet that did these not only razed the buildings, but the very ground they were built on. Rebuilding these vital assets would be difficult now, at least until those systems stabilized again. The sudden disappearance of a planet or two in those systems had caused some rather significant shifts in local gravity. Orbits were shifting as a result, but it wasn’t as chaotic as a young solar system could get.

As for the fleet that had attacked and damaged these vital assets, it escaped with minimal damage. Having lost so much to a surprise attack that had successfully caught it off guard, it now had to completely reassess its military plans. Its campaign against the Sylnari was the first to come under scrutiny. Without those yards, it could no longer sustain production levels high enough to sustain a prolonged offensive. Worse a defense would also be difficult.

Calculating its actions, it determined it would have to pull the frontlines back nearly two hundred lightyears, and sacrifice twelve inhabited star systems to the enemy in order to hold against the inevitable Sylnari attack. To set things back on course it would need new shipyards, and resources, but they needed to be far enough from the remnant to avoid another attack like this. At first, it considered the territories of the Union, and the Alliance, but both groups had significant militaries. It determined that it would need to pull too many ships from the defense line to conquer either power.

Checking some of its other borders for possibilities, it calculated the same. Too many ships would be needed to secure those territories. This left only one region on its borders that showed any promise. Most races stayed out of it because of the anomalies, but it did have large deposits of valuable minerals. A plentitude of strategic resources, and the collective had scouted it before. The region was overrun with pirate clans and small unaligned colonies. Only a few advanced societies made their presence known in the region. Most of them were small minor powers that had not spread much beyond their homeworld. Mostly due to the fact that the region was hit heavily by anomalies especially deeper in. The Ikar Radiation Belt was one of the most famous anomaly fields in the region, and one the Collective wasn’t equipped to tackle just yet. It had an invasion to plan.