The Cylovan consciousness reviewed its own data on the recent battle at Alar III. It had lost that battle and with it a precious shipyard. Honestly, it was quite impressed with Species 11257. In the short time between encounters, they had made several significant technological advances. A few of which were responsible for their success at Alar III, most notably was a new jamming field. They had figured out a way to so thoroughly disrupt targeting scanners and communications that they had honestly done more damage to themselves than the enemy. At least until they figured out how to cut through the field, but by then they had lost the shipyard to heavy orbital bombardment. It didn’t even know how they brought down the shields, but the yard and most of the incomplete ships in its slips were torn apart by particle weapons fire. Their beam weapons had clearly been improved in the last five years. It had noted that they had been phased in the last battle, but they had made a number of subtle improvements since then. Clear signs of optimization that significantly improved their effectiveness. The resulting weapons were comparable with their own beam weapons but less effective. At least in its own opinion, as it valued the adaptability of its own designs.

What really had given it trouble was their ability to adapt. They had demonstrated an ability to identify its adaptations and compensate. It was rare for it to encounter a foe that could adapt in battle like it did. They had managed to re-modulate that jamming field fifty-seven times over the course of the battle, and their enhanced armor gave it some trouble as well. At least until it figured out the changes in their armor design. That had helped it adapt its weapons to penetrate, but they had apparently enhanced their armor to adaptable in the same fashion as it did with shields. Now, it doubted that was a coincidence, they had made off with one of its dreadnoughts five years ago, and it suspected that they had adapted a number of technologies from the ship for their own use. It had only been able to reliably penetrate the armor with brute force. Worse its seems that 11257 had not only adapted some of its technologies but used them to develop specialized countermeasures. This meant that Species 11257 was a threat to its existence far more so than many of its neighbors. The most intriguing thing about the encounter was that they somehow generated hyperwarp conduits and had used them both as a means of retreat and a method of attack.

It could no longer afford its war with its neighbors, especially the Alliance, and the Remnant, but neither could it let those technologies that 11257 had spread or worse be improved upon. Deciding on a new course of action, it sent orders through its networks.

The blue vortex of a refuge hyperwarp conduit gave way to normal space, and the captain sighed in relief. The ride was far more enjoyable than the one through a Cylovan conduit, but then again this conduit was far newer, and therefore more stable than most Cylovan conduits. The color was a little different than Cylovan one being a pure blue rather than the blue-green of Cylovan conduits, but that was because the Refuge generators operated on a somewhat different waveform.

Before he could even ask for a sensor sweep, his science officer reported, “Sir, I am picking up debris, approximately ‘200,000 kilometers’ dead ahead. Composition and mass indicate a Refuge Heavy Cruiser.”

He had known that the Heavy Cruiser was in bad shape, but he had not expected to find it as a cloud of debris. “Can you tell me how it was destroyed?”

“One moment,” was her reply as she settled in front of her console, and studiously studied the readouts, then she reported, “Damage patterns and distribution suggest that the ship was torn apart by a simultaneous overload of her auxiliary reactors.”

He didn’t need to be told about the significance of the reactors overloading simultaneously. All spacefaring cultures understood how devastating an overload could be. It was why reactors had so many safeties, and why they were placed so deeply inside a ship. The Refuge, for example, did this as well, placing their main reactors in the center of their secondary hull, and distributing their auxiliaries throughout their primary hull in the most shielded parts of said hull. Even their command centers were less protected than their reactors. The only other items with similar protection on their ships were their torpedo bays, fuel storage, and the emergency batteries. Although given how their batteries stored energy he didn’t blame them for putting them so deep in the ship. Placing them near the reactors was also only logical, as it allowed them to be charged more efficiently They did the same thing with their own. Anyway not only did reactors tend to be placed deep within a ship to protect from weapons fire, but they had countless countermeasures and safeties to prevent overloads. On a damaged ship some of those might fail, but the chances for all of them to fail simultaneously were so low as to be astronomical. This left only one conclusion to draw, the People of Sol had deliberately scuttled their own ship.

“Scan for recent engine signatures. I want to know where they went,” ordered the captain.

The science officer didn’t even pause to check her console before reporting, “I anticipated that you would want to know, and have already located them. The ship launched a number of escape pods before she self-destructed. I was able to track their course to a nearby trinary system to a class three subtype K planet. They landed in a rocky desert not far from the northern ice caps.”

“A class three? Not the most hospitable world, but they should be fine for a while. Transfer the coordinates to the helm,” said the captain, and then he ordered the helmsman to set a course for the planet.

He was about to retire to his ready room to file his log for the day, when his science officer, said, “Sir, may I suggest that we do something about the debris field?”

“Hmm, why?”

“Well, the ship was equipped with weaponized hyperwarp technology, something that could be rather dangerous in the wrong hands. In fact, the ship has quite a few unique technologies that while primitive by our standards would give the first race to salvage the wreck an advantage. I have picked up readings indicating that some of their technology survived the scuttling of the ship,” answered the science officer.

“I’ll be doing my log, go ahead and neutralize that technology. Then proceed to the planet and notify me when we get there.”

She nodded and went to her console. He already knew what she was going to do. It took mere moments before an energy wave began to sweep over the debris. It was a special device they used for disabling advanced technology and worked very well. It would take about an hour for the sweep to complete given the size of the field, but once done any surviving tech in the field would be neutralized. Mechanical devices such as a steam engine, and Biotech, however, are immune to these devices, and the Cylovans had already learned how to shield their colonies from these devices. They didn’t bother with ships because the device took a while to neutralize technology. The devices themselves were originally developed to keep elder race technologies out of the hands of younger races who weren’t ready for that kind of knowledge. In this case, anything mechanical would have likely been wrecked by the explosion, and the sweep will take care of anything else. He understood that anything someone might salvage from this wreck could destabilize the balance of power, and it was too close to Cylovan controlled systems for comfort. If the Cylovans learned more about refuge technology it would remove what little advantage the refuge had, and likely give them an edge against the alliance.

While it was generally frowned upon, the captain had wanted to stretch his tentacles somewhere other than the ship. So he had accompanied the away team to the surface, and he justified it to his first officer by mentioning that they were likely in no real danger given that these people were on friendly terms with the Remnant.

His shuttle had landed not far from where the refuge escape pods had landed. The pods had landed in a reasonably tight cluster and from the top of this hill, they looked like a collection of alien buildings loosely clustered together to resemble a town. The kind of ramshackle towns that many surface-dwelling races built when they first settled on a planet. Often by disassembling their colony ship to build said first settlement.

A small group of alien women were already approaching his position, but he already knew they were synthetics. This particular ship had been manned by the Synths that the refuge used to supplement their low population and meet ship crew requirements.

He waited for them to arrive, and surveyed their features. They all had similar body structures, but there was some variance between them. Enough in fact that you could mistake them for sisters rather than androids built on an assembly line.

The machines stopped at a respectful distance in a less than perfect formation, and it took him a moment to realize that they had been gifted the ability to mimic sentient behavior and that included how they held themselves. Before they said anything, he spoke, “Greetings, I am Captain Temra. I came to offer aid if you need it.”

The female in the lead was the first to respond, “We should be fine for a few weeks, but it would be appreciated if you help us get back to the fleet. However, I am more worried about the other two crews under my command. They weren’t in much better shape than we were, if you could I would like you to locate them, and escort them back to the fleet.”

Reading between the lines, he replied, “So in other words, you want us to help you contact your fleet, and locate the other two ships in your task force?”

She nodded, and said, “Naturally the fleet will need to come out this way to recover the remains of our ship. Both to protect any technology that might have survived and to help recoup our losses. That salvage can easily cover a good chunk if not all of the repairs for the other two ships in my task force or help pay for the construction of a new cruiser to replace it.”

“Well on the note of protecting surviving technology we already took care of that. Weaponized hyperwarp technology can be pretty dangerous, and we felt it best not to let the Cylovans get their hands on any of your technology.”

She seemed surprised and took a few moments to respond, “That is probably for the best.”

“I guess we should get started on locating those two ships for you,” said the captain as he prepared to depart. She allowed him to leave, and soon the shuttle was leaving the thin planetary atmosphere. He already had orders in mind for once he got back, and figured this little side mission would take only a couple of days.

Suddenly, Rose interrupted Arlie’s story, “I think we all see where this is going. These Cylovans are about to end their war and go after the People of Sol.”

The others added their two cents, and a general consensus about how things were going was clearly there.

Arlie sighed as she shifted to be more comfortable in her seat, “I guess I can move ahead a couple of months. In short, you are right. The Cylovans, Alliance, and Remnant are about to sign a treaty that will bring stability to the region and keep the Collective in check for thousands of years. The Cylovans would spend that time consolidating their collective, but something in their code prevented them from ending the treaty. As for the Sol Refuge, thanks to the wave they ended up deep in Cylovan held space. At first, their superior stealth allowed them to avoid any significant encounters, but they still lost a number of cruisers on scouting missions. Most of those being light cruisers, but the Batoruhoku would not be the only heavy cruiser lost to the Cylovans. The Cylovans quickly learned how to fight the Refuge on more equal terms. The Refuge Hardening armor modification proved helpful in stopping their offensive adaptations, but they eventually learned how to keep their shields from being penetrated.

I would have to say the next major incident of importance occurred on February twenty-second, 080 SDE. The fleet had stopped in a small system on the edge of a nebula to conduct repairs, they had been there for about a week when a scout stumbled across the fleet. It was easily destroyed, but not before it reported their position to the Collective ....”