On the edge of a nebula, a single ship emerged from a rift. It had been traveling for several weeks to reach a small unassuming system that was located near the nebula’s edge. A system that had been marked for colonization because it had a biosphere that would only require minimal terraforming and was rich in valuable easily accessed surface level deposits that would greatly aid the construction of a colony.

“We are secure from rift speed, shipmaster,” reported the helmsman as she went about her duties.

The shipmaster glanced at his console and saw they were only an hour away from their destination. The planet of Herka. He looked towards the crewman manning the science station, and ordered the young boy to begin scanning for landing sites.

It was standard procedure to scan before landing. Mainly because the survey was to determine habitability not look for starship landing sites. Settling in his chair he resolved himself to wait for the report, but he didn’t have to wait long. The young boy nervously turned around after a couple of minutes and said, “Um, uh, Sir? I think the sensors aren’t working right.”

He studied the boy for a moment and asked him why he thought that.

“Well, uh, the sensors show the planet is covered with long trenches and numerous craters. All of them quite deep, and there is a level of dust contamination in the atmosphere not listed in the survey report. Also, I am reading nothing in surface-level mineral deposits.”

He stared blankly for a moment. The report that brought them here was only about two and a half months old, and was the culminated report generated from a series of surveys that had taken place over the course of the last five years. Everything about the planet had been thoroughly cataloged and triple checked in that time frame and the last survey was only three months ago. If what the sensors told them was true and that they had not been given the wrong report that meant someone had strip-mined the entire planet, in under three months. Finally, he said, “Anything else the sensors say?”

He glanced at the console and turned back fidgeting, “they are picking up a resonant particle signature on the planet’s surface. Every crater and trench display this signature. The computer says that based on several factors it has determined whatever caused them happened between four to two weeks ago.”

Now genuinely interested in those readings the shipmaster went over and checked the readings himself. Going over them he was able to deduce this was not a sensor malfunction and that the planet had genuinely been strip-mined and quite recently as well. However, he did find a few surface-level mineral deposits that were relatively untouched. Including a decently large one on one of the southern continents. The area had also been stripped of materials, but there was still enough left on the surface to be usable for a colony site. Not enough though to last the colony more than a year or two. They would need to get at the deeper veins far earlier than originally planned for the colony. At least his ship was only meant to build an outpost from which to get a colony started. Sure you could send a million people to a planet, but without infrastructure, most of them wouldn’t survive and that was his job. His ship had ten thousand workers and the needed materials to begin work on the infrastructure the new colony would need to get started. After that people looking for opportunities on the frontier would move in.

These new readings however completely changed the equation, and he then informed everyone that he would be in his office, talking with the council. Only later he would learn that he was not the only ship to encounter a previously valuable world that had been stripped in this fashion. Eighty-seven other worlds on the edge of the nebula had been stripped like this, and even the particle signatures were eerily similar. Well that they knew of anyway, and that meant there were likely more.

Around the same time, aboard the SFS Enterprise. Countryman was down on the lower decks conversing with Megumi. She was mostly in charge of the fleet’s industrial machine nowadays and not just the ship’s chief engineer. Countryman was already moving ships to take out the Cylovan battlegroup that had been reported to him earlier that day, but he was checking with Megumi to see if any new ships were available. That way he could add them to the task force. Every ship he could get would improve the chances for success.

“Well we have twelve cruisers that should finish construction later today, but they will need a couple of days for a shakedown cruise and system optimization. However, I do have a pair of cruisers that recently completed their shakedown cruise without incident. Along with a destroyer. The ready ships are the Battlehawk class Heavy Cruiser SFS Eagle SFR-1257 the Batllehawk Heavy Cruiser Sword of Sparta SFR 1265, and the Sabre Class Destroyer SFS Spirit SFR-2252.”

Countryman remembered hearing there was something special about the loadout of the Sword of Sparta. Something about being a testbed for a new weapons configuration. “Remind me again. I seem to recall that the Sword of Sparta was planned to test a new weapons configuration?”

She nodded and accessed a nearby station to project a holographic diagram onto the display. “Yes, for the most part, she is a standard Battlehawk class cruiser, except she has been outfitted with two spinal mounted high energy Phase Lance cannons that run the entire length of the ship. We had to remove half of the heavy guns from the design to make room for the heavy capacitors and the cooling system needed for these guns. However, they are the single most powerful pair of guns currently in the fleet, and should make devastating anti-capital ship weapons.

They were tested quite extensively during the recent shakedown cruise. The cannon’s capacitors need about fifteen minutes to charge to full power, but they can be fired earlier if needed. Yield was actually higher than expected. We tested the beams on a small world on the edge of the nebula. An area the size of a small continent was completely obliterated.”

Countryman interrupted her, “Define small continent please.”

She scratched her cheek for a moment before elaborating, “An area roughly half that of Australia was destroyed. Leaving a sizeable crater, that was quickly filled with superheated rock. Not to mention large amounts of toxic gases and dust was released into the thin planetary atmosphere. If the planet had been habitable before the blast, it wouldn’t have been afterwards.”

Countryman chuckled, and said, “Well if we scaled it up, we would have our own Death Star.”

Confused Megumi frowned and said, “Excuse me, death star?”

Shifting his posture he apologized, “Sorry that was before your time. However, I think we have a few copies in the library. I’ll find them and send them to you later. I won’t spoil anything, but they were a classic of their age. Good story too, but then a certain group of idiots ran the franchise into the ground. I really do recommend you give S*** Wars a try though.”

“I guess I’ll give it a look. Now the Sword of Sparta may be lacking a few heavy gun batteries, but she still has a full complement of standard torpedoes. She also has the same hanger capacity as every other Battlehawk in the fleet. As for her special weapon, we have determined that her super-heavy spinal cannons have a maximum effective range of 2.7 million kilometers, and a maximum range of 7.2 million kilometers. The cannons are a bit on the energy heavy side, but are still far cheaper to fire than an AMF torpedo. Although they do admittedly cost more to build. Anyway simulations indicate they should be more effective than any other energy weapon in the fleet at defeating Cylovan capital ship armor and should be able to punch through the thick shell of reinforced neutronium on their dreadnoughts.”

Countryman doing the calculations based on what she told him so far, suddenly interrupted, “That sounds about right, although I highly doubt they will be able to destroy a dreadnought in a single hit. It would likely be able to take quite a few hits, but a couple of well-placed shots should do the trick.”

She nodded and said, “That is about right sir. The simulations show that while the beam can easily penetrate their armor, it will fail to penetrate the superstructure deeply enough to inflict fatal damage on a single hit. Still, a well placed shot to the central hangar ring should cripple the dreadnought. At least temporarily.”

Countryman didn’t need much explanation for why. Cylovan dreadnoughts were actually quite tough to destroy even without their shields. Internal force fields, damping fields and other devices were employed to contain secondary explosions, and other forms of internal damage. The only way to destroy one of those ships in a single hit would be a penetrating hit to the core. The ship’s core was where its main engines, and more importantly the primary reactor and fuel pods were located there. A single hit to that module, any hit, in fact, would destabilize the systems in the core leading to a catastrophic secondary explosion. A fact the Cylovan’s were aware of. The entire core was protected by internal plating, an internal shield grid, two of them actually. Heavy force fields, dampers, and a significant internal structural field generator. In addition, the core module was in the exact center of the ship, meaning there was the entire superstructure between it and an attacking vessels weapons. As a result, it often required an extensive bombardment to breach the core’s defenses, and destabilize the module. The hanger on the other hand, while it had its protections, it was near the surface by necessity. With all of those small ships docked there along with fuel and other supplies for the fighters, dropships, and bombers in the bay. It came as no surprise that the hanger ring was a prime spot for secondary explosions. A fact the Cylovans were again aware of, and had taken measures to contain any detonations from causing significant damage outside the hanger. They worked to a degree, but a good hit to the ring often caused extensive damage. Often temporarily crippling the ship, at least until they bypassed any damaged systems. Something the Cylovans were often pretty quick about.

“Well let’s see how it does in a real battle, but in the event it proves effective, I would like you to stockpile the materials to build more of these Superheavy Phase Lance cannons.”

She said that she could do that, and then the conversation shifted to the mundane. Before long Countryman moved on to other tasks.

Several hours later a group of Refuge cruisers and their escorts were about to engage the considerably larger Cylovan taskforce. They had the advantage here though, as they would be able to fire the first shot, and they planned to make it a decisive one. The ships in the Refuge force included the heavy cruisers, SFS Sword of Sparta, SFS Eagle, SFS Hawk, and SFS Accentor. Also in the force were the light cruisers, SFS Leon, SFS Lion, SFS Grizzly, SFS Nature’s Fury, and SFS Redemption. Other than the Accentor all of them were newer construction and outfitted accordingly. While the Accentor had undergone a recent refit both to repair her combat damage from the disastrous battle at Zur and to upgrade her weapons and armor.

On the bridge of the Sword, her mechanical captain was conferring with the other ships in the group as they spread out their positions. They needed to spread out a bit before making their first strike. The goal of the first strike was to destroy or disable as many capital ships as they could. The Cylovan group had nearly fifty capital ships, three of which were dreadnoughts. Compared to their nine, the enemy had a decisive advantage in heavy ships, and in overall ships, it was even worse. To support those nine capital ships the Refuge had brought only thirty destroyers. Along with the standard complement of LPCs, fighters, and bombers for those capital ships. They did not assign any frigates to the group, as their lack of torpedoes meant they were ill-suited for the attack plan. This meant that the Refuge was about to launch an attack with a grand total of 39 ships against a force of nearly six hundred when not counting auxiliary craft like LPCs, fighters, and bombers.

As the ships were getting into position, they were exchanging info they only way they knew that was certain to avoid detection. Every ship in the fleet had an organic aboard to serve as a telepathic means of communication with the rest of the fleet. Only the fighters didn’t have any telepaths, but that was because they were small and weren’t being used for the initial attack.

Finally, the captain got the signal she was waiting for when her telepath told her that everyone was in position. Per the pre-established plan, she waited precisely five point three eight seconds before giving the order to fire. First, the torpedoes launchers hummed as they fired their deadly projectiles. Then a few moments later just seconds before they were to impact their targets, her main cannons fired. Two deadly beams flashed into existence. A powerful phased particle stream coalesced and crossed the vast distance between the Sword and her target, the lead Cylovan Dreadnought. The deadly energy stream hit the ship dead on, and penetrated the weaker hull armor protecting the hanger bay doors. The armor there was thinner out of necessity, and failed to stop the powerful beam. In barely an instant it punched through the hull, bisected dozens of fighters still in their berths, several fuel pods filled with fuel intended for the fighters, and out the other side of the hanger. Punching through multiple decks, it punched straight through two shield generators, half a dozen primary energy conduits, a number of capacitors and internal field generators. In addition, the beam severed part of the primary superframe and disabled all power to main batteries on the starboard side of the dreadnought before it finally stopped against one of the internal plates more than halfway to the core of the ship. Before the nebula could flood the ship through the hull breach numerous secondary explosions went off thanks to the energy of the beam setting things off. Multiple hanger bays collapsed and several more hull breaches erupted before failsafe systems managed to contain the damage. By then the ship was listing and dead in the water when thirty-two torpedoes slammed into her wounded side, while nebula was infiltrating the ship.