A young woman walked down the corridor. She normally did not come down to this level, but she had an urgent report that the captain needed to read. A few marines rushed by her, and judging by their equipment they were heading for a training session. This level had quite a number of training rooms, shooting galleries, and weapon testing labs. It was here that troops practiced many of the skills they would put to use on the deck below in the war games that had become so popular an entertainment.

Reaching a door, she glanced at the console next to it to make sure she had the right room, and then she froze staring at the screen. A mix of emotions briefly overwhelming her.

Combat Practice Simulation Room 347-A

Current Occupant: Supreme Protector Jac Countryman

Current Simulation: Drone Assualt 2411-B

Difficulty: Unrestricted

Current Wave: 1701

Wave Limit: None Set

Current score: 187110

As she stared the wave count just kept going up, and at a fairly high clip at that as well. She had tried that scenario once on unrestricted difficulty and barely lasted through the first wave. The young woman as a result was suddenly terrified of her captain. She had never seen a score that high or anyone last that long. Not only that she was watching both the wave count and score increase at a fair clip right before her eyes. Of course, she might have fainted if she had seen the scores of some of the others who had tried this scenario. General Forrest was the current record holder, and Countryman was nowhere close to beating it.

After staring at the screen for a few minutes, she finally remembered the report that she needed to deliver. She activated the door control, and a warning popped up. She dismissed it without reading it, and immediately regretted it. As soon as the door opened a blue-green stream of fire and lightning streamed towards her and she narrowly avoided being hit in the face, instead it struck the wall behind her. The instant it did, the internal emergency forcefields activated. She stared at the glowing barrier against the walls in shock for a second or two. They were designed to supplement the internal armor in a section and only activated if an internal armor section dropped below forty percent integrity. Nothing short of a Scorpion’s main cannon could do that in one shot.

She glanced back through the doorway, and watched as Countryman turned on a single foot. With precise controlled movements, he brought his forearm and palm to bear aligning it with an oncoming drone and then unleashed another blast like the one that nearly killed her. All in the span of a second. To her sight, he was practically glowing with massive amounts of pure psy energy as he was channeling two distinct elements at once. She was beyond impressed. The blast struck the drone and predictability destroyed it. Melted and charred remains pelted the ground, but most of the drone had simply been vaporized.

Looking around, she saw no more drones, and just as the drone ports were opened to release more drones into the room Countryman pressed a button on a remote. She noticed his arms were still wreathed in flames and lightning. So she guessed he was only pausing the simulation. The ports closed, and he turned to face her.

At that moment instead of giving her report, she asked, “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!!???”

He replied, “Those were charged plasma blasts. Not easy to generate, but very powerful. I have fire affinity and lightning affinity. So that helps. Anyway, sorry about the blast that almost hit you.”

She looked down, and said, “I should have read that warning. Anyway, I do have an urgent report for you.”

He shifted his posture, and replied, “Well let’s hear it, Lieutenant.”

She did have a few questions she wanted to ask like how exactly he was generating plasma, and what made it charged. Mostly as she was pretty sure that plasma by its very nature was charged. She did not need an explanation for affinities, even if they were poorly understood. Then again psy mages were something relatively new. Affinities were pretty self-explanatory. For example, someone who has fire affinity can conjure flames with their mind more easily than someone who does not. Why this is so however remains largely a mystery. She put those aside and began to give her report, “The fleet reports success. Operation Reach concluded with minimal casualties, and the fleet is bringing back a wealth of refined materials, and we managed to capture several Cylovan weapons for study. Including several Metaphased Disruptors that they were using for planetary defense. The planet itself has been glassed, and the fleet has begun Operation Burning Garden.

So far the Collective appears to have been caught off guard and has been unable to effectively respond to our offensive. Thirteen additional worlds have been glassed by the fleet over the last two and a half hours. All but two of those were mining colonies, and the fleet was able to strip significant resources from those worlds. The last two were agricultural worlds, likely producing food for the poor souls who live under their yoke. Still, they had some useful deposits, which the fleet stripped before glassing the surface. “

Countryman listened to the report, and recalled the parameters of Operation Burning Garden. The operation was designed as a follow up for Operation Reach and really follows the war philosophy they had chosen to employ. The Collective was too large and powerful to be defeated in a traditional war, and their resources were limited. As such, they had chosen to adapt raiding tactics and scorched earth tactics to fight them. The idea was to take everything they could with them when they hit a world and burn the rest. They had no need for the planets and could use the resources. This way they could supplement the fleet with additional materials while inflicting massive damage to the Cylovans and denying them materials they could otherwise use against them.

“Sounds like our initial actions are going well. Remind the commanders NOT to confront the Cylovan fleet. We can’t afford any direct confrontation right now. Also how are those plasma torpedoes we equipped the fleet with working out?”

“According to the report, they’re working as intended. They are by far our most cost-effective weapon for glassing planets with. The fleet commanders are impressed with them.”

Countryman chuckled. The plasma torpedoes were designed to be very cheap and easily produced. They used the same basic technology as AMF torpedoes, but the yields were much smaller. So those torps were not much use against ships. The glassing torpedoes like AMF torps fired inert, but instead of activating on impact, a timed fuse activates them after launch. This allows the ignited plasma to spread over an area and allows the firing ships to bombard a target from further away. This effectively meant that they were essentially long-range versions of standard plasma torpedoes. Inventory even called them LRPs to reflect that.

“Well, they were designed for the job. Glad to hear they work,” said Countryman. Although he did expect them to work. They were merely adaptations of existing technology. Nothing exotic or new, just a variant on already proven technology. Honestly, the only concern was that they had cut too many corners, and made them too cheaply. Anything they could cut to save credits had been. LRPs had no shield penetrators, rudimentary guidance systems, a smaller warhead, and a far cheaper casing compared to an AMF. Just to name a few of the things they had changed from the AMF so that they could mass-produce them cheaply.

She shuffled awkwardly, “I have nothing else to report sir. But may I ask a few questions?”

Refuge Taskforce 15-11, CX-22, January Eighteenth 081 SDE 1440 hours:

The captain leaned forward as she studied her screens. Her cruiser and its escorts had been sent ahead of the main attack fleets. Their primary task was to locate targets for the fleet to raid and burn. A task that had brought them to this little system labeled CX-22.

Before her was a vast array of docking slips, shipyards, and the general chaos of a major industrial operation. Turning to her science officer at the sensors, she asked her to confirm her statement. The young woman only hesitated a moment, and then repeated her report, “Yes, sir. This appears to be a major industrial hub for the local sector, and more importantly, this is a dreadnought yard. We have detected two hundred and seventeen berths dedicated to the construction of dreadnoughts spread out across four main complexes. These hubs are actively being expanded, and I think we are looking at a mega shipyard complex. The Collective has a large number of warships under construction here. “

She smiled. Her taskforce had found a really large target, and all those half finished ships represented a treasure trove in materials. They could not really use the neutronium, but their labs were interested in the stuff. Having more samples would be useful in a number of projects, from devising practical methods to work the material, to devising better weapons for penetrating the material. They even helped the material scientists who were working on manufacturing neutronium for use in the fleet. Taking it out would also do massive damage to the Collective and set back their fleet expansion by years.

Her smile growing even larger, she ordered, “Continue with the passive scans. I want as much data as you can get before we jump out. The fleet can use any information you can get on this target.”

She paused and was about to let her young science officer go about her job when she thought of something. “Oh! Also, prepare some stealth probes to be launched.”

“Yes, sir! I’ll have it done,” said her science officer cheerily.

She watched the officer go, and looked back at the screens. Outside numerous spherical warships could be seen moving through the void. Menacing in their sheer numbers, she knew any direct assault on this system would fail. Although nobody said the Refuge played the game fairly. They would find a weakness in the defenses, she was sure of it. One that would give them the edge they so sorely needed. Unlike in the nebula, accelerating asteroids to C fractional velocities would not work. The Collective would detect them, and counter them long before they could do any damage. However, as she thought about it, they might be onto something with that idea. Instead of asteroids though, they would use something they can launch with their torpedo launchers.

A high-velocity torpedo, coated with stealth materials, and fitted with a small stealth field generator, and stealth armor should prove to be almost impossible to spot. Outfit it with a high yield AMF warhead both to inflict damage, and to ensure that the torpedo itself does not survive the impact. That could be the weapon they need. They already have the technology, as the stealth probes can attest to. She would have to check with the fleet to see if they have any in inventory. If not, they could build them. She was sure that someone else would have had the idea first though. So surely they would have some in inventory. Although such a torpedo would be expensive, and that might be why she was not equipped with any. The probes were not cheap by any stretch, and fleet protocol was to recover them if at all possible. If not, they were to be self-destructed to prevent the tech from falling into potentially hostile hands.

Yes, the more she thought about it, the more that idea sounded like the right one. The scan data just became doubly important. As that data would tell them where to aim their torpedoes.