Refuge Taskforce 15-11, 4.6 lightyears out from CX-22, January Eighteenth 081 SDE 1732 hours:

She had just given her report, and inquired about stealth torpedoes. Her superior Greyman was silent for a moment or two, and then he said, “We do indeed have some in inventory. They are rather expensive to produce, and are covered by the Fleet Torpedo Conservation Protocols. A mission like this though can justify their use. Return to the fleet, and transmit a full copy of your logs and sensor data. By the time you get back, we should have an attack plan ready for you. I’ll find some free ships to help as well. Five ships might be fine for a scouting mission, but I think a few more will work better for an attack.”

She actually rather expected stealth torpedoes to fall under that set of protocols. They were a subset of the special ordinance protocols, meant to reduce expenditures. By protocol, AMF torpedoes were not to be expended against light craft. They were to be treated as anti-capital ship weapons. There was also a proposal floating around to further restrict their use, and to apply restrictions to the use of other torpedoes like Photons. Photons were rather cheap and easy to produce, so they were used against most targets.

The protocols were just part of a long list of measures designed to limit resource expenditures. It was only natural, though. They were a nomadic fleet with no home port, and no worlds supplying a continuous stream of resources with which to supply and maintain the fleet. They had to find and mine their resources themselves. Given that they could not rely on always having a supply on hand to replenish their expenditures the fleet had enacted numerous protocols and measures to reduce fleet upkeep costs. For warships, these included fuel-saving measures like keeping the lights dim, and ammunition saving measures to restrict the use of their more powerful torpedoes. At the factory, this meant a focus was made on the longevity of ship parts. To cut maintenance costs, they tried to make every part last as long as possible, and failed parts were never tossed. They were sent back to the factories where they were scanned and then broken down for recycling. Only what could not be recycled was tossed.

“That sounds acceptable. I’ll set course for the fleet, maximum stealth cruise speed. See you in a couple of days,” she stated. At that speed, it would only take about four and a half days to get back to the fleet. So she was understating the time a bit.

“See you in a few days, captain,” he signed off.

The captain stared out at the nebula, as he considered the recent briefing. Numerous vessels had been reporting planets that had been stripped of surface-level mineral deposits. Subsequent studies of these worlds had revealed a pattern. All of them were within twenty-five lightyears of this nebula, and all of them had been stripped of materials commonly used in starship construction, particle weaponry, and advanced shield and armor systems. They had even found gas giants which were showing greatly reduced concentrations of the gases often used in the manufacture of weapons-grade protoplasma. The list and quantities taken were very concerning. Command had come to the conclusion that someone was building an armada. There was enough material taken to build a fleet of capital ships more than fifty times the size of their current fleet. Larger if they focused on smaller capital ship classes like heavy cruisers, battlecruisers, and light carriers.

Such a large armada was concerning for a number of reasons. It would be strong enough to just plow through every power in the sector. Even with outdated technology, but given what little they had learned about them suggested these aliens were at the very least competitive tech-wise with the local powers of the sector. Possibly even more advanced. The particle signature left behind by their mining techniques certainly suggested more advanced. It was left by a resonant particle stream more powerful than any mining device they used. That suggested some pretty advanced technology in particle emitters, particle generation, and power generation. Likely some other supporting technologies as well. Especially given they were able to determine that these aliens fired these mining beams from orbit. That meant that these same particle mining lasers were a form of weaponry. No local power could boast resonant weaponry. Although he wasn’t sure if there was a benefit to that. Well outside of pummeling rock, although there was a certain race of lithiods that would be frightened of such weapons. Given that they were effectively living rocks and while resistant to a wide array of conventional weapons. Resonant beam weapons would be quite deadly to them.

It was his ship that had been ordered to scout the nebula. He would be there already, but his chief engineer wanted to make a few modifications to the ship before they went in. He was willing to wait, and he knew she would not disappoint. She was very talented for her age, and that was why he was lucky to have her. Even if he had been a little worried at first given she was a bit young for the post.

His superiors had given him a few objectives for scouting the nebula. He was to locate any bases belonging to these mysterious aliens. Determine their objectives, and assess their threat to the Ti Taki. He had also been given a rundown on the nebula and that gave something other than mystery aliens to worry about.

The nebula interfered with sensors, and shields. Not to mention some types of energy weapons suffered from reduced range in the nebula. Lasers were particularly notorious for it, and while his IsoShok Cannons weren’t affected. The same could not be said for the Tetryon Pulse cannons he was also equipped with. At least the pulse cannons were not his main ship-to-ship weapon system. They were used mainly for point defense, but they were designed for close-range ship-to-ship as well. This issue came mainly from the effect nebula gases had on the fields that contained the exotic hyperspace particles. Honestly the weapon issue did not bother him as much as the shield issue.

If they encountered a hostile in the nebula without shields and poor sensors they were going to get wrecked. Weapon problems or not. His chief engineer said she had a fix, and he knew her subordinates had been tearing the ship apart. Speaking of his chief, he heard the door open and watched her walk in. Her uniform was rather dirty, torn, and certainly not regulation. Not to mention she looked a bit tired. He decided not to say anything, and without a word, she started to give her report. “I finally finished my modifications,” she said wearily as she plopped down on her chair at the main engineering station.

“So care to tell me what you were doing now?”

“Well, first I reconfigured the sensor array. I took inspiration from an ancient sensor technology from the age of seafaring warships. During one of the later sub ages, when ships of steel ruled the waves. One of the greatest threats to warships of that age had been submarines. They countered them with sound based sensors that used a sonic pulse that would rebound off solid surfaces. Listening to those rebounds gave them both a very accurate map of the seafloor, but also revealed the location of any subs. Not all that useful in space I know, but the root principles work quite well in the dense nebula. I reconfigured the array to send a specially modulated pulse through the nebula and then listen for the rebound. The downside is that this method also makes us quite visible to anyone else in the nebula. Also, the method is not perfect, and ships made of materials that can absorb the pulse will be invisible to us.”

“Sounds useful, better than being effectively blind. What kind of range do they have?”

She gave a look, and said, “Only about half that of conventional scanners, but that is far superior to what you would get in the nebula with conventionals.”

‘Sounds good so what else did you do?”

She seemed excited as she answered, “Well I took the shields offline. They are useless in the nebula anyway, and I needed the grid and generators anyway. I had to modify both, but we now have polarized hull plating instead of a shield grid. It’s only about forty percent effective compared to standard shields at absorbing enemy fire, but unlike shields the grid will actually function in there.”

He gave her a look, “So you replaced my shield grid with an improvised version of outdated technology?”

She gave the species equivalent of a giggle, and said, “Not quite. It may be improvised, but technology has improved in the six hundred years since polarized plating was last in use. We actually have a phased polarization field running through our hull right now. That makes it stronger than those dedicated designs in use centuries ago. I ran some tests, and I think I can make it even stronger if I had a couple of weeks in a dry dock. I ran some simulations, but a properly designed powered armor system that was not improvised from a shield grid with modern tech should be about twenty percent stronger than shields. Although it will cost a hell of a lot more.”

He was surprised, he had never even thought that Polarized armor could still be a viable technology. Now that he thought about it, he remembered that shields during the day had been almost as strong, but far cheaper. That lower cost to build and install had been a major point in their favor. In addition ships with shields were not as vulnerable to shock damage. Although the advent of structural fields just a couple of years later largely neutralized that concern. So now that he thought about it he realized it was economics more than anything else that killed powered armor.

“Well it’s better than nothing. I feel a little safer knowing there is something protecting my hull. Now get some rest, you clearly need it,” he said feeling it best to ask her some of his other questions later. Most important of which is how long it would take to switch the grid back to a shield grid.

He watched her leave, and then turned to the helm. Ordering them to enter the nebula. Then he gave orders to his science officers before turning to his console, and accessing the database. Mostly looking for the answers to those questions that could not wait, but he decided not to ask her.

Completely unnoticed by him a small scout ship registered the entry of his ship into the nebula. Her small size and specially designed hull rendering her invisible to his sensors. The scout ship even obtained some scans completely undetected, as his ship entered the nebula, it moved to follow.

Taskforce 15-11 decloaked as they disengaged their stealth armor. After several days in stealth cruise they had returned to the fleet. Dead ahead a massive collection of vessels were anchored before them. Many of them in different stages of construction, and most notable were the number of industrial vessels either active or under construction. The fleet had only expanded as much as it had because of its focus on industrial vessels, especially mining and yardships. Speaking of yard ships the fleet had hundreds of them now. Each one actively building another yardship at all times. It was made easier by the fact that yardships could be built more quickly compared to a comparatively sized warship. They had even gotten the construction down to a science, where they would undock as soon as the yardship was no longer needed in the construction process. At that point, all the work was internal and could be done by mechanical workers. In fact about half of the yardships doing construction work were not complete internally. They were just complete enough to have enough active factories to support the work of building new ships.

It was how they were going to complete their ambitious two-year fleet expansion project.