Countryman had just finished relaying what the doctors had told him to the council. He was greeted only with silence, but the expressions told him everything. It was the usual expected mix of emotions when a group hears unpleasant news. The silence was finally broken when Ruri stated, “Well, I guess that makes the original point of this meeting moot.”

Samatha Greyman gave Ruri a look, and said, “Well we can’t do nothing! We need to work out what we are going to do about all those poor girls.”

Ruri shrugged her shoulders, “And what do you propose we do? Lock them all in rubber rooms? I’m not an expert, but I am pretty sure that is not good for their mental health. However, it might be the only way we can keep them from getting pregnant.”

Countryman sighed, “I’m afraid she is right. Not much we can do without more information. That pheromone makes young girls desperate to be pregnant. That means we have a mental component to consider. Now if we abort or transfer these pregnancies like we were considering to protect them, are we really doing that with this pheromone messing with their minds?”

Ruri replied, “I don’t think we are. We would be protecting their bodies, but harming their minds. It is not a good idea. We need more information.”

Samantha stood up and glared, “They are children! We can’t let them go gallivanting in that manner. They are too young to be pregnant either!”

Her husband Richard pulled her down into her seat, and said, “I don’t like it either.”

Drakes who had so far been silent interjected, “No one likes it, but sometimes you can’t do anything. As it stands now, I think it is best that we simply wait. Sure our children getting pregnant is a problem, but we can’t act without knowing more about the Pheromone.”

Countryman sighed, and plugged a pad into the table, “I have been talking with the doctors. They can’t tell me much about the pheromone, but we can put the at-risk groups in perspective.”

Ruri asked, “Anything interesting?”

Countryman took a moment to review in his mind what he had read. A number of papers on several subjects. Along with reports that were setting a bit of a trend. Since the storm children have been developing faster than their pre-storm human counterparts. This has led to young boys and girls reaching sexual maturity at a younger age on average than the previous norm. Most girls were fully mature by thirteen years according to the new statistics. Boys took a little longer on average but also reached full maturity by thirteen to fourteen. A lack of scarcity was believed to play a role in this, and the photosynthesis mutation was also thought to have an impact on things. With young people reaching full maturity as young as thirteen it came as no surprise that some benchmarks like puberty were also happening earlier with some reaching it as young as seven years of age.

It was also these youngest people that were most concerning with the new pheromone in play. He answered, “I found a nice study on brain development in post-storm children and another for physical growth in post-storm children.”

Bringing up the one on brain development, he began to present the data to the council. The study had found that brain growth was occurring faster in post-storm children, new neural connections were forming complex thought pathways far earlier as well. Three years olds were demonstrating the same level of comprehension and thought as pre-storm children of nine years. By seven years, they still had the learning advantages of young pre-storm children, but the brain development of fully grown pre-storm adults. It was believed that the mutations that led to telepathy, telekinesis, and other mental powers had impacted this development. The more advanced brains needed for this had led to faster brain development. The lack of scarcity was also attributed to the development. Young people have no shortage of food thanks to the fleet’s extensive hydroponic farms and photosynthesis reducing food needs had given them the nutrients needed to sustain higher growth speeds.

Ruri seemed to catch on, and said, “In other words, most of these young people should be able to understand exactly what they are doing wrong.”

Countryman chuckled, “Yeah they would. Although that doesn’t mean they will agree.”

Ruri gave a knowing smile, and replied, “It also has some interesting implications. Anyway, I think we have heard enough. Why don’t we move on to discussing the research study proposal that was brought to the council.”

Drakes leaned forward and said, “We can’t really act without that information, I say we give them full funding and priority.”

Samantha scoffed, “I really don’t like sitting on my hands.” She sighed and continued, “Although I concede your point, we do need more information. Go ahead with the study as proposed.”

Other voices made their opinions noted, and surprisingly the vote was unanimous. The go-ahead was given, and the study details were finalized. The study was given top priority and nearly half the fleet’s medical budget and personnel.

A couple of weeks later, the Collective was observing one of several alerts that its subroutines had brought to its attention. Species 11247 had grown rather bold and aggressive over the last few months. Having scored several victories their ships were penetrating deeper into Cylovan space. The conflict had expanded to nearly thirty sectors, and nearly forty of its colonies had been hit. Most of that number were minor unimportant worlds, but a couple were of strategic value. These attacks had established a pattern. Species 11247, unlike almost every previous species it had fought in a war with, seemed to have no use for planets. Instead, every time they gained control of a world they would strip it of anything they could get and then they glassed the planet. Destruction was always total. Nothing of value was ever left behind, they were remarkably efficient for an organic race.

They were almost machine-like in their efficiency and their technology was intriguing. They were roughly on par with the Collective in technology ahead in some areas, on par in a few, and behind in others. It was how they used their technology that made them so difficult to defeat. Most important was their stealth technology. It could penetrate their stealth, but as repeated encounters had proved they could still penetrate its sensor nets and strike without being noticed. Its methods were not reliable enough. A recent battle had given it some insights into why. During the engagement in question, it had managed to get a scan from one of Species 11247’s cruisers. What it had learned from the scan was that the ship had superior stealth capabilities to those it had seen just five years earlier, and part of it was due to enhancements to the ship’s hull plating. It had not exactly determined how, but the ship’s hull modifications rendered it virtually invisible even to short-range scanners. Only one of its short range sensors could penetrate this cloak, and only during an active scan cycle.

Fortunately, vessels cloaked in this manner could not fire without revealing their position. It seemed to be a constant for all of their stealth technology. Firing their weapons temporarily disrupted their stealth, but unlike previous stealth vessels it had fought, they did not have to decloak to fire, nor did they have shields to consider when cloaking. Species 957 was the first race it had encountered that employed stealth on the battlefield. Their cloaking shields had to be dropped in order to fire, and while cloaked their shields had to be dropped. As such, they were quite vulnerable while cloaking or decloaking to weapons fire. It was a brief window, but one it had exploited to great effect. Fighters were very effective at swarming and destroying 957’s stealth ships during that window of vulnerability. Those same tactics had proved effective on other races it had encountered that employed stealth technology.

With 11247 however, those tactics were not effective. The race did not employ cloaking shield technology but pursued a different branch of stealth technology. In addition, instead of relying on shields, they relied on powered armor for protection. Unlike shields, their armor did not interfere with stealth or vise versa. As such, their ships did not have this window of vulnerability that is normally exploited.

11247’s armor technology was certainly more advanced than any it had encountered before. Species 11247 were generations ahead of almost every race it had fought in armor and hull reinforcement technology. Their ships were built to take punishment that would outright vaporize more conventional ships.

At the moment it was observing an engagement where that resilience was quite apparent. A single small carrier group was engaged with a number of its warships. Ships assigned to protect one of its outposts. Outpost 41317 was under threat and was of some strategic value. The outpost served as the main processing node for half the sensor net in sector 4311-b one of the sectors under threat. However, there were three other outposts in the sector in position to take up the slack if it fell.

Right now two battleships were engaged with just one cruiser that had punched through its formation and was attacking ships at the rear. The cruiser had dealt extensive damage to one battleship and already been hit numerous times in the exchange. Her hull however had yet to take any serious damage. A real testament to the engineering and design of the cruiser. Only one other race had ships that could last as long, and their ships were far tougher but thankfully not as numerous. Otherwise its war would not have gone as well as it had. At least until a certain set of events crippled its ability to reinforce, and forced it to withdraw. Of course in the case of that other race, it had already learned the weaknesses of their ships. This new race it was still learning, and had no known weaknesses to exploit. It had labs working on that however. Several facilities working on armor, and a number more working on weapons.

A beam lanced out from the cruiser, and punched another hole into the hull of its one battleship. The other battleship opened fire at that moment, its disrupters raking over the hull of the cruiser.

Its attention was suddenly pulled elsewhere by a new alert. One of its older research facilities was under attack. It refocused its attention to the facility in question. A single cruiser had been detected in orbit, and it was unleashing a barrage on the facility. A series of lightning-like discharges struck the facility doing very little damage to the structure, but wreaking havoc with the defense systems. Already the surface shields and guns were offline, their systems disrupted. A number of surface drones were also offline, their far more vulnerable internal circuitry likely having been fried.

A number of its sensor and comm systems were also down, and this was what it was getting. A quick check of available sensor feeds revealed no other units detected, although there likely were. Given what they were doing, it concluded that they were going to be landing troops. It sent orders to the outpost, and then redirected a small fleet to the system.

Thanks to the local conduit, it could have reinforcements in the system within a few hours. The only fleet it had available to respond was a small battleship fleet. Containing a single battleship, twenty cruisers, and some fifty destroyers. A good force more than enough to destroy a single cruiser, but it suspected that the lone cruiser was not as alone as it appeared. It likely had escorts that remained undetected, and the facility did not have the best sensors in the first place. It relied mainly on camouflage to keep it safe from attackers, and had been placed in that system to keep it safe from their most powerful foe. Evidently that camouflage had not prevented 11247 from locating the facility.