Menseio Station, orbiting Veria

Menseio Station

14:56 Ship Time

September 13, 2019

It had been the longest meeting yet, running for the better part of seven hours in its totality. There were also a lot of people present as well, far more than I thought there would be. Some only stayed for a short time as they gave a briefing or update, but a lot of people were there for the duration. By far the longest of the updates were the goings on in what was officially being called Draconic Space.

Selalea had gone over some of it the day before and she was lying when she said that they were making good progress. They were making such excellent progress on the surface that they were weeks, and in one case, more than a month ahead of schedule. Everything in orbit and the rest of the system was on schedule as well. The fleet of mining vessels had arrived as promised, and they had immediately started processing one of the three asteroid belts in the Mezotis system.

Aside from all the construction going on, the dragons were also doing a rough census of the two planets. They were discovering, categorizing and naming every species of animal and plant life they came across. Later on, when they had more time and manpower, they would do a more in-depth analysis of all the species that called Yrranth and Zokyrth home.

Unsurprisingly, the happenings in Draconic Space were undiscovered thus far, and everything was happening right under Kaldrus Dhir’s nose. The system saw the occasional vessel or small fleet travel through it, but to outside observers, it was like it was empty. Everything from the defense satellites to the mining ships were all outfitted with shroud generators, allowing them to go dark at a moments notice.

That was all thanks to the two transmitters that Abi had deployed immediately upon arrival. Although they were primarily transmitters, they each had a sophisticated sensor system that allowed them to pick up energy signatures from very far away. While a shrouded ship would be able to get closer than an unshrouded ship, no ship except for Abi herself would be able to get within seven light years of the two planets without someone knowing about it.

After the updates from everything going on in Draconic Space, Esriro was the next one up. She went over what they had learned from the interrogation of the members of Infinite Chaos, as well as what they pulled off the ship itself. Unfortunately, it turned out that the members didn’t know much at all and massive quantities of information had been wiped from the computers. Abi was going through it to see if she could recover anything, but she wasn't hopeful.

Less than a day after our little chat, N'ardil Vilos made some sweeping changes in her organization. The largest of which was the complete recall and subsequent compartmentalization of the individual teams and their ships. Navigation and communications computers were outright replaced and teams were instructed not to try to contact any of the others. Each team essentially became a cell, with N’ardil being the only one who knew where the teams were. Along with her abandoning and torching her base, it meant that it would be extremely hard, if not impossible to catch any of them before they had the opportunity to strike again.

The most worrying thing about what she was able to learn was the fact that N'ardil had made it personal. It was no longer about collecting a payday, though that was still in play, it was now about teaching 'that puny upstart' a lesson about interfering in her affairs.

There were a few more minor updates before the meeting ended, the most noteworthy of which being the progress of the Spectres who would be staying behind to powerlevel. So far, the least amount of levels gained was still an impressive 56, especially considering how high level they were when they started. There were some teams that had easily quadrupled that number, but they were significantly lower level, being Spectres who had been limited by the low level dungeons on Earth. It wouldn’t happen anytime soon, but in a few months’ time, there would be a large number of extremely high level Spectres ready to face off against anyone.

Everyone soon filed out of the meeting room, some quickly as they had other things that needed to be taken care of, while others were more leisurely about it. I was in the former group since a good portion of my schedule was moved around. While we weren’t planning to go to Alade for another day yet, it was decided that it would be a two day affair. Well, a day and a half, since we needed to wait for the meeting to end before we could go. Everything had already been ready for days, so all I needed to do was head back to the hangar and we would be one our way. Before I could do that, however, I saw something that stopped me up short.

Hayir had been the representative for his family during the meeting, as both his father and his sister were preoccupied with something else. I didn’t get a chance to ask, but I had the feeling that it was the three lifeforms that hovered next to Ercan and Oya as they made their way down the wide hallway.

The three lifeforms were humanoid, but they were like nothing I had ever seen. If I could choose one word to describe them, it would be tiny. They couldn’t have been more than thirty centimeters tall, if that, and they were about as wide as they were tall. Stocky would probably be a better word for it, and they had four legs that were each as thick as their upper bodies. Even their arms were pretty thick relative to their upper bodies, but not nearly to the extent of their legs.

Now when you hear ‘humanoid’ and ‘four legs’, you probably think about something that is centaur-like, but these were very different. Two of their legs were forward facing, while the other two were rearward facing, with their torso in between. Their lower bodies looked very much like Protoss Dragoons, though not mechanical in the slightest. They had short but thick necks that supported an oversized head, giving them a very odd appearance. They weren’t an ugly species, but no one would ever call them a beautiful one.

As I stared, I felt someone tap my shoulder. “I thought you were in a rush?” Zaszi asked.

“Who are they?” I asked in return, not looking away from the tiny species as they floated next to Ercan, Oya and Hayir as he fell in line with them. Their rather short legs probably made it hard to keep up even with Pygmeans, so they sat on what looked like a modified hover cart. They could be seen all over the station and were one of the ways that some materials were transported around.

“The people? No idea,” she replied. “I do know that they call themselves Fa’iir, but I can’t tell you much more than that. As a species, they weren’t discovered for more than five centuries after we fled Nedovis. Abi could probably tell you more.”

[So what’s the deal with them?] I asked as I spun around and headed towards the hangar. It would take a while to return, even with the interspersed teleporters.

[They’re a rather interesting species, and more than one empire thought that they could take advantage of them because of their small size. If anything, their size is a facade, because it doesn’t really come with any of the disadvantages that other small species do. They originate from a planet with gravity that is just shy of being six times that of Earth, so they are a lot stronger and hardier than they look,] Abi replied.

[She said that they weren’t discovered until after we left Nedovis… why was that? I figured all of the intelligent species in this galaxy would be known by now.]

[Oh, I’m quite confident that there are more of them out there. Some are just reclusive, and others might live deep beneath the oceans. To answer your question, it was a perfect storm of circumstances that allowed them to basically appear out of nowhere. I mentioned that they originate from a high gravity planet, but the system that planet is in is out of the way. It’s a little like the Mezotis system in that way.]

[While other species can survive on planets with such high gravity with modern technology, they’re not the first choice, especially if said planet is in the middle of nowhere. Usually the coordinates of such planets are added to navigation computers, but are otherwise ignored, simply because the vast majority of ships aren’t built to operate on high gravity planets. Their engines are more than enough to get off a planet when the gravity is similar to Earth’s or Veria’s, but as gravity gets higher and higher, the very same engines become incapable of lifting a ship back up into orbit. If they can successfully land in the first place.]

[To put it into perspective; if you went to Siito, the Fa’iir homeworld, in your human form, you would weigh over 1500 pounds. If you tried to jump then your feet wouldn’t even leave the ground, and if you did fall from even an extremely short height, there would be a high chance of breaking bones. Well, it would be different now because of your attributes, but it would have been a rough time a month ago.]

[Unfortunately, there were some explorers who wanted to land on the planet, but it didn’t go well for them at all. The Fa’iir recorded eleven separate attempts in the span of three years soon after the system was discovered. That was about 3100 years ago now and many more ships have gone missing in that system since. None of the ships were able to slow down, and the inertial dampeners didn’t have a hope of making the crash landings survivable. The escape pods didn’t fare any better, as the engines on them are enough to slow them down on a planet with somewhat normal gravity. In almost 6g, they just dropped like rocks.]

[While there weren’t any successes, the wreckages from those attempts, and all the ones that followed were enough to start the Fa’iir on the path towards the stars. Technologically, at that time they were at the equivalent of the iron age on Earth, so much of the technology they found was well beyond them. Still, they were meticulous when it came to research and they wrote down absolutely everything they learned. By the time they had advanced to the point where they could put everything they had learned to use, they were well ahead of where they would have been naturally.]

[Thus began the long and tedious process of shipbuilding. They were still a long way away from joining the rest of the galaxy, but that was more of a long term goal. They knew that the gravity was much too high on Siito to build ships, at least anything bigger than what could be considered a shuttle, so they had to look elsewhere. Orbit wouldn’t do because a space station or a dockyard would be easily detectable, but it didn’t take them long to come to the conclusion that the furthest of their three moons, Eomia, was the perfect choice.]

[It’s smaller than Earth’s Moon at around two-thirds the size, but it’s much more dense and roughly two and a half times further away. They could have chosen one of the other two moons, but they were both significantly less dense, lacking in the materials they needed to make everything a bit easier. They spent a little over two millennia building the shuttles that would take workers and materials up a little bit at a time, though most of that was spent learning and preparing as best they could before the first hull was laid down. Those initial ships were incredibly overbuilt, but even then, they could only carry fifteen tons of cargo up at a time. Remember though that those fifteen tons were at nearly 6g. At 1g, that would only be a little more two and a half tons of material.]

[Once they had the ships and were ready, building the beginnings of a shipyard began in earnest. There were exactly twenty ships built and they were all immediately loaded up and launched. That first load was nothing but lightweight, prefabricated buildings that would house builders and all the equipment needed. When that was all set up and people and everything else they needed to survive was brought up, they began the biggest part of the endeavour; hollowing out enough of the moon first enough so that they could move those prefabricated buildings inside the moon, and then so they could build and set up the machinery that would help them construct ships. That alone took four decades, but by doing it this way, and having enough warning, they were able to build ship after ship in complete secrecy. If a ship was detected on approach, then they would cease all work and wait for it to pass.]

[What about the completed ships, what did they do with those? They couldn't exactly land them on the planet, right?] I asked.

[That’s where the other two moons came in. They started off building ships that would help them mine resources already in space, so they wouldn’t have to keep bringing them up from Siito little by little. It sped things up a lot, to the point where they were bringing back more ore than they could easily process. When they weren’t out mining the local asteroid belt, they were helping hollow out the next moon. It took about four years after Eomia was fully hollowed out before the first FTN vessel was complete, but it immediately went into storage until the first two strike groups were done, which occurred three years later. No longer needing to hide their ships, the two moons were also turned into shipyards, tripling their output. Still, they managed to hide for another year until the next two strike groups had been built, forming their first battle group.]

[What happened then?]

[A small group of ships dropped out of hyperspace in the middle of the system. Before the Fa’iir could even hail them, they jumped back out. Two weeks later, another, larger fleet showed up. They were lucky that their system happened to be just outside the edge of Haix space, otherwise things might have gotten ugly. The Haix are one of the more uncommon species in the galaxy in that they'll try to open up a line of communication first, and will only fight to defend themselves.]

[It took a few weeks, but the Haix taught the Fa’iir their language and the two species communicated. The first real communication basically came down to 'What are you doing with a fleet of ships outside our border?' and 'We originate from the planet below. We knew other species roamed the stars, but you are the first we have met.' The two species continued to get to know each other for another week, but the Haix soon went back home, knowing that an attack wasn't on its way.]

[What followed was essentially a mad dash as hundreds of species sent representatives to greet the Fa’iir and welcome them to the galaxy. Three weeks after the Haix went back home, the first ships arrived. A few hours after that, the next group arrived, opening the floodgates where small fleets arrived over the course of a few months. The Fa’iir were swamped by the amount of people that had shown up, and if the Haix hadn't taught them their language, then they would be overwhelmed. Their Fa’iir ships didn't help matters, either.]

[What do you mean?]

[They made a mistake with that first battle group by only taking the size of their species into account. They weren't thinking that species much taller and wider than they were might be wandering their ships, so they designed things accordingly. Hallways were never more than 75 centimeters high, and about that, wide. Other species, even Pygmaeans and Scyftans, would have to crouch down or crawl on hands and knees, which no one wanted to do. Especially not the ambassadors.]

[Since they couldn't receive the emissaries properly, at least not at first, tensions between all the ships began to rise because they had to sit around for so long. There were so many ships spread out throughout the system, and many of those ships would have been firing on another if they had been somewhere else. The only reason that The Confederation ships didn't open fire on Scyftan ships as soon as they jumped out of hyperspace was that they wanted to make a good impression on the Fa’iir. That didn't stop other species, some of which had been at war for millennia or harboured grudges for past transgressions. It all finally came to a head roughly two months, sixteen days and eight hours after the Fa’iir were first discovered by the Haix.]

[Early that morning, every ship in the system powered their shields almost simultaneously, with a much smaller portion activating their weapons systems as well. Shocking everyone, however, was the response from the Fa’iir. You see, the majority of the ships in the system were transmitting in the clear, and before they left, the Haix gave the Fa’iir a single piece of technology. That technology was a computer that was able to translate every language that was being spoken in those transmissions into Haix, a language that the Fa’iir were able to understand. It had taken their scientists time to go over it and make sure that there were no viruses or anything like that, but when they deemed it was safe, they put it to work. They had been curious what the other species were saying, but they quickly deduced that a storm was brewing. And while none of those species could understand the Fa’iir language, not yet at least, they started to plan.]

[I've only seen recordings of it, but it was still impressive to see. While half of the battle group was positioned around the planet, the other half was spread out in smaller groups. The moment ships began powering their shields and weapons, the Fa’iir did the same, only they were faster to react. The Fa’iir ships opened fire indiscriminately. Ships that were too far away made a short hyperspace jump to get into range, but suddenly the entire Fa’iir fleet--the battle group and the other ships that had been finished since then--were firing at anything that wasn't Fa’iir.]

[How are they still around as a species?! That would be considered an act of war by hundreds of species, wouldn't it?]

[If they had killed anyone then it probably would have.]

[What do you mean?] I asked, confused. [How do you fire on that many ships and not kill anyone.]

[Ion weaponry. The Fa’iir didn’t have anything bigger than a cruiser, that was also why they were able to crank ships out so quickly. In fact, the majority of their ships were barely bigger than a frigate, and that was an advantage of their species’ small size. The fact that they didn’t need hallways and rooms large enough to fit people who were over a meter tall, if not taller, allowed them to dedicate more room to other things. Things like power generation and hardpoints for weaponry, for example.]

[The Fa’iir focused all of their fire at the aggressors first, but once they were disabled, they quickly turned that firepower on the rest of the ships in the system. Some tried evasive maneuvers while others actually tried fighting back, and while the Fa’iir were outnumbered by nearly three hundred ships, the Fa’iir were a cohesive force. It took no more than five minutes to disable each and every non-Fa’iir ship in the system, and they quickly went to work.]

[If not for the ships that had crashed on their planet, the rest of the species in the galaxy probably wouldn’t have met the Fa’iir for a long, long time. If they had, however, it is extremely likely that the Fa’iir would have been helpless to watch as the small fleets fought. Luckily, there was a lot more to salvage then you might think. Oh, it was only a shield emitter here or a broken engine here, but by using bits and pieces, they were essentially able to reverse-engineer almost everything they needed for the first generation of the Fa’iir navy. The one thing they were missing was power generation, as they tend to go boom when damaged. You can't just take the remains of a reactor or power core and try filling in the blanks. Remember the escape pods I mentioned?]

[What about them?]

[While they couldn't save their occupants when they crashed into the surface, they weren't traveling nearly as quickly as the ships they launched from. That means that there was a lot more of them left, comparatively speaking. Now normally you won't find any data stored on an escape pods' computers since they're essentially advanced lifeboats. That's why the Fa’iir were so surprised by the motherload of information they got from one of them.]

[What'd they find?]

[Schematics. A whole lot of schematics. Where before they had to spend years, sometimes decades researching, testing and tinkering, now they had the designs and documentation for all sorts of technology. The ship that the escape pod launched from belonged to a Kobaloi engineer and inventor. There were some schematics for prototypes of his own design, but the majority of the data was on systems you could buy pretty much anywhere. Tractor beams, ion cannons and missiles, reactors, et cetera. Basically, everything they were missing was on that pods' computers.]

[Aside from the ion cannons, the piece of technology that was invaluable in the situation they found themselves in was the tractor beam. As soon as a ship was disabled, one or more FTN ships flew in, captured a ship with their tractor beams and then continued on, dragging them away from the rest of the ships in the system. Some had to make two trips, but from there, they waited for the ships they had disabled to get their ships up and running. Some of the small fleets were faster than others, but once they got their systems back up and running, they were told to leave the system and come back in a year.]

[Some of the commanders of the various fleets were none too pleased about having their ships disabled before being thrown out of Fa’iir space, though there was nothing that they could do about it, really. At least not at that moment. The rest simply left and headed home. It was about four months later that a new fleet arrived; two strike groups belonging to the Krus.]

[The Krus were one of the parties that was getting ready to fight before the Fa’iir intervened. They took that as an insult, and the Krus are very quick to fight when they think they have been insulted. They’re a volatile and ill-tempered ape-like species that often goes to war at the drop of a hat, though most of the time they’re too busy fighting amongst themselves. It’s rare that they fight someone else, but the ambassador’s clan decided to send two of their strike groups to Siito to quote "put the Fa’iir in their place."]

[That was where they made a mistake, and a costly one at that. You see, while the Krus and the Fa’iir have very similar cultures, at least in a few ways, they are also very different. They're similar in that Fa'iir are made up of dozens of tribes, while the Krus are made up of hundreds of families, or clans, if you will. The biggest difference between them, however, is that the Fa’iir are united when it comes to the wellbeing of their people. Oh, there might be a kerfuffle every once in a while, but at the end of the day, the Fa’iir will put their differences aside for the greater good.]

[The same can't really be said for the Krus. They’ll band together if their species is threatened by an outside force, but they’re just as content to sit back and watch as a rival clan loses a good portion of their land, people or fleet. Everything comes down to power for the Krus. You’ll only ever see a clan come to another’s aid if it is in their best interest, whether that be the acquisition of land, ships, or monetary gain. Those temporary alliances are often extremely tense ones, as neither side knows if the other is going to stab the other in the back.]

[The attack on the Fa’iir was disastrous for the ambassador’s clan, for a few reasons. The first is that while they were outnumbered by nearly three to one, they thought that their technology would bridge the gap. They had assumed that the ion cannons were all they had, and in their arrogance, they never took the time to check the sensor readings from that short engagement over Siito. If they had, they would have realized that the technology the Fa’iir possessed wasn’t too far off what they themselves had.]

[They thought that they were dealing with small ships with weak weapons, and meagre power systems, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. While the ships were small, they were armed to the teeth with somewhat modern shields and engines. The most advanced technology they were able to recover was that of the Kobaloi engineer’s, but even that was a few centuries old. Still, it was more than enough when you consider that they had a nearly three to one numerical advantage at that time.]

[With the need to hide their numbers having past and them having three fully functional and partially automated superyards, they were able to crank out ships incredibly quickly. In the four months since they had sent the numerous alien fleets away, they were able to complete another two strike groups, and were nearly done with a third. The majority of them were the standard frigate-sized ships that were being built on an assembly line while there were a dozen or so various prototypes.]

[Though they had only been a spacefaring species for a few years up to this point, they had put that time to good use. They drilled relentlessly and developed military doctrines for the inevitable future where they would need to fight. Most of their attention had been focused on the more defensive aspect, and that is where the three moons came in.]

[They weren’t just superyards, they were also super defense satellites. Aside from a few small research outposts on the surfaces of the moons, the rest was entirely empty, so they put it to good use and began installing various types of turrets to cover almost the entirety of the surface. They were still very much in the early stages of that process when the Krus arrived, but as each turret was installed, it was immediately linked to a central computer in its respective moon. So not only were they outnumbered three to one, they also had to contend with dozens of mass drivers firing from the moon.]

[Needless to say, it was a one-sided affair. The Krus jumped into the system in a loose formation and opened fire on the closest ships almost immediately. While they were able to disable or destroy a small handful of Fa’iir ships, they weren’t prepared for the sheer firepower being directed their way. It didn’t take the Fa’iir long to react, and with a few combat jumps, the entire Krus fleet was surrounded and was taking a beating. The Fa’iir strategy was to use their ion cannons to bring down a ships’ shields before switching to weapons of a more lethal variety to finish them off. Working together, a small group of Fa’iir ships could drop the shields of a much larger ship in less than thirty seconds and then quickly disable or destroy it entirely.]

[It didn’t take the commander of the Krus fleet very long to realize that his fleet was more than outmatched, but there was very little he could do about it. His ship was at the center of the formation and thus the most protected, but many of the other ships in his fleet were floating lifelessly in space. Not all of them were destroyed, either, as many of them simply had their systems overloaded by the ion beams and were in the process of getting them back up. Knowing that there was no way that they could win the engagement, he ordered the remaining ships to jump out of the system, leaving the remainder to their fate.]

[Unfortunately for that commander, things were very different upon his arrival back at his clan’s planet of Sorix 6. Large amounts of destroyed ships and satellites could easily be seen as a massive graveyard practically surrounded the entire planet. He could see the telltale sign of ships designed to clean up space debris as they began clearing up the planet’s orbit, though none of them bore the crest of his clan. The crest belonged to a long time rival, in fact, who had taken advantage of the depleted forces around the planet to launch a full scale assault. So not only had the commander failed in his mission, but he returned to find that his clan was prisoner to another. Before the rest of the fleet could be captured or destroyed, he jumped out again, with only eighty-three of the original three hundred ships remaining.]

[What happened after that?]

[Well, the Fa’iir only destroyed forty-seven of the Krus ships in total, while the remainder were just disabled. When the crew on those disabled ships realized that their commander had abandoned them, they all surrendered and became prisoners of the Fa’iir. For a time, anyway. They didn’t have anywhere to put them because they couldn’t exactly bring them down to the surface, and there was nothing secure up in orbit. They used their tractor beams and positioned the Krus ships in orbit of Eomia, directly over hundreds of turrets that had already been installed and were online. That allowed a good portion of the Fa’iir fleet to continue to patrol their borders in case of another attack, while engineers boarded the Krus ships and disabled key systems.]

[The Fa’iir were in the process of building a prison so they could utilize the Krus ships for themselves when they were surprised to see the remainder of that original fleet appear at the edge of their system. Rather than attack, the Krus commander waited there and broadcasted that he wanted to talk to the Fa’iir leadership. It didn’t take long for the Fa’iir to agree, and soon the leader of the Fa’iir navy and the Krus commander were meeting on one of the newest Fa’iir ships; one that could easily accommodate the size and needs of other species.]

[He relayed why they had attacked, what had happened after he left and why he returned. What would you say to someone if they came to you after you defeated and captured the majority of their forces, offering to buy them back?]

[That they are batshit crazy, that's what I’d say. Even if I charged a lot more than it was actually worth, I would just be opening myself up to another attack by those very same forces.]

She laughed softly.

[That is likely the very same reaction that the majority of the military leaders around the galaxy would have, but it wasn’t the one the Fa’iir had. The specifics of the deal they made wasn’t known until a century later, but the Fa’iir didn’t accept a single credit and they returned all of the ships and their crews, safe and sound. Not only that, they also helped out the commander of those forces. It took another month to get all of the ships’ systems up and running, but as soon as they were good to go, the smaller Krus fleet and an entire battle group of Fa’iir ships left the system.]

[The Fa’iir ships weren’t as fast as their Krus counterparts, so it took about three months to make the trip. By that point, all of the debris in orbit of Sorix 6 had been cleaned up and defenses were starting to be built. Apparently the rival clan didn’t think that there was any chance of retaliation because they only left three fleet groups in the system; one in orbit of the planet while the other two were out patrolling the system.]

[Even though there is always one clan at the throats of another, one of the things that they do agree on is the navy. While different clans may have better ships than another, each clan uses the same standard operating procedures so that if another species does attack them, then there won’t be any chaos in their reaction. That's why the Krus commander timed the attack to commence in the early morning, just before shift change. Back then, the Krus only had two shifts rather than the conventional three. This meant that the crew on duty was tired and bored as they waited for relief to come so they could eat and then go to bed.]

[That first strike wing didn’t even know what hit them. Over eight hundred ships dropped out of hyperspace and started firing before the Krus operating those ships could register that they were under attack. They aimed to disable rather than destroy, which was made quite easy when there were four Fa’iir ships armed with ion cannons to every opposing Krus ship. In less than three minutes, every ship in the patrol fleet was either destroyed or without power to key systems, but that didn't stop them from getting a warning out to the other two strike groups. Unfortunately, their surprise attack was a little too successful, as the other two fleets quickly jumped out of the system.]

[Why unfortunately? The ships left and they regained control of the planet, isn't that what they wanted?]

[In part, but the Krus commander wanted to capture as many ships as possible to make up for the losses his clan had sustained. When they sent two strike groups to attack the Fa’iir, they left a complete battle group and another two strike wings that would have formed a seventh strike group within a year. All told, there was a combined fleet of around seven hundred ships defending Sorix 6. Their rival clan could easily field two and a half battle groups or a total of one thousand five hundred ships, and still have about half of that defending their own two systems.]

[There wasn’t enough debris when the Krus commander returned to his homeworld the first time around, even if the cleanup had begun almost immediately. There had been seven hundred ships and numerous planetary defense satellites, but it was clear that a significant number of ships had been captured by the rival clan. Apparently increased chatter and movement along one of their borders made them hightail it out of the Sorix system, but nothing really came of it. Whatever was drawing their attention precluded them from attacking the Sorix system again, but it seemed that they had little to no interest in doing so. It was already a win in their books, as they captured several hundred ships. Taking and keeping the Sorix system, even with all the resources it contained, would have been stretching their forces too thin.]

[So though they captured most of the ships in the strike group that they were able to capture, their numbers were still less than half of what they were previously. Worse than that was the fact that all of the orbital defenses had been destroyed, and their orbital shipyard and trade center had been towed away. The bottom line was that it would be a year or two, if not a little bit longer before a new shipyard could be built and the construction of ships cruiser-size and larger could resume. It was here that they utilized some of what they learned from the Fa’iir; that size isn't everything.]

[They decided to build frigates and destroyers in the meantime, right? They could probably build those pretty fast down on the surface, I bet.]

[Mhmm. Not only that, but they also decided to utilize ion weaponry after seeing how effective it was first hand. It was slowly falling out of favor as stronger and stronger weapons were designed and put in use, but they really made a comeback after that. It is by far the easiest way to take a ship without damaging it too much, after all. Any other way, you need to disable the engines and the hyperdrive--without blowing up the ship--and it's pretty much yours. The only other option is to activate the self-destruct, but that is usually a last resort and isn’t done unless there is sensitive information or technology onboard, or the attackers are known to nor treat prisoners well.]

[I still don't understand why the Fa’iir helped them after a bunch of their ships were destroyed and their people killed. What did they want, and how were they sure that the Krus could give it to them?] I asked.

[The smaller part was technology, as most of what the Krus had was better than what the Fa’iir were either able to reverse engineer or build using the Kobaloi engineer’s designs. While some of those designs would have been state of the art at the time, a lot of time had passed since then and others were able to catch up and surpass the capabilities of most of the systems. Had that first engagement between the Fa’iir and the Krus been a mirror image, at least in terms of the size and amount of ships, it wouldn’t have even been close. The Krus had better, more far-reaching weapons, better shields and stronger hulls, not that the last one matters too much when dealing with ion weaponry. It was Krus arrogance in thinking that the Fa’iir were inferior that caused them to suffer a defeat.]

[There were a few other smaller details, but the biggest part of the deal was, in broad terms, a mutual defense treaty and a flow of information from that Krus clan to the Fa’iir. Think of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm as a sphere, with Pygmaean-, Scyftan- and Confederation-controlled space being at the center, or the core of that sphere. Surrounding them are hundreds of other civilizations, some of which are spacefaring while others are not. Now just outside of that sphere is the Fa’iir homeworld, but aside from the Haix, who inhabit only a few small systems, the Krus are the next closest civilization.]

[The space they collectively control is vast, easily rivaling the size of three aforementioned empires, and is the most direct route to the Fa’iir homeworld. Unlike the three aforementioned empires, however, the Krus don’t patrol the borders of all of the space they control, that would require hundreds of patrolling fleets or millions of sensor beacons. What they have instead are five marked travel corridors through their space. Three of those are well-traveled trade corridors, but the other two are basically straight shots through their space to the expanse beyond. Anyone can use any of these five corridors to travel, even if it's some rich businessman on his pleasure yacht or an entire navy. As long as they can pay the fee and aren’t on the blacklist, then they can shave off weeks or months of time that would otherwise be spent traversing around Krus space.]

[And the clan we’re talking about is close to one of those travel corridors?]

[Nope, but every Krus clan, regardless of how big or small they are, benefit from those corridors, and not just in the trade they bring. When someone pays to use one of those five corridors, the credits are dispensed to the clans with the biggest ones getting more and the smaller ones getting less. Also, the moment someone pays, the number and type of ships are uploaded to a sort of record, which all of the clans have access to. Basically, if any military fleets were traveling close to Fa’iir space through one of those corridors, or even outside of one of those corridors and were detected, then that clan was required to let the Fa’iir leadership know about it.]

[Sounds like a good deal for the Fa’iir, but what did the clan get out of it?]

[Aside from having their ships returned to them and help with reclaiming the Sorix system, just the promise to come to aid if another clan or an outside force tried to attack them, and only if it was a defensive action. If the clan attacked another clan or another species, then they were on their own, but as long they were on the receiving end, then the Fa’iir would be there. That agreement lasted for a century which was when it became public knowledge. They were in talks after that and a new agreement was made, but neither has come to the other’s aid since then.]

[Even so, the Fa’iir haven’t lost a single engagement since they arrived on the galactic stage, and no one wants to mess with them. Not with the resources they have available to them. They’re not conquerors, but the space they control is getting close to rivaling that of the Krus and their navy dwarfs that of the Krus, or any other species’ navy for that matter. Different species around the galaxy have different estimates for how large their navy actually is, but no one actually knows. Everyone thinks they have between sixty and eighty thousand ships, but it’s actually closer to one hundred forty thousand, not including medical ships.]

“WHAT?!” I shouted, not realizing that I had said it outloud until people started looking at me oddly. After apologizing and having Abi ensure Zaszi that there was nothing wrong, I asked my question again.

She chuckled at my explanation, but was quick to explain. [The Fa’iir don’t throw away anything. Oh, they might need to be repaired a little more often, but even those first ships--at least those that aren’t in museums--are still in service. They’ve slowed their ship production down, simply because though their population is booming, especially as they colonize planets and terraform others, it isn’t growing so fast that they’re able to keep all of those ships crewed. Part of the reason why they have so many ships is that the vast majority--about one hundred thousand or so--are no bigger than a frigate. They’ve got a load of cruisers, battleships and even a few command ships now, but small, highly agile ships are their bread and butter.]

[Just how big is their empire now, anyways?]

[Bigger than you might think, but we’ll leave that for another time. You’re about to arrive and everyone is anxious to get going. Tich also wanted to take a minute and talk to you, he’s waiting up on the bridge.]