Captain’s log, October 3rd, 074 SDE,

The last three months have been quiet. Cylovan activity has been especially low to the point that no one is certain what they are doing or planning. Alliance and Union forces are now on high alert in all sectors, but no Cylovan ships have been spotted in their space for the last three months. Not even a scout ship has been spotted. This is highly unusual for the collective, and our new friends are very concerned about it. I think the Sylnari may know something, but I can’t ask them as they have chosen to withdraw contact for the time being. Selia was recalled just last week. It was rather sudden, but not entirely surprising.

In other news, we have finished the reorganization of the fleet. During the construction phase, an unexpected boon allowed us to increase the number of cruisers we wanted to build. We have upgraded the aft armor, and protections on the Sabre class. Her critical systems won’t be so vulnerable to a penetrating hit to the aft section. The fleet has also begun testing the new Phase Lance beam weapons, but the lab has still not been able to solve the problems faced by the pulsed variant. Early field tests have already revealed a few minor problems that were easily solved, and my Battlehawk commanders have enjoyed the upgrade so far. We are already considering outfitting the rest of the fleet with Phase Lances, and the Enterprise has already been equipped with the new system. The fleet currently has one hundred and four Firebird class frigates, fifty-four Sabre Class Destroyers, 20 Battlehawk class cruisers, four Kingdom class carriers, two City-ships, and four Hammer Class Yardships divided into five main groups.

We were able to remove our Sabres and Battlehawks from the scouting division in favor of sending the smaller and cheaper LPCs out ahead to scout. We currently have about a thousand assigned to scouting for the fleet, and a further two thousand are kept in reserve docked at our carriers, and city-ships. To create the docking space for them we had to reduce the number of available shuttle berths we had, but we managed to do it without greatly affecting the fleet’s fighter capacity. We still ended up having to disassemble a few fighters to make room for the ships, but we only lost about a thousand fighters total. Still a worthy trade-off given the flexibility improvements the ships provide.

 Speaking of new ships and flexibility improvements, I have recently been presented plans for a new light cruiser design. It is a project I approved months ago. The proposed Blueprints for the Star Knight depict a ship 1200 meters in length with a total of fifty-six decks. Protection will be enhanced overlord armor with an average thickness of 52 meters, in addition, she will carry energy webs, a stealth field generator, and a full electronic warfare suite. Her main drives include a standard warp drive, and eight high power triple-core Particle Pulse Wave Engines. The ship will include dual reactors for power, and extended long-range fuel cells. Her design includes an expanded hangar deck with space for twelve LPCs and seventy-two fighters Near the hangars she has an expanded cargo bay allowing her to carry significantly more material than most ships of her size class. Her hull has been heavily streamlined and treated to minimize detection. She is to be outfitted with a high-power class three sensor array giving her excellent vision. The proposed weapons array clearly showed that the designers have been keeping up with the latest weapons developments. She will carry four Phase Lance Beam arrays, fore and aft torpedoes, fifteen banks of medium cannon, and ten banks of light particle flak for anti-fighter uses. Four banks of current-gen Electro cannons will be mounted on the cruiser. Her designer stresses that the ship will be ideal for missions requiring fast, highly maneuverable and stealthy vessels. Such missions will include raiding and scouting missions.

Countryman paused his log and decided to ignore the current word count number. He had just received a notification that they were about to drop out of warp. He had not gotten around to mentioning it in his log, but they were about to meet up with the Grand Matriarchs of three nomadic clans, and the Ultocs of four more. Not to mention the Great Mothers of another two clans. In effect, a meeting between four separate nomadic races was about to take place, and from what he knew these races did not normally meet like this. He was honored that they had invited his fleet to take part in this historic meeting. They had already met the dog-like Vysonii, and would soon meet two new races, the Ulkor and the Ilyar. Both races had loose ties with the various Vysonii clans.

He had read the history that they had shared with him so far, and knew they warred with each other nearly as often as they met in peace. He doubted a meeting between so many clans, and four races would go peacefully. As such he had ordered that the entire fleet was to remain on high alert during the entire conference. As for why this meeting was happening, the Grand Matriarch that had called it, had so far chosen to withhold her reasons for declaring the meeting. Personally he suspect he had to deal with the Rykoni. Speaking of the Rykoni his campaigns against them had pushed them entirely out of the sector, and several surrounding ones. After the incident with the Black Flag, no Rykoni warlord had managed to field a fleet that could threaten his ships. His scouts had recently located the world called Ilyatria, and the rather interesting region of space near it. An interesting region that was flooded with deadly radiation, and strange anomalies. Ilyatrian technology functioned with rare materials taken from this field. Personally, he was very interested in the region and wanted to chart it. Something given the size would take years, and he was hoping to find things there to make the effort worth it.

Leaving his office he made the short walk to the bridge, his thoughts focused on future planning. He still needed to decide how many light cruisers he should propose that the council orders to be built if the Star Knight passes her trials. Of course, they still needed to build the ship, but they couldn’t do that while underway. He had brought the entire fleet with him in order to impress the clans they were meeting with. One hundred and eighty-four ships is a fairly sizable force for a nomadic clan. Not mention it gave his people plenty of room to grow. It would be a few years before they would have to expand their second city-ship, which was originally built to provide room for their previously cramped population. It was doing that job, but it had also become a science vessel. A large number of important labs were now located on the Avenger conducting research for the fleet. It was something they were able to do, since the majority of their industrial production was done by their Yardships. They were large mobile factories, and it was perfect to have them do most of the industrial manufacture the fleet needed. They still had some production on the two city-ships, but it was mostly consumer goods. In a pinch, the city-ships could be used to build other ships or maintain fleet assets if needed, but they were otherwise left free. The city-ships supported the majority of their agricultural production, but a recent proposal to build specialized agricultural vessels had recently been proposed to the council. It had merits, as space currently being used for agriculture could be converted to serve other purposes, but it also had its cons.

Having reached his command chair he dismissed his thoughts and surveyed the bridge. The mood was generally positive, and calm. It was a good sign. On the forward screen, the familiar streaks of stars slowed back to pinpricks as they slowed to sublight. Ahead was a calm, unremarkable system with three suns, and only one habitable planet. A dry rocky world covered with vast deserts, steppes, and mountain ranges. It was not the most hospitable of worlds, and it was rather active geologically. As a result of its dry, and active nature you were far more likely to encounter a river of lava than a source of water. They had scouted the system before arrival so he knew from the report that the only significant water sources were underground, and thanks to the three suns the days were quite long with nights averaging around four hours. Given the conditions on the planet, it came as no surprise that it remained uninhabited. Kind of hard to sustain a colony in the middle of nowhere on a planet with sparse food, and water. 

Turning to operations below, he asks, “Have the other fleets arrived?”

Misaki glanced up, and she reported, “All but one of the other fleets are here. I have detected eight city-ships in close proximity orbiting the planet. A temporary camp seems to have been built in the mountains, and shuttles have landed nearby for the meeting.”

Glancing at the console, and seeing how the other fleets had all anchored away from the meeting, and their city-ships were orbiting the planet, he then ordered, “Have the fleet hang back here, and set  us course for the planet. I want the weapons on standby just in case.”

She stretched a bit as she watched her screens. Entering orbit alongside her city-ship was the Refuge vessel, and she noted the lines of the massive ship. She was heavily armored with thick sturdy-looking plating. The ship bristled with weaponry, and her hull had sleek almost predatory lines. Everything about her screamed warship, and it was quite obvious that her builders had designed her for battle. It told her a great deal about the Refuge, and given their ability to disappear when they want to, told her more. The Refuge people were likely to be militaristic and understood the value of stealth. Many would assume that their use of stealth technology was a sign of racial paranoia, but the Grand Matriarch was well-traveled. Having met many races she knew that was not always the case.

She was glad to have found them, as she expected them to have a good idea on how to tackle the half-blind dreadnought that was still sitting in their backyard. Something that they needed to deal with before it finishes repairing itself. A task that was only going to be made harder by the fact that ten Cylovan Destroyers had joined the ship, and were now patrolling around it in a clear defensive formation. 

An officer pulled her from her thoughts by informing her that the last fleet had arrived, and she told them to prepare her shuttle. It was time she joined the others on the surface.

Countryman’s shuttle landed gently on the surface near the others. He was the only member of the Elder’s council on the surface to attend the meeting, but for appearance’s sake, he had brought four guards and two advisors with him. That was in addition to the regular shuttle crew who would stay with the ship. He had chosen to bring Reia with him, and General Forrest.  Forest was the overall commander of the fleet’s marines and ground forces so he was an ideal choice for the Military advisor. Reia, on the other hand, had proven herself as having good diplomatic sense so he brought her along with him.

His guards left the shuttle first, and he followed them out. The landing pad was a flattened plateau the ground paved in aging cracked concrete, and scored by the landing thrusters of countless ships over the ages. Not far from the landing pad was a small dome that had recently been erected, and consequently, it was the only structure on this miserable planet. He had barely stepped foot on it, and he was already uncomfortable. The heat was terrible, he disliked the feel of its gravity, and its magnetic field just felt wrong. This planet was making him painfully aware of those two extra senses he had gained thanks to The Storm. Technically it was three, but that last one wasn’t bothered by the planet. As for the heat, it wasn’t all that bad, he used to live in a desert so he was able to adjust without too much difficulty. Reia, on the other hand, he could sense hated the heat. Her original species came from a world cooler than earth, and while she had changed in almost the same ways they had they retained their ancestor’s preference for cooler climates.

Given the interbreeding now happening, they were practically a subspecies now. He gestured towards the door to the dome, and telepathically said, “Let’s get inside, and it should be cooler in the dome.”

She nodded, and they headed for the building. As they were approaching the dome another shuttle landed. It had launched before his shuttle had left the Enterprise. His shuttle had only landed first as pulse wave technology was decidedly superior to what the clans were using for propulsion. Not to mention the better thermal shielding on his shuttles allowed for a far steeper angle of entry. They paused, and a moment later a group disembarked from the other shuttle. It was a group of Vysonii, all of them were barely clothed. He recognized the figure in the lead as the Grand Matriarch that had called this meeting. In-person she looked a great deal shorter than she had on the comms. He wished he had a name to call her by, but the Vysonii all had this particular culture trait of discarding their names when they gained office. Fortunately, they at least took up their clan name to distinguish themselves from their counterparts in other clans. This one had introduced herself as Grand Matriarch Eninaci.

They waited for them to get close, and greeted her, “It is a pleasure to meet you in person, Grand Matriarch.”

She shifted her posture a bit, and returned the greeting, “It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Supreme Protector. I must say you have an impressive shuttle. Your decent angle was practically vertical and the ship looks fine.”

“We have good engines and thermal shielding, but I doubt you invited us all this way just to admire a shuttle though. May I ask what was so important that a meeting between clans was needed?” responded Countryman. 

She shifted a bit, and replied “No, I didn’t. I think it best if I reveal that with all the clan heads. We still have one more shuttle to wait for though. Also is something bothering you? You all seem a bit irritated?”

Countryman was surprised a bit, that she had managed to read into their discomfort, and replied, “I’m afraid something is, but if it makes you feel better it has nothing to do with you.”

He wasn’t going to mention that they were being bothered by what their extra senses were telling them. The Matriarch nodded and led the way into the dome. Within the building, they found a large meeting room with a table in the middle. It had been set up with ten sides, and each side had three seats. One for the clan head, and two for their advisors.

Countryman surveyed the aliens in the room. The first new species he saw looked a lot like the mythological minotaur if you ignored the green fur with yellow spots, and the fact that the tallest one was a grand total of eighty centimeters tall. The short height made their appearance almost comical, but the other new species was a little more interesting.

They weren’t very tall either, with small lithe and very flexible looking bodies. They had human-like faces with a catlike nose and whiskers. On their heads sprouted a cute pair of pointed catlike ears. A light coating of fur-covered their bodies, but their chests and bellies were furless. They had a single pair of breasts that tended to be small. A long sleek fur-covered tail extended from their rears. Their culture seemed to have the same view on clothes that the Vysonii had as they were mostly naked. In fact, they actually wore a little more, but that still failed to cover the breasts of the girls. All of the ones he had seen were in fact female.

Suddenly he sensed something coming at him from behind with his eighth sense, and whirled from his hand a low powered bolt of electrical energy shot out like a bolt of lightning, and struck one of the alien catgirls in mid pounce. Limply she slammed into him, but he stayed on his feet and caught her. The entire room went silent, as for the catgirl she was just stunned not dead. He had not put enough energy into the discharge to kill her, and he noticed his guards were on higher alert now.

The first to speak was Grand Matriarch Eninaci, “I’m sorry about that I should have warned you that Ilyar like to test newcomers. Although I think the question on everyone’s mind is what kind of weapon did you just use?”

Countryman handed the still limp Ilyar off to a compatriot carefully as his hand was still sparking a bit, and replied, “A natural one. We can discharge electricity if we need to.”

Countryman had actually used the ability before but that was back in the Storm. It was a very useful adaptation in The Storm. The ever-persistent radiation in the storm meant they were likely to encounter crazed mutants every time they stopped to salvage a dead husk. Given how energy sources and ammunition were hard to come by in the Storm natural weapons like theirs became more valuable in a boarding operation.

“I shudder to imagine what natural predators exist on your world for you to evolve that as a natural weapon,” said the Matriarch. Countryman decided not to elaborate, and they spent the next couple of hours talking as they waited for that last shuttle to land, and for the last of the Ulkor Ulthocs to arrive. He came in quite suddenly, and Countryman sensed he was exhausted.

He immediately said, “Sorry to have kept you waiting. Would have been here sooner, but my group was attacked by a Rykoni fleet. They weren’t too strong so I was able to repulse them without major losses.”

Grand Matriarch Eninaci bid him to sit, and opened up the meeting by informing everyone about the half-blind dreadnought she had found.