A few hours later the fleet of three ships left Earth orbit while towing the Star Tech station behind them. As they left Earth orbit Countryman silently vowed that they would return in 10,000 years and wondered if the monument to the past they left on Luna would survive. This time of year Mars and Earth were not at their closest points on typical system charts Mars was on the lowest point of its orbit approaching Jupiter. Mercury was closest to Earth at this point in its orbit with Venus at the furthest point of its orbit to Earth. Their course was also complicated by the fact that the system was riddled with debris fields, minefields, and radiation fields that were created as a result of the colonial wars and the more recent Cathamari war. They had to plot a course that avoided the older colonial minefields that wouldn’t recognize them as friendlies or simply lacked a friend-foe recognition system. The resultant course to Mars took them relatively close to Mercury, but not close enough to actually see it on visual sensors. Towing a station also slowed them down, since they couldn’t tow something that big at warp. That and warp towing was mostly theory anyway and no one wanted to risk the station on a theory anyway.

Countryman was comfortable in his quarters reading a book in the after-hours of the day on June 7th when he was suddenly summoned to the bridge. As he headed up to the bridge he started wondering what it could be, since they were in the middle of nowhere. Since the crew hadn’t put the ship on tactical alert he could assume it wasn’t a Cathamari attack. The instant he stepped on to the bridge he saw the distinctive shape of an old first colonial war era cruiser, he recognized it as Olympia class. The ship was long and cylindrical with a hammerhead-shaped front section. It had three massive rotating rings around the ship. These rings were used back then to provide artificial gravity instead of grav plates. He took his seat and then he asked for a report.

“Not much to report, sir. The cruiser on screen is roughly 4500 Km out from us and 3 degrees off starboard. I haven’t been able to identify her but scans indicate that someone has outfitted her with modern photon missiles.”

“No need she is Olympia class. How many life signs?”

“165 sir. It's hard to imagine traveling on one of those ships. No grav plates, no inertial dampers, and no regenerative life support.” remarked the young man currently sitting at operations.

“Deactivate hull plating and hail the ship,” ordered Countryman. Countryman had the hull plating deactivated because it scatters sensor signals when active. This scattering effect is caused by the built-in dispersion field generators. It also makes scanning inside the equipped ship difficult without specially configured sensors. Most human ships, are naturally designed to use these specially configured sensors and as a result, they can see each other easily, but the older Olympias use radar and can’t detect ships equipped with overlord armor.

“Aye, sir.”

Moments later a young woman appeared on the screen. Before Countryman could say a thing she was speaking.

“Are you heading to take back Mars?”

“No, I regret to inform you that Earth is gone,” replied Countryman.

“Gone what do you mean gone?”

“Simple, we lost the war. Now we are currently heading to Mars for extra supplies before we leave the system. Why don’t you join us?” asked Countryman.

A few minutes of conversation later she agreed. Her crew then transferred over along with their supplies. They set her ship on a gentle course before continuing on their way. A few days later they entered high orbit over Mars. As they entered orbit their view was dominated by the wreckage of the eight battles fought in Mars orbit by Humans and the Cathamari. 

Countryman watched the wreckage of a fairly intact O'Brien class destroyer drift by, before asking Sanchez to chart a course through the wreckage. It took nearly an hour to get past the wreckage to a point in low orbit that would allow them to safely launch shuttles for the purpose of finding supplies on Mars. Countryman’s view was dominated by the wreckage of a Lincoln Class Carrier.

“Scan the planet and deploy shuttles to search the wreckage.”

“Aye, sir” acknowledged Misaki

A few moments later with the first of the scout shuttles leaving to search the wreckage for usable equipment and supplies, Misaki informed Countryman of the results of her scan. Most of the planet was radioactive wastelands but parts of the northern hemisphere were still habitable. Countryman ordered shuttles sent down to find edible food supplies. The search of the debris field yielded little in usable material but the search of the Martian agricultural areas yielded a few new plants to supplement their food stores including martian chocolate. The area though was devastated and the yields low, apparently no one had cleaned up the last ground battle on Mars. The bodies of soldiers on both sides lay where they fell. Hundreds of miles of farmland were burned with destroyed tanks and walkers scatter across the battlefield. The search teams buried anyone Human they could find, but left the Cathamari bodies to rot in the open.

 During the search, Countryman had gone to his ready room. The room had a large desk with a built-in console on the right side facing the door positioned near the rear wall. The rear wall was dominated by a viewport. The right side wall was dominated by shelves featuring models of ships dating as far back as the first colonial war. The left had a few photos framed on it and a few cabinets. Countryman was sitting at the desk performing maintenance on his cannon when Kaori rang the bell.

“Come,” said Countryman moments later Kaori walked in.

“Is that an E-11” asked Kaori.

“It was 50 years ago. While the casing is still that of an E-11, I have upgraded it to an EX-94 Mod C-2,” replied Countryman.

“I’m not familiar with that modification.

“I’m not surprised the mod is fairly new. It has better range and power than the standard but a lower fire rate. Anyway did you need something?”

“No, I’m here to tell you, we have finished our survey and salvage operation of the debris field. Other than some Rydium, deuterium, and a few intact engine parts there was little of interest. It appears the Cathamari have left the area but there was one unusual thing found.”

“What was that?”

“We detected a Cathamari plasma trail without the typical spatial distortions heading out of Mars orbit.”

“That would indicate they left on sublight. How old was the trail?”

“22 days sir” replied Kaori. Countryman noted that would place the time of the Cathamari departure on May 27th. Four days after the Battle of Earth.

“Did you note the direction?”

“The heading was out of the solar system, sir.”

“Then let's prepare for our own departure.”

A few moments later the two entered the bridge, Countryman took his seat and ordered a course out of the debris field. This time it took less time to pass through due to the mapping of the field. As they were clearing the field Ruri entered the bridge.

“Captain I have completed the simulations on the proposed enhancements,” said Ruri.

“Alright let’s hear the results,” replied Countryman.

“The proposed enhancements on the absorbers increased absorption by 10 mw per second per absorber. The proposed improvements of the AIF field increases field density by 15% and AIF regeneration by 25%. The overall enhancement of the armor will increase damage absorption by 21% after optimization. The energy web enhancements will increase efficiency by 12% and intercept chance by 2.3%. I also ran simulations on long-range energy projections and efficiency measures. I put all the details in Ruri-23 Alpha. In short, by shutting down all non-essential systems and minimizing power in most of the primaries, life support will be unaffected, but we will dim the lights to a minimum, we can function on with both main reactors at 60 % output and it will increase the range to 5557 lightyears. 5567 if we restrict to aux power while on sublight.”

“Good we will probably need them and we can make do with minimal lighting. When can they be installed?” asked Countryman.

“It will take two days to install the enhancements, 4 days to implement the power conservation measures,” replied Ruri.

“Get an engineering team on it,” ordered Countryman.

“Aye sir”, replied Ruri as she moved to leave. But before she could Countryman asked her a question.

“How goes the project on decks 193 and 194?”

“On schedule sir,” replied Ruri then she left. As she left Greyman approached.

“Sir, we are not too far from Jupiter, a detour to visit the colonies there might be worth it,” said Greyman

“For now we will set course for mining sector 23. The conditions there would be perfect for stashing our starbase.” replied Countryman.

“Aye sir,” replied Greyman

“Sanchez lay in a course for mining sector 23,” ordered Countryman.

“Aye sir, course laid in” replied Sanchez.

“Engage,” said Countryman.

 Moments later the ships began to head toward the asteroid belt. With the station in tow, it took three days to reach the edge of mining sector 23. The sector was filled with debris. During the war, the sector had been the site of multiple engagements, before the war it had a number of mining colonies that provided materials for ship construction in the outer system. Nowadays it was filled with debris, mines and radiation field generators. The radiation field generators were devices designed to flood an area with deadly radiation, combined with the mines it made the sector impassable to Cathamari cruisers.

“We are at the edge of the sector sir,” reported Eri

“Raise shields, full power to hull plating,” ordered Countryman.

“Raising shields,” stated the officer at science station one.

“Hull plating at full power, sir” reported Kaori at tactical.

“Take us in 1/4 thrust,” ordered Countryman.

“Aye sir 1/4 thrust,” replied Eri.

The ships slowly moved into the debris field, mines and debris bounced off the hull as they moved in. The mines didn’t explode due to a device in them designed to enable them to recognize friendly ships. The shields protected the ship from the radiation bombardment but physical matter passed through them with ease. It took several hours to reach the center of the sector. As the ship slowed Countryman took a moment to survey the field even though the heavy radiation reduced sensor ranges to a few dozen kilometers and visual sensors were equally impaired greatly limiting what he could see.

“All stop” ordered Countryman.

“Aye sir” replied Eri at the helm.

“Release tractors,” ordered Countryman,

“Tractors released.”

Moments later the projectors pulled back the plates and returned to their housings. Star Tech One had reached its new home. The spare resources they couldn’t take with them were now safe in case they needed to come back for them. As the station stabilized in its new orbit, Countryman accessed its systems and activated the defense protocols he had installed over the last few days. With the station in place, the fleet set course to leave mining sector 23. It took several hours to clear the sector. They cleared the sector 2.2 Au out from Jupiter and ran straight into a remnant of the Cathamari fleet. 12 cruisers dead ahead, all with moderate to heavy damage.

The ship shook slightly.

“Report,” barked Countryman.

“That was a Cathamari plasma shot, it overloaded our shields but, hull plating is holding,” replied Richards. No one was surprised, the shields weren’t good at blocking weapons fire, and prone to overloading in combat which is why Human warships never raise shield during battle, although the shield does help against low yield beam cannons, and some mid yield beam weapons. High yield beam weapons though would overload the shields, and regardless of yield, the beam will still strike the hull, just at a reduced strength. However, none of this matters, since the Cathamari doesn’t use beam weapons. All of their weapons are strong enough to overload the weak human shields.

“How many ships?” asked Countryman.

“12 sir, 6700 km out in a shield formation sensors indicate they have sustained heavy damage and all have lost warp capability,” answered Kaori.

“Order our escorts to flank. Helm ahead full,” ordered Countryman.

“They're firing torpedoes,” reported Misaki

“Deploy energy web,” ordered Countryman.

Reddish spheres impacted the web and a few struck the hull.

“Hull plating at 89% sir,” reported Richards referring to the energy field running through the hull plating.

“Return fire all forward particle batteries and scan their torpedo bays,” ordered Countryman.

“Aye sir,” replied Kaori and Misaki.

An instant later the Enterprise’s forward particle cannons opened up and began to bombard the Cathamari shield. The blueish energy burst rippled against their shields. As they entered effective Electro Cannon range.

“Their bays are almost empty sir,” reported Misaki who had just scanned their torpedo bays.

“They’re firing again,” reported tactical.

“Deploy energy web,” ordered Countryman. Internally happy they were almost out of torpedoes, especially since the torpedoes were the only weapon they had that could damage the Enterprise while her hull plating was charged. The hull plating would start taking damage from the torpedoes at around 20% and they would start penetrating at 10%. The energy web helped a great deal, as it could neutralize a fair number before they could interact with the hull.

The last of the Cathamari torpedoes shot across space and impacted the energy web a few got through. The Cathamari then attempted to increase the distance and move away. Countryman was not surprised since he would have made the same move given the circumstances.

“Hull Plating 80%, sir” reported Richards.

“They are trying to move away sir” reported Kaori.

“Maintain distance, and inform me the moment the Coto and Umikaze report they are in position” ordered Countryman. He leaned back in his chair, happy with the situation. His hull plating was too strong for their main guns, his escorts had significantly less armor, but they were smaller and harder to hit so he wasn’t worried about them. Tactically his position was superior and barring reinforcements his victory was assured. His only real worry is if the electro cannons failed.

“Enemy ships are firing their plasma cannons, hull plating is holding,” reported Kaori at tactical.

“Shall I fire the Electro Cannons?” asked Kaori.

“Not yet” replied Countryman. Waiting so he could attack from multiple angles and maximize the resulting stress on the Cathamari shields. He wanted the shield down quickly, since he couldn’t be certain they had called for reinforcements. Which could easily ruin his day. The vessels continued to exchange fire with each other to little effect for several minutes before the destroyers reached flanking positions. Then Countryman gave the order:

“All ships fire electro cannons,” ordered Countryman.

A lightning-like discharge ripped from all three ships and impacted the Cathamari shield within seconds it collapsed. As it collapsed a massive pulse of light rippled outwards, as the entire linked shield grid, overloaded and destabilized generating an emp in the process.

“Enemy shields down, sir” reported tactical.

“All ships fire beams and cannons on all targets” ordered Countryman, relieved the cannons had worked and brought the shields down, more easily than his wildest predictions. Making these new cannons his trump card, the short range and high energy requirements though would limit their use. Working cannons removed several worries from his list, but he still had other concerns.

The ships opened fire. Thousands of blue particle bolts were rapidly fired by the main batteries of all three human ships, while the beam arrays fired powerful particle beams aimed at key locations with the intent of causing secondary explosions. The vulnerable Cathamari attempted evasive maneuvers to no avail. Within seconds all twelve of the ships were torn apart, just a few more floating chunks of debris in a system choked with it.

“Scan the area I want to know where they were headed,” ordered Countryman as he surveyed the battlefield.

“Local plasma trails indicate a course towards Jupiter sir,” replied Misaki.

“Focus long-range sensors on Jupiter, I want to know why they were headed there,” ordered Countryman.

“I am picking up an outpost in high orbit,” reported Misaki.

“Sanchez set a course,” ordered Countryman.

“Course set,” reported Sanchez.

“Helm, follow the course, full sublight,” ordered Countryman.

Moments later the ships surge forward. Within minutes they were moving at high speed. A few hours later they arrived in high Jupiter orbit. Even here the debris of past battles was everywhere.

“I have the station on visual scanners sir” reported Misaki

“Time to weapons range?” asked Countryman

“At current speed, we will enter effective torpedo range in 12 minutes,” reported Kaori.

“Scan the station,” ordered Countryman

“The station appears to be an automated Cathamari supply and repair station, sir. Minimal defensive armaments and class I shielding. It does not represent a tactical threat.” reported Misaki.

“Lock torpedoes on her defense mainframe. Set yield to 15 megatons,” ordered Countryman.

“Torpedoes locked, sir. Yield set,” reported tactical.

A few minutes later.

“Distance to target 90,000 Km, sir,” reported tactical.

“Fire,” ordered Countryman, as he watched the screens.

Three blue streaks flew out from one of the forward launchers and struck the station. One of them was blocked by the shields the other two pierced the station’s shields and struck the stations hull.

“Her defense systems have lost power, sir,” reported Kaori.

“Close to 24,000,” ordered Countryman.

“Aye, sir, closing,” acknowledged Eri at the helm.

“Prepare a boarding party,” ordered Countryman.

A moment later

“We are now 24,000 km from the station. Shall I initiate an orbit?” asked Eri.

“Yes, Operations launch the boarding party,” ordered Countryman.

A few moments later a pair of shuttles left the ship and headed to the station. With the station's defense systems down the shuttles easily reached the station without opposition and docked. Once docked the marines on board entered the station by hacking the airlock doors, no point damaging something you might need later it you can help it. The station's anti-personnel defenses were still online, however. So as soon as they were on board, they began to make their way to the central control room, the only location on the station from which the internal defense could be disabled. The marines were well trained and this wasn’t the first station that Earth had raided in their war with the Cathamari, so they knew what to expect. As they made their way to the control room one man, got unlucky and his personal armor failed at just the wrong moment and a plasma bolt burned through his chest cavity killing him. Once at the control room, it took the marine’s hacker only a couple of minutes to break the station’s encryption protocols, and disable the defenses. Once that was done the marines reported to the Enterprise.

“Boarding party here, we lost Thomas, but the internal defenses are offline sir,” said the Commander in charge of the party a man named Everson.

“Good, I will send the engineers over,” replied Countryman, moments before ordering the shuttle with the combat engineer team aboard to launch. Not happy to lose a man under his command, but it wasn’t the first time nor would it be the last. Countryman focused at the task at hand.

A few moments later another shuttle headed out to the station. Once on the station, the engineers began to search it for anything useful. They came back an hour later with Cathamari data modules and warp engine parts. Once Ruri and Richards saw the Cathamari engine components they came to Countryman with a proposal. Countryman was in his ready room going over engineering reports when the two rang the bell.

“Enter,” said Countryman.

They entered the room excitedly and began speaking a dozen words a minute.

“Calm down and start over I can barely understand you,” said Countryman.

“The Cathamari engine components on the station are quite different from ours, but have some key fundamental similarities,” stated Richards.

“You think they can be used to enhance our engines?” asked Countryman.

“With time and effort we might be able to use them to enhance our engines, but without access to a working Cathamari warp engine progress will be slow,” replied Ruri.

“You want my permission to study these components then?” asked Countryman.

“Yes, sir,” confirmed Ruri.

“You have it, the project is low risk and the reward will definitely aid the search for a new homeworld,” replied Countryman. Then as the two turned to leave Countryman asked Richards to stay a moment.

“Anything else of interest on the station?” asked Countryman.

“Not really it looks like the Cathamari stripped it of almost everything, there was just enough material there to repair and resupply the twelve ships we encountered. Which makes it look like the main Cathamari fleet pulled out and left this station for the damaged ships,” reported Richards.

“Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis, get someone on those data modules I hear we picked up,” replied Countryman.

“Aye sir,” replied Megumi as she turned to leave. Then the bell rang.

“Enter,” said Countryman. A second later Williams entered the room as Megumi left. Williams seemed a bit flustered and concerned over something.

“Can I help you?” asked Countryman.

“I am convening a meeting of the Officer’s Council on an urgent matter,” replied Williams.

“May I ask what the topic of discussion is?” asked Countryman.

“Our current rationing system isn’t working and logistics seem to be having trouble keeping track of where our food supplies are located. Just yesterday they lost three hundred pounds of potatoes,” answered Williams.

“First I heard of it, but I am a bit behind on reports” replied Countryman while indicating the three-inch stack of unread reports on his desk. Williams took a look at them and then said:

“The problem is that with over 30,000 people, both military and civilian it becomes almost impossible to keep track of who gets what and when even with the computer’s help and then thefts are inevitable as well. In fact, most of the issues are coming from the civilian side of the issue, the rationing program just wasn’t designed with civilians in mind. We have also had a few protests on the rationing from the civilian side,” said Williams.

“I have heard of the protests, rationing has never gone over well with civilians, but I have a few ideas that might help. See you at the meeting” replied Countryman

The Meeting convened a few hours later. By that time the crew had scuttled the Cathamari station and they were now scouting the local debris fields. As Countryman entered he noted that all the other officers on the council were present. He took his seat and Williams presented the problem. A number voiced various ideas before Countryman voiced his:

“We could issue people single-use credits that they can use as currency. It will be transferred into their accounts for completing their tasks. To ensure people work to fleet standards they will receive zero credits if they do not work or substandard work. We could offer bonus credits if their work is superior. One credit will equal one meal. People will be able to use them for anything they need. Which should make the civilians happier as well since it won’t feel like a rationing system, but getting paid instead,” proposed Countryman. Almost all the other ideas were discarded and the company began to debate the two that remained. Eventually, they decided on Countryman’s, but began to argue on some of the details. 

“The ration credit is a good idea, but without a proper limit they would be useless,” said one officer.

Sparking a bit of a debate, with some officers wanting around a month as the limit and the rest is highly in favor of a day.

“ I keep saying they should expire after a day,” said Williams.

“For now let's try issuing them on electronic pads keyed to the user’s biosignature with a one week limit. We can adjust the limit later if we need to,” suggested Countryman.

Several murmurs went around the room about the last suggestion before they decided to go with Countrymans final suggestion. With that, the meeting moved on to how to deal with the problems in logistics. It took several hours to reach a decision on that.

By the time the meeting adjourned it was 22:40 hours ship time. Countryman headed to the bridge and asked for a report:

“We finished sweeping the debris field and are currently in a high orbit over Jupiter” reported the night shift duty officer.

“Anything interesting?” asked Countryman.

“Not really, sir, most of it has already been picked clean by scavengers. The only thing left of use are the metal alloys, but the bays are pretty full so we have nowhere to put it,” replied the duty officer.

“Well then hold the fort,” replied Countryman before heading off to bed.

The next day on June 19th they set course for the closest star of the Alpha Centauri system and engaged the warp engines. They estimated that at 11 times the speed of light it would take about 20 weeks to reach their destination.