Captain’s Log February 6th, 001 SDE

We are now approaching a system named Vela, scans reveal it has 12 planets, 3 of which lie in the habitable zone, it is a G type star with a similar spectral configuration to our own sun. We are hoping we will be able to establish a colony here, but there is no guarantee that any of the planets would be habitable. In other news, the first child since the destruction of Earth was born today. I hear she is a healthy young baby girl, that her parents named Eva

“Sir, we are secure from warp speed,” reported Eri.

As they came out of warp, weapons fire could be seen being exchanged in the distance. But the immediate area was clear of activity. Eight ships could be seen fighting in the distance. Four cruisers and an equal number of destroyers were engaged in battle the debris of several more sunken ships scattered across the area. All but one of these ships belong to the Cathamari. The alien cruiser had light condense at a single point on one of its emitter arrays and a beam cut across space from that point to hit a Cathamari destroyer. Her shields flared blocking a fair portion of the beam, but some of it punched through to melt the hull armor cutting a swath into the destroyers side half its length. The destroyer returned fire with a full broadside, Cathamari Concussion Plasma bolts ripped across space to strike the alien cruiser her shields having failed from a previous strike did little to stop them. Several bolts were absorbed by the ship’s armor, but a couple pierced the plates, rupturing the hull. Atmosphere and objects violently vented into space for a couple of seconds before emergency force shields snapped into place, effectively sealing the breach. While the alien cruiser maneuvered to avoid further impacts, another destroyer got a bead and dumped her torpedoes on the cruiser while taking several hits from her port batteries which caused the destroyers shields to fail. Forcing her to fall back. Before the torpedoes could hit the cruiser finished cycling her shields and they came back up just in time to absorb the impacts of the torpedoes they couldn’t avoid.

“Scan the area, I want to know who is fighting,” ordered Countryman.

“I am picking up the debris of several Cathamari warships, 3 Ravager class cruisers, 4 Rapier class destroyers, and one ship of unknown design,” reported Misaki.

“Check the Cathamari Database.”

“It's not in their database, but the general design parameters identify it as a Krall cruiser,” reported Misaki.

“Full power to the hull plating, charge the weapons and Eri move to aid the Krall cruiser,” ordered Countryman.

“Aye sir”

The ship rapidly closed the distance. They were almost on top of the combatants when they were detected. Two Cathamari destroyers moved to engage, one of them had lost shields and the others shields were on the brink of collapse.

“Beams, fire target DDR-2,” ordered Countryman.

Twin blue beams lanced out and cut across her unshielded hull. The beams did not pierce the hull but partially depolarized the ship’s hull. Then both ships unloaded a volley of torpedoes on the Enterprise. Large reddish spheres of plasma lanced out across the void to strike at the Enterprise.

“Deploy energy web, return fire all particle batteries,” ordered Countryman.

The web sprang into existence and neutralized most of the Cathamari torpedoes with some of them impacting the hull. The Enterprise returned fire with a mixed barrage of particle cannon fire and beam strikes which destroyed DDR-2 and dealt heavy damage to DDR-1.

“Hull plating 87%, sir” reported Richards

“DDR-2 sinking, sir” reported Kaori.

“Beams, fire target DDR-1,” ordered Countryman.

Twin beams lanced out and speared through the hull of DDR-1 as she was attempting to retreat. Moments later the ship went dark and then a second strike from the beam array went through the ship's main reactors and the ship was torn apart by a matter-antimatter explosion.

“Sir the remaining Cathamari ships are moving to engage us”

“Eri maneuvering pattern vulture,” ordered Countryman. The vulture pattern was a simple pattern in which one circles their target while maintaining maximum weapons range. Earth vessels used this pattern heavily in the war due to their superior maneuverability and weapons range compared to their cathamari counterparts.

“Aye, sir, pattern vulture,” acknowledged Eri. Before shifting the ship into a circling maneuver, while coordinating with tactical and the other ships, so that they could fire on their foes freely.

“All ships, fire at will,”

“Aye, sir, firing at will,” acknowledged Kaori.

Moments later all three ships began to bombard the Cathamari ships with particle fire. Hundreds of bolts sailed across the void to impact the targeted Cathamari. BCHR-2 sank almost instantly as her shields were already on the verge of collapse. The bolts splashed against the ship's weakened shields, which flickered and then failed. The following bolts ripped into the hull of BCHR-2 like it was tissue paper. One of the bolts hit the reactor and the ship lost containment, causing an explosion that ripped the ship apart. The Krall cruiser took advantage of the situation and moved away from the Cathamari ships before coming about and bombarding the Cathamari ships with beam weapons fire. Powerful beams of plasma ripped across space and struck the Cathamari ships, their shields straining to block even a portion of the beam. Some of the beams ripped past the shields and melted large chunks of the hull plating. The Cathamari ships did not hold up well under the bombardment, the two remaining cruisers quickly lost shields and were ripped apart by human particle cannon blasts. The destroyers did not last much longer, the first sank when a Krall plasma beam struck the hull while her shields were down, melting through the polarized plating cutting right through the main engine room and out the other side, the resulting secondary explosions reducing the ship to an expanding cloud of debris. The other destroyer tried to run but was ripped apart by particle cannon fire the instant she tried to go to warp. With the enemy ships sunk the Enterprise hailed the Krall ship. It took a few moments to establish a commlink.

The Krall ship-leader was observing the battle. She could hear her battle-leader barking out orders when suddenly one of the officers shouted out.

“Sir, three unidentified ships on approach vector, distance 14700 Metrasi (12000 km)”

Intrigued she asked a question of the officer even though the battle-leader was currently in charge. “How did they get so close without being detected.”

“Their power signatures are unusually low and for some reason, their hull is scattering sensor signals,” replied the officer

The battle-leader barked an order to change maneuvering patterns and then asked:

“Are their battle systems charged?”

“Yes sir, their firing”

When they didn’t feel anything and none of the indicators went off, the battle-leader asked:

“Did they miss?”

“No they hit one of the new Cathamari destroyers its hull plating has dropped to 14%, and the interesting part is they used a beam weapon,” replied the officer.

The ship-leader was intrigued, but they had little time to investigate the new ships. A few moments later the new ships drew the attention of the Cathamari fleet and they took advantage of the situation to get out of the crossfire then they came about and opened fire on the surviving Cathamari ships within minutes the fleet was torn apart by the barrage. She took note of the fact that the new aliens employed powerful particle weapons that could rip through hull plating like it was made of tissue paper. Then suddenly they were being hailed by the new ships. The ship-leader took command and a few minutes later managed to align their comm system to establish a link. She was somewhat surprised though that they hailed her ship on sublight bands.

Seconds after the link was established, an alien female appeared on his screen. Her features were generally reptilian, but there were a few exceptions. The most notable exception were her mid-sized breasts. She had a short snout, purple eyes and her scales were arranged in beautiful patterns of red and gold. She was wearing some sort of armor that was predominantly leather with thin silvery metal plates layered across the torso. She was surrounded by the features of an alien bridge, strange consoles covered with strange alien text in purple characters could be seen in the background. The alien female seemed to regard him for a moment before speaking,

“I am ship-leader Tika of Krall Imperial Cruiser Teketh, in the name of the Imperium I greet you.”

“I am Captain Countryman of the Sol Refuge ship EFS Enterprise, we gladly greet enemies of the Cathamari,” replied Countryman.

“I was not aware the Cathamari had any other enemies in this sector,” replied Tika.

“We are the last of our people, we have been at war with the Cathamari since they invaded our home system nearly three years ago.”

“That implies you lost the conflict,” said Tika.

“They had FTL capability we did not, we fought valiantly, but we could not develop the tech to strike at them in time. We now search for a new home.”

“Your actions today have proven your honor. I will help you.”

“Do you require any further assistance?”

“That depends do you have warp towing capability? Our inversion drive was damaged during the battle and my engineers are telling me it will take some time to repair.”

“We have towing capability, but I am not sure about warp,” replied Countryman. Warp towing was still mostly theory and they had been to busy to test it.

“Can you send us the specs or are they classified?”

“I can send them, our tractors aren’t classified.

The Krall female looked at the specs and then told Countryman that the beams should remain stable during warp. Only mentioning a need for expanding the ship’s warp field to encompass both ships. As she was studying the specs, one of her officers told her something interesting about the hull of the Enterprise. She got this information by adapting the sensors to compensate for the signal scattering, but she still couldn’t penetrate the hull.

“...Also, my science officer tells me she found trace amounts of salt compounds on your hull, but she can’t explain them.”

“Probably from water that evaporated during launch,” replied Countryman.

“Water, you can’t possibly mean a ship of your size class was surface-launched, can you?

“We were.”

“But that would require incredibly powerful engines.”

“One of the benefits of Rydium based particle pulse wave engine’s is that they nullify 60% of a ship’s mass. They also provide large amounts of thrust, that is highly dependent on available energy,” replied Countryman.

“Rydium? I’m not familiar with it, but it sounds like a very powerful and useful material,”

“Yes, we discovered it quite by accident. It is a remarkably stable superheavy element, with equally remarkable properties, it is heavily used in propulsion, but it has applications in other fields as well, mostly anything involving energy conversion,”

“Well, most of the big breakthroughs are discovered by accident. Since you mention most of the application’s for it involve energy conversion, that sounds like it is useful in power generation,”

“Yes, propulsion, power generation, and cooling systems are the big examples. But raw Rydium is useless outside of propulsion and must be refined and combined with several other materials to be of any use in other applications. Refined Rydium is also more useful than the raw stuff when used for propulsion,” replied Countryman.

“Interesting, our scientists would probably be drooling over a new material,”

“I’m sure they would, now let's get on with that tow,” said Countryman.

A few minutes later the Enterprise took the Teketh in tow while expanding her warp field to encompass the ship, and then set course for Illeria a nearby system that is host to a Krall Outpost. A few moments after initiating the towing beams they jumped to warp. At warp four it took them nearly eleven days to reach the system.

Tika was a bit bored, they had been at warp nearly a week now and there was little to do while being towed by another ship. Coming out of the lift she entered the bridge which was mostly empty and was almost immediately waved over by her science officer.

“Ship-leader our new friends are fascinating,” said the young female officer.

“Oh in what way?” asked Tika.

“Sir, contrary to normal starship design their ships lack a deflector. Instead, it is their armor that deals with translight particle impacts,” said the officer excitement evident in her voice.

“Their armor? How is that possible?” asked Tika wondering what the ship was made of for that to be possible.

“Scanning their armor was difficult, but I was able to get a general idea. Their hull plating is composed of a previously unknown titanium-based alloy and reinforced by a multilayered structural reinforcement field. My analysis indicates their armor provides protection comparable to Valorian Omicron shields, in fact, I believe it is superior. Especially given the embedded energy absorption matrix I found. Which absorbs incoming fire and shunts it into the SRF,” replied the officer. While showing Tika the supporting sensor data which showed how the ship was dealing with the translight particle impacts. Tika than asked, “Are you sure their armor is stronger than Valorian shields?”

“Yes, sir. I’m positive it is,” said the officer. Tika found that interesting since the Valorians had the best shields in the quadrant. The officer than interrupted her thoughts, “Also sir, my scans revealed that their ship is producing gravitons in rather massive quantities.”

“How massive?” asked Tika wondering why it was mentioned since most ships produce them for things like artificial gravity.

“Around three hundred million particles a minute sir,” answered the officer. A number that left Tika astonished. The best graviton particle generators she knew could only produce a few thousand in a minute.

“You wouldn’t happen to know what they are using those particles for would you?” asked Tika some excitement evident in her voice.

“Yes, sir. The particles appear to be a product of their engines. The gravitons are partially responsible for the pulse waves they use to move their ship. The other component of the pulse wave is a previously unknown particle. Do you know what this means?” said the officer.

“Yes, I do,” replied Tika she was very familiar with the theory and given the rate they could produce gravitons if they could learn the tech it would lead to a new generation of energy shields. Shields far more powerful than any currently in use.

Captain’s Log February 17th, 001 SDE

  The last eleven days have been a pleasure, the Krall males are a bit gruff but pleasant once you get to know them and a bit dull when it comes to the sciences. Their females, however, have a strong grasp of the sciences. In the days since first contact, we have learned more about the Krall then we have about the Cathamari in three years. They have strongly defined gender roles and a strong sense of honor. Speaking of honor the name of the Teketh’s class roughly means honor so we have designated the ship Honor Class. The most unusual thing about the Krall is their leadership. The Krall divide leader roles between males and females and as a result, their ship has two captains. The Krall were able to contact the outpost and let them know we are coming. Personally, I am looking forward to the chance to meet the Krall ambassador who is now waiting for us in the Illeria system.

“We are secure from warp speed, captain,” stated Eri.

“Release tractors and set course for the outpost, 1/4 sublight.”

“Aye, sir”

The system was filled with Krall activity multiple Krall ships of unknown configuration were moving around the system many on patrol. The majority of the activity was centered around the fourth planet. A massive orbital facility was built over the planet and several shuttles could be seen rising from the planet's surface and heading for the outpost. Within seconds of entering the system, several Krall destroyers entered formation with them and escorted them to the outpost. While the Coto and Umikaze took up positions near the outpost the Enterprise docked at one of the outpost’s larger docking bays. As Countryman was getting off the ship he was greeted by Tika.

“Greetings Captain,”

“Hello, Ship-leader,”

“Before we head to the ambassador, I should let you know that because of an incident that happened a few years ago sensors have been put in place to detect unauthorized weapons. So if you plan on bringing weapons with you, you will need to have them authorized.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” replied Countryman. Then he opened his right arm revealing his cannon before saying, “so where do you register an old defense cannon around here.”

She looked at the cannon in surprise before asking, “Is that a weapon directly integrated into a cybernetic system.”

“It is. Why is that impressive or something?” asked Countryman.

“Depends on who you ask. Cybernetics is a field in heavy use with numerous applications, but honestly, no one in the Imperium has tried to weaponize it.”

“Curious, it is not difficult, I last reconfigured the parameters of my weapon two years ago and installed the original 112 years ago.”

She was clearly surprised to learn Countryman was over 100 years old and said so before escorting him. A few minutes later, the Krall ambassadors, Countryman, Drakes, and Greyman were sitting around a table discussing their future relations.

“......Unfortunately, we can't help you find a new homeworld directly, the war with the Cathamari is straining our resources. Instead, we will give you our star charts. We will also render whatever aid we can,” said one ambassador.

“I thank you for the offer and offer our assistance whenever we are in the area,” replied Countryman.

“That is generous of you, but I can’t accept that and still call myself honorable,” replied another ambassador.

“You can’t?”

“No, since your resources are limited and you need them more then we do.”

The discussions came to a sudden halt when the alarms went off. Countryman, Drakes, and Greyman quickly headed to the door and were met by Tika she had been ordered to escort them back to the Enterprise. As they were heading to the Enterprise they felt the station shake. They were halfway to the Enterprise when they encountered a Cathamari boarding team. They were short-legged with longtails and covered with scales colored a light red-brown. They were all armed with plasma rifles. Countryman armed his cannon and took cover, the others hid behind cover as well. Countryman aimed his cannon at the first and fired a shot. A powerful particle pulse shot across the hall and struck the Cathamari in the face.

 He toppled over dead, his head an unrecognizable and charred lump. The other four Cathamari returned fire but hit only empty air. Countryman fired another shot from cover. This time the particle blast hit one of the boarders in the arm, his armor melted and his arm was left severely burned and he screamed in pain. The wounded Cathamari dropped his weapon and charged. He got halfway down the hall before a second blast struck him in the midsection killing him. The other three screamed a battle cry and charged down the hall. Countryman killed one before the other two reached the party. He engaged the one in hand to hand while the others struggled with the other one. A few moments later the rest of the boarding party was dead and the group had escaped with minor injuries.

“Impressive weapon,” commented Tika as they walked past the corpses of the now-dead Cathamari.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting combat. So I only have a single power pack, you wouldn’t happen to have an armory nearby would you?” asked Countryman concerned about additional boarding parties. Especially since he only had sixty-five shots remaining before he was out of ammo for his cannon.

“Yes there is an armory just down this corridor and on the left,” replied Tika. They continued down the corridor. Tika used her access codes to unlock the armory and grabbed a few rifles before distributing them. Being designed for the Krall they were a bit awkward for humans to operate but doable. A quick check of the armory and she found a pistol pack that after a couple of modifications was made compatible with Countryman’s cannon. Which because of its larger capacity granted him an extra hundred shots for dealing with boarders.

“I’d prefer it if you had actual experience with those rifles, but a quick rundown will have to do. Each rifle has four settings, burst, stun, snipe, and auto. Don’t bother with the secondary settings and just use the first one. It will fire a burst of three plasma bolts at the target,” said Tika while demonstrating the rifle on a nearby test target in the armory. Three orange bolts of plasma smacked into the target. A force field absorbed the blasts, a screen next to the target showing what the hits would have done to a person. A couple moments later they left the armory and Greyman asked, “So this thing has a stun setting?”

“Of course, policy requires all standard-issue weapons to have one. Why is Human policy different?” replied Tika and ending with a question of her own.

“Most of our weapons don’t have a stun setting. The LP-1230 is the only weapon on board that has a stun setting. There are other weapons with a stun setting, just none in inventory,” said Greyman while Drakes checked the corner. Declaring it clear, Countryman interrupted and said, “actually my cannon has a stun setting.”

“That sounds interesting. I’ll keep it in mind for later,” said Tika. The group then continued down the corridor in silence. In the next corridor, they came across a second boarding party, that was facing the other way. Countryman, Tika, and Greyman each fired at a boarder. Countryman’s shot hit his target center mass ripping into the armor the alien was wearing charring the flesh and leaving a gaping hole wear the shot hit. Greyman hit a little lower than he intended and his bolts struck the Cathamari he was shooting just above the tail crippling but not killing him. As for Tika, her burst struck center mass killing the warrior instantly. The two remaining Cathamari turned around and fired their rifles, only to strike air as the group had ducked behind cover. Tika armed and rolled a grenade she had picked up earlier down the corridor. It exploded killing both attackers and the cripple. With party dead, the group continued down the corridor. Turning down to the final path the found two Cathamari using the door to the docking bay being used as cover as they fired at defenders in the room. A quick burst from Tika and Greyman reduced them to smoldering corpses.

 They entered the docking to find a marine squad was fighting several Cathamari boarding parties. Like most Earth marines, the Enterprise marines were employing the favored XR-471 rifle. The marines were using some crates outside the ship as cover while firing on the boarders. The group’s position placed them on the flank of one of the boarding parties. Taking cover behind some nearby crates they opened fire on the flanked boarding party. Promptly drawing attention to their presence. The Marines took advantage of the confusion to throw a few grenades ending the other boarders. With the area free of hostiles, the group met up with the marine squad.

“Report,” asked Countryman.

“Several Cathamari cruisers attacked the system and a few launched boarding pods to board the station. Command reports the cruisers have sunk, but there are still boarding parties roaming the station,” reported the marine squad leader.

“Deploy security teams to aid the outpost,” Countryman ordered.

“Aye sir,” replied the marine.

Moments later several squads of marines were deployed to repel the boarders on the station. An hour later the with the station secure, medics were roaming the station aiding the wounded. The Krall during the incident became impressed with Earth’s dermal regeneration laser. A device that fires a special laser beam that stimulates cell regeneration. The device first scans the person you want to heal then modulates the beam according to their physiology. After the cleanup and holding a funeral for the dead both the Krall and the Sol Refuge suffered, the ambassadors gathered and then debated and signed a treaty. During the process, the groups negotiated an exchange of technologies. Both sides had techs they were unwilling to trade like Earth’s Overlord armor and the Krall’s Energy shield technology.

With a treaty in place and new tactical information the Enterprise undocked, joined its escorts and set course for a Cathamari border colony in the Iridia system.  Before they left the system they traded with a Krall trader and purchased an FTL capable probe, for the price of five salvage cubes and 3 crates of cocoa beans, with a class IV drive enabling an effective speed of 150 times the speed of light. Talking with the traders gained the Humans a wealth of information about the local stars. Including some info on a nearby power called the Valorians. Apparently they were peaceful traders, so diplomatic ties with them could be useful.