Captain’s Log February 19th 001 SDE,

We are currently in the Iridia system and have been so for the last two days. So far it has been rather uneventful. The system has seven planets two of which lie in the habitable zone, the second of which is a terrestrial counterpart. Albeit smaller with less water and more desert. Unfortunately, it won’t be one for much longer, since we fired one of our antimatter bombs at the planet. Said bomb is expected to hit the planet later today and consequently eliminate the Cathamari colony in the system. The other planet is a dry arid world, with a thin atmosphere and little in the way of water, most of which is locked up in the vast northern ice cap. So far the colony has yet to detect us, which means things are going according to plan. We are currently in this system waiting for a Cathamari cruiser to show up. The Iridia system has little of value, and this entire sector is of no strategic import to the Cathamari. As a result the Cathamari only have a single cruiser assigned to patrol the entire sector. This, of course, provides us with an opportunity we can’t afford to waste.

 Long-range sensors have picked up a Cathamari cruiser on route into the system she is expected to arrive within the hour. I have ordered the fleet to intercept. Our plan is to ambush it with a low yield torpedo volley, aimed to cripple. We will fire while it is still at warp, so as to ensure we retain the element of surprise. This will complicate things a bit, but we have a good read on the cruiser and should be able to predict where it will drop to sublight.

Countryman watched the forward screen while leaning back in his chair. Down below the tactical plot displayed the locations of the Enterprise, Coto, and Umikaze. Also on the plot were a number of torpedoes streaking towards the predicted coordinates where the incoming cruiser was expected to drop out of warp. The torpedoes were all set to minimal yields and programmed to hit vital areas of the cruiser. This way they could cripple the ship while leaving it largely intact. Also on the plot was the lonely bomb they had sent on a gentle trajectory towards the planet. It wasn’t far from the planet now and would hit the atmosphere in just under an hour. Also on the plot was a lone corvette sized ship that had showed up yesterday, and was trying and failing at being stealthy. Then a flash filled his screen as the cruiser collapsed her warp field and dropped to sublight.

“Warp out confirmed, one percent deviation from predicted course. Course corrections sent, impact in three seconds,” said Kaori who had been watching the tactical sensors. Countryman, of course, hated the use of the phrase ‘warp out’ since it was inaccurate. Ships at warp traveled through normal space, not through another dimension, or hyperspace like the term implied. The deviation she reported though was within his expectations, for this type of attack the acceptable margin for error was three percent and the expected margin was one point two percent so they were doing better than average. Then several explosions appeared on the screen.

“Direct hit, enemy engine signature has ceased,” said Kaori.

“Jam all signals, order the fleet to close,” ordered Countryman. Glad that things were going according to plan.

The warlord felt like cursing and screaming his displeasure after his ship had been rattled by a series of sudden explosions. Managing to school his emotions he barked a quick order to the sensor officer before he turned to the console by his station and flipped the comm switch for engineering.

“Damage report,” he barked.

“Whoever shot us knew exactly where to hit us. All our engines are dead, our fuel lines ruptured and our power grid is a sparking mess. We still have power for now, but we are leaking power like crazy. At the current rate of power usage we will be out of power in ‘thirty minutes’ when the reactor runs out of fuel,” said the irritated voice of his chief engineer. She was clearly displeased with what just happened.

“Weapons? Shields?” asked the Warlord.

“Shields are out of the question, and it's not looking good for weapons either. I can get you one maybe two volleys and then we’ll be out of power,” replied his chief engineer. In other words, he would have to be very careful with his shots. In space running out of power is a death sentence, something he knew from experience. Of course that all depended on his opponent. Turning to his sensor officer who was patiently waiting to give his report, he barked “Report.”

“Sensors are tracking three warships, two cruisers, and a battleship. Two hundred thousand kilometers out and closing. Signatures are Human,” said the officer which for the warlord was terrible news. “Apparently the universe loves throwing ridiculous curve balls my way,” thought the warlord. Afterall he knew enough about Human ships to know how bad the situation was. Tapping the intercom he said, “All hands grab a weapon and prepare for enemy boarders.”

One of the officers suddenly turned and said, “wait you expect them to board.”

“They are planning on boarding us, otherwise we would already be dead. Now grab a weapon,” replied the Warlord. Sure that the young man would not make it through this mission. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he would make it through himself. He had heard plenty of stories about how terrifying Human ground troops and marines are. According to the stories they could toss tanks around as if they were as light as feathers, were immune to weapons fire, and in one story he heard they could even shoot fire from their hands. He was pretty sure they had been exaggerated, but most stories are rooted in a grain of truth. From the stories, he could guess that they were very strong, and hard to kill. The last story probably described some sort of weapon. He doubted they could actually shoot fire from their hands. Then he gave a few orders for his plan to get out of this mess and was not pleased when he learned the enemy was jamming their comms.

Back on the Enterprise Lieutenant Tom Sirapi, was checking his rifle. He had been assigned to one of the parties and was doing the pre-combat checks that all marines had to do. After a quick once over of his rifle, he was sure his XR-471was ready for battle. He had a fully charged pack in the rifle and the critical components were in prime condition. He also had three spare packs on his belt, along with twelve grenades, two combat knives, and a sidearm specifically the standard-issue LP-1230 which was popular since it is one of those rare weapons to support a stun setting. He also had a small medkit, containing a nanite injector, dermal regeneration laser, three doses of combat stims and a nanite pack containing three doses. Also on his belt is a plasma cutter and three breaching charges for breaking through blast doors, bulkheads, and other obstacles. Done with his weapons check he moved onto his armor.

His armor was a suit of personal overlord armor. It was a type of power armor designed to amplify the wearer’s strength and speed, while also providing substantial protection against ballistic and energy weapons. It protects against weapons fire the same way the ship’s armor does, but it is made of different materials. Instead of Titan Alloy, the armor was made of layered and laminated polymer plates and lined with a kevlar derivative. The result provides less protection than Titan Alloy does, but it weighs only a quarter of the weight and the protection is still enough to shrug off all but the heaviest weapons with ease. It wasn’t cheap either, but well worth it since it made the wearer into a small one-man army the match for a thousand men. He did a quick check of the electronics responsible for most of that protection, followed by the servo motors and the life support systems. Finishing with a check of the power systems and the built-in cannon. All modern armors had a single built-in hardpoint designed to carry a wrist cannon. While some marines swapped the cannon out for a plasma thrower he kept the standard EX-94 which is a good solid and dependable back up weapon. He had just finished when the commander he had been assigned to came up to him.

“How’s your armor looking, rookie?” said the commander.

“All green across the board and I’m not a rookie,” replied Tom.

“You are in my squad. We’re the elites after all,” replied the commander. Tom groaned internally. He hated this type of commander, fortunately, he knew how to deal with them. Put up with their shit, until they know you are a good soldier.

“Well, I’m good to go. Are the techs still dragging their feet or are the shuttles ready to board?” asked Tom as he turned on the hud in his helmet. Instantly his hud elements turned on, which included an indicator for his armor reinforcement field, a minimap displaying color-coded dots based on his surroundings with data picked up from the suit’s built-in sensors. His life support status and general health as monitored by the suit. As well as a display of his equipped weapons and general ammo status. The suit could keep track of a weapon through special sensors in the gloves, which linked to a chip built into the gun just behind the trigger. There was also a set of indicators that kept track of his squad members.

“The shuttles are fueled and ready to go,” said his commander just before leaving the room and heading towards the door. Tom followed him into the hanger proper. In the center of the cavernous bay were a row of shuttles sitting on the launch catapults. To be specific they were X-1205s. The X-1205 is classified as an assault shuttle and features a modular design allowing it serve a number of roles. She is large enough to carry twenty soldiers and a tank into battle, but she could be outfitted with bombs to serve as a medium bomber. Right now they had been set up to carry additional soldiers so the tank berth had been removed allowing another twenty soldiers to be crammed into the shuttle. Design-wise she looked a lot like a bigger version of a standard shuttlecraft, with short stubby wings, two round bulges on the sides mounted the turrets which each contained a pair of dual particle cannons. Four spinal mounted particle cannons could be seen on either side of the cockpit. A ramp was lowered at the rear of each shuttle and soldiers were boarding the shuttle and anchoring into the seats on either side of the rear compartment.

He had done some reading on the X-1205 to his eyes it looked like an improvement on the old Star Ranger that he had the misfortune to experience. As a marine he felt it prudent to be familiar with any equipment he might encounter in the field, and so he had also played with the ship in the simulator. However, this was his first time seeing one in person. From his readings, he knew the 1205 featured thicker armor, heavier guns and better cargo capacity than its predecessor at a slight cost of speed and maneuverability. 

He followed his commander and met the rest of his five-man squad at the ramp of the third shuttle to left of where he entered the bay. After a quick chat, they boarded the shuttle and strapped in waiting for the green light. Using his interface he linked his helmet to the shuttle’s sensors so he could view the takeoff. Several boring minutes passed before the shuttles were fully loaded and the green light was finally given. Instantly the bay began to decompress a process that took a few minutes to complete. Then the massive bay doors began to open, separating in the middle and pulling into the sides. Each door opened impressively quick given their size and were fully open in just under a minute. The instant the doors were cleared the catapult began to glow a faint blue while the shuttle’s dual engines began to hum. Seconds before the ship was suddenly launched into space at high speed. Of course due to the inertial dampers on the shuttle he hardly felt the acceleration. Of course, if it weren’t for the dampers he would be dead.

The shuttle flight was uneventful, the cruiser they were about to board has already been disabled. So his attention was mostly occupied by the inflight briefing.

“Alright, boys and girls. Our mission this time is to capture a disabled cruiser. Our company has been assigned the critical objective of securing engineering. We will be expecting heavy resistance, and command wants the section as intact as possible so be careful when using your grenades. We are not taking prisoners so shoot to kill. The cruiser itself is a standard Battleclaw class battlecruiser. Intel indicates it is one of the ships that participated in the war against Earth and was present during the final battle of the war.

Now we will be inserting here on deck 23. Damage to the ship will prevent us from taking the direct route to our destination. Instead after securing the local area we will make our way to engineering by way of the ship’s maintenance corridors. While one squad stays behind to guard the shuttle. Charlie squad you will be guarding the shuttle. That's our evac in case something goes wrong. When we reach engineering we are to eliminate all hostiles and then secure the area, while Specialist Tayoa hacks into the local engineering computers. Once we have control of the local computers, we are to vent the ship and then contact command for further orders. So double-check your life support systems. Any questions?” said the company commander

“No sir!” was the unanimous response. After the briefing, the only other thing of interest was the massive flash that almost blinded the shuttle’s sensors when the bomb finally hit the planet’s surface. Most certainly killing the colony on the surface. The shuttle landed on a curved spot of the cruisers hull near the rear of the craft. Having landed the marines unstrapped and opened the lower hatch of the shuttle. Then two marines went to work with plasma cutters and began to cut a hole through the armor and hull of the cruiser. The armor was two meters thick so it took a while, but after several minutes of cutting, the pair kicked the cut plate in and it went flying into the corridor they had cut into. The marines then went through the hatch two at a time. Dropping to the ground, while defenders fired at them from cover. Their armor keeping them safe long enough to get to cover while they returned fire.

Tom went through the hatch along with his squad’s medic, just as one of the aliens poked their head out to fire a few shots. He reacted instantly firing a burst from his rifle into the warriors’ head. Three bluish particle bolts slammed into the alien’s scally face charring his head black and boring a hole through it and slightly melting the wall behind him. The corpse slumping to the floor, Tom moved into cover nearby and opened fire on another target of opportunity with pinpoint accuracy. The alien screamed in pain as his arm was charred beyond recognition for a moment before he stopped feeling it his nervous system having overloaded from the severe pain.

Seeing an opportunity he and one other marine dashed out of cover and rushed the remain aliens guarding the intersection. He reached his opponent and shot a burst into him. His buddy tried to grapple with him. Tom dropped his rifle and then slammed the guy into the wall denting it blood spraying from its mouth while a crunching sound could be heard as his bones were crushed. Then Tom activated his wrist cannon and fired a few quick shots into his abdomen. The energy frying his organs. Tom grabbed his rifle still hanging from its strap and then fired into the alien charging him. One Cathamari soldier fired his rifle at Tom and scored a couple hits, but his armor absorbed the plasma bolts. Dropping the bar indicating his armor strength to ninety-three percent. He returned fire scoring three hits to the chest killing his target instantly. While also clearing the corridor. Since it was clear he checked his rifle to find it still had two hundred and thirty shots still in the pack out of two hundred forty. Then he checked on his buddy to find she had also cleared her opponents and was checking on him.

“Area clear,” called Tom over the suit comms.

“Alright form up. Charlie squad guard the shuttle everyone else, move out,” ordered the company commander. Tom formed up with his squad and headed left from their insertion point and down the corridor until they reached the maintenance access hatch. It was locked so he used his plasma cutter to cut the hatch open. Unlike the hull the hatch wasn’t very thick nor was it treated to resist the cutter so he was through it in a matter of seconds. He then took point as his squad made their way through the corridors to engineering. Only encountering two crewmen on their way to the section. Both were killed by a single shot to the head before they even realized the Marines were there.

They charged into main engineering from a side entrance catching the engineers off guard. They managed to kill three before someone called for help. As the guards came running into the room. He saw one of the scaly bastards run out via the main door. Judging by the longer tail, shorter height and brighter scales it was most likely a female.

Chief engineer Tagisa cursed as she ran out of the compartment with the ship’s log. She had been ordered to manually engage the self destruct since the autodestruct was nonfunctional and jettison the ship’s log. Unfortunately, the Humans had been faster than expected at reaching engineering and she had not been able to set the self destruct. Fearing for her life she ran down the corridors dodging several boarding parties and reached one of the escape pods. Jumping into the pod she hit the switch and jettisoned. Her pod flying out into the void. She quickly disabled the distress beacon before it could activate and then kept an eye on the sensors.

Securing engineering hadn’t been hard, but by the time they had dealt with the guards, the runner was nowhere to be seen. Rather than worrying about a random runner, the marines took up defensive positions around the compartment while the specialist started hacking into the computers. She had been at it for about five minutes when a couple squads of Cathamari security came along to retake the section. They rolled a few grenades down the corridor, the marines used their enhanced speed to clear the area to avoid the blasts. Then the fighting began in earnest. Tom popped from cover after the grenades went off, and fired into a guard that started advance. The guard’s security armor did little to protect him from the bolts that slammed into his abdomen leaving a charred and smoking hole where they struck. The other charging guards were killed by other members of his company, so he then fired at one firing from cover. His bolts slammed one right after the other into the wall and melted a hole through it going through the corner and into the guard’s stomach doing lethal amounts of damage to the warrior.

Internally marveling at the shoddy interior armor that should have stopped that, he then shot at another guard through the wall. He heard the guard curse in Cathamari just before another one poked his head out to fire. Tom moved his rifle smoothly and fired just as the guy fired. His plasma bolt slamming into a nearby marine harmlessly. While his particle bolt dropped the guard. Then his hud lit up as a bolt hit him in the back draining a small chunk of energy from his armor. He spun and fired several bolts into the guard who had flanked them by taking advantage of his small size and going through a vent. The guard had barely blinked and was still firing his rifle full auto when the bolts slammed into him tearing through his abdomen leaving a smoking charred hole while his lifeless body fell to the floor. Tom glanced at his armor indicator to see he had lost half of it in those brief seconds and retreated into the main engineering compartment to let it recharge. A minute later when it was back at full the opposition was dead, and a minute after that, “Got it, I’m in vent atmo, now,” declared Specialist Tayoa. A second later he heard the distinctive whoosh of an atmosphere being vented and relaxed a bit since it meant the hard part was over. Then he heard the company commander reporting over the radio.

The return orders were mostly your typical mop up orders, and while his company had come out with no casualties others weren’t so lucky and had wounded. Fortunately, there weren’t any fatalities and most of the wounds were easily healed by a field medic. A few, however, would require rest in sickbay and would be fine in a week. A couple hours later his squad pulled out and returned to the ship.

Back at the hanger, he returned to find the captain greeting the marines as they disembarked from their shuttles. It wasn’t in and of itself unusual since the captain was always talking with the crew and the marines, but he had been seeing him more than usual. In fact, he had the honor of making friends with the captain when he attended a birthday party with lieutenant Haley who was in his platoon. He smiled under his helmet and then headed toward the captain to greet him.

Countryman was quite glad with the way things had gone as he left the hanger. Walking down the corridor he headed for the lift, going over the things he needed to do in his head. His speaking with the marines had been fun. Some of them had concern over their family on the ship or close friends and he tried his best to allay them since he had the opportunity. Especially considering he would need their support later given a certain someone’s schemes to overthrow him. He had learned about it just last week on one of his regular walks around the ship. 

Last week a little after ten pm, Countryman came out of the lift on one of the lower decks, he had made a habit of talking with the marines and low ranking crewman whenever he had a chance. It paid well to listen to the crew, in allowing him to find issues before they become problematic. Countryman was approaching an office for the commander of a marine platoon when he saw Williams slip into the office, she didn’t see him. Countryman found the presence of Williams on this deck unusual. Wondering what she was doing on this deck, he accessed his internal comm node and activated it. Then he scanned the bugs he had placed on Williams’s uniforms, it didn’t take long to find the one he was looking for. Just in time to overhear what proved to be an interesting conversation.

“What can I do for you?” asked commander Yuron. He was an older man, like most soldiers he was physically fit, if a bit greasy.

“I’m here to talk about our leadership. What do you think of that machine Countryman?”

“I don’t really approve of cybernetic enhancement, but honestly as cybernetically enhanced commanders go though, he isn’t bad,” replied Yuron.

“So you would be open to a change in leadership,” stated Williams

“Yes, I would be,” said Yuron

“Would you be willing to back my rise to captain, when the time is right?” asked Williams.

“And I will benefit from that how?” asked Yuron.

“How about I triple your rations after my rise to captain?” offered Williams

“Oh, do tell me more,” replied Yuron greed evident in his voice.

The conversation continued from there, mostly on when they were going to move. From what Countryman could gather, the conditions weren’t yet right for Williams to make her big move. She was mostly waiting until she had two things, enough say over a large enough percentage of the ship’s marine commanders and something to justify her mutiny with. She knew that not everyone agreed with her about cyborgs. “So, she’s going to try bribing the commanders. Well, I don’t really need to control the commanders. I just need Forrest, he is our best and most respectable commander, so I can’t lose him. I will need to take steps to ensure, he doesn’t get caught up in this foolish conspiracy. Now to maintain control, I will need the respect of the troops. Throughout history, no ruler has stayed in power without the military's support and nothing garners long-lasting support better than respect. Hmm, I recall that one of the marines a lieutenant Haley has a birthday tomorrow, I believe she sent me an invite. I should clear my schedule and attend it would give me an excellent opportunity to build connections with the troops.” thought Countryman.

 As he started to make plans to counter her little conspiracy, knowing it was too soon to make a direct move against her. Then he chuckled to himself, he hasn’t had to play the political game in decades, not since the latter half of the Era of Fools, but he remembered enough that he knew just what moves to make to end this conspiracy. The trick was to not let her catch on and let her think she was getting away with it unnoticed. That’s when she will get bold, and then she would make the mistakes that will lead to her undoing.

Continuing down the corridor, he came to a marked door and entered the room. The room was one of the crew hangouts. It was a bar and game room. Countryman headed to one of the tables and glanced at the screen on one wall, in which a young lady a junior officer was making ship announcements about ship events. The big headline at the bottom like an old news show was about their victory against the Cathamari. Countryman sat down and when the waitress came by he ordered the same drink he has been ordering, for the last one hundred and seventy years, a lemonade. A couple minutes later she came back with his lemonade, and he then struck up a conversation with the junior officers at a neighboring table. It wasn’t long before they had joined him at his table and they were having a conversation while playing a friendly game.

Countryman came out of the lift near main engineering just as he finished his walk down memory lane. Entering the room he saw Richards bent over a console studying a holographic display of the freshly captured cruiser. Walking over to her, he came up behind her and asked a question that made her jump. He chuckled and then asked her again, “So how’s it looking?”

“Normally I’d say we would need a yard to fix this up enough to do this, but with the Enterprise, we technically already have one with us. The cruiser will need a full refit of course, but I think we can do it in two or three days,” answered Megumi Richards.

“Sounds good, so far. What are the plans for the refit?”

“We will be stripping the hull armor and tearing out the crew compartments first. We will then use the metal to shore up the bulkheads and reinforce the star frame. The warp drive is not quite satisfactory so we will modify to our standards and upgrade the ship computers with our own custom software. We will replate the ship in Titan alloy, and upgrade the armor scheme to overlord. We will also build in four new pulse-wave engines, which should greatly improve the ship’s speed and maneuverability. Finally, the ship’s plasma torpedoes are quite similar to the energy torpedoes that were popular during the last Colonial War, so they should be compatible with the same modifications. If so we should be able to triple the yield and increase the effective range to eighty thousand kilometers,” said Megumi.

“Sure the replate is a good idea? Our alloy seems to be pretty unique they might be able to trace it back to us,” replied Countryman.

“No, but we can’t replicate their alloys. Not to mention the ship will need the upgraded armor to ensure it actually reaches the target. Besides, the blast should vaporize the evidence anyway. They will have a hard time tracing this attack back to us, and by the time they do we will be long gone,” said Megumi.

“In that case, I’ll leave you to it,” said Countryman as he turned to leave.

A young woman leaned over console watching the alien ships on her screen. She had come to this system the day before since she heard the locals had uncovered some valuable crystals. So she was going to launch a quick raid and get some to sell to a good buyer. However, she had sensed something wrong the moment her ship had come out of hyperspace and chose to stay low.

Good thing she did, too. She hadn’t even seen the alien ships until they had attacked the local patrol cruiser. The battle was over now, and they were now holding position with their prize moored beneath their flagship while they did some work on the ship. She also found what happened to the planet unfortunate since it ruined her plans, but there was nothing she could do about that. Instead, she was focused on the escape pod she had seen drifting away from the Cathamari cruiser. She was hoping that recovering it would gain her something to make up for this failed run. Then she felt someone lean over her shoulder, and reach for her breast. She responded the way she always did and elbowed the man right in the stomach.

“How many times have I told you not to touch me, Klav?” she said emphasizing the last word with disdain.

“That big ship is a prize that would make the clan great again, we should rally the clan and take it,” said Klav acting as if he had done nothing wrong.

“You’re as stupid as you are ugly. Get out of my sight before I shove you out the nearest airlock,” said the woman. Sure she wanted that ship too. She, however, knew that a ship that big had a crew more than ten times the size of the clan. There was no way they could take it. Although that didn’t mean they couldn’t build something similar with the right resources, and it didn’t have to be that big either. At around half the size, it would be perfect for a mobile base for the clan. She barked a few words to her thugs at the consoles, and then retired to her chamber to start designing the flagship she wanted. She was already planning on what company she would have build it and where she would get the money. A couple hours later her crew picked up the escape pod, to find it contained a rather grumpy Cathamari engineer, along with the ship’s log. Then they made the jump to hyperspace.

Captain’s Log February 22nd 001 SDE,

Our refit of the prize cruiser went along a bit faster than planned thanks to the extra volunteer labor that we got from the civilians. Apparently, it is not easy keeping a secret on a ship, even one of this size. Somehow news of our plan leaked out to the general population. Anyway, we have completed the test trials of the refitted cruiser. Her refitted engines are powerful enough that she should be able to make the trip to Cathamari Prime at warp seven point eight, however, the strain will burn out the engines. That is not a concern for us since this is a one-way mission, to begin with. Nor is it entirely surprising, in theory with all four of our warp engines in sync we can reach warp seven point four, but our warp engines are less powerful and the waste heat will make that difficult to maintain. The Cathamari are using a device called a subspace radiator to deal with the waste heat they generate. This device radiates their waste energy into subspace and can deal with greater amounts of energy than our own waste heat recyclers. I have sent one of their spares to the labs for analysis the rest were used in the refit to ensure it could handle the waste energy of their enhanced engines, but I’m not inclined to use them. The use of radiators would increase our fuel use and increase our expanded sensor profile making us easier to track. The torpedo enhancements worked out better than expected, but not by much. The yield increase was three percent better than expected, and the improvement to effective range was marginally higher as well. As such we are currently loading the ship with some of the bombs in our stockpile.

Countryman came out of the lift on deck one and made the short walk to the bridge. He gave a brief nod to the armored guards on each side of the door and placed his hand on the palm scanner. The scanner glowed briefly and then the door slid open. A few practiced steps brought him to his seat on the command balcony. The watch officer stood up from the captain’s chair and saluted before giving the morning brief.

“Good morning, sir. No incidents to report, the night watch went smoothly. Engineering reports the cruiser is ready to launch on your command,” said Countryman.

“Sounds good, go get some rest lieutenant,” replied Countryman. The officer smiled and then headed for the door. Countryman turned and sat in his seat and surveyed the bridge. Like most mornings he was not the last to report for the day shift. Two of his officers had yet to arrive. A couple of minutes later the door to the lower entrance opened and the latecomers came through rushing to their stations just five minutes before the clock struck eight which is when the shift officially begins.

“Glad you could make it,” called Countryman.

“We didn’t make it Misaki. The captain beat us, again,” said Eri with a defeated tone. Countryman chuckled since this happened almost every morning.

“There isn’t much on today’s schedule so let’s get the important things out of the way first that way we can spend the rest of our shift with nothing to do, but stare at screens and tell lame jokes. Engineering tells me that our cruiser is ready for her mission. Misaki get started on the remote preflight checks. Sensors I want a full long-range sensor sweep,” said Countryman. A number of ‘aye sirs’ and chuckles resounded across the bridge as people got work. Nearly an hour later all of the work they need to do before launching the cruiser to its destination was done. Then the order was finally given and the battlecruiser jumped away on its journey to Cathamari Prime, carrying a supply of antimatter explosives and a probe.

Warlord Sakass walked down the corridor to operation, silently cursing the young warrior that had disturbed his sleep. Grumbling that it better be important or he was going to toss the lad out an airlock. Then he finally reached the hatch to operations and entered. The chamber was abuzz with activity with dozens of officers running around like headless hatchlings. He approached the only person not acting confused a female slave manning the science station.

“What is going on, slave?” said Sakass.

“Warlord Sakass! We picked up a ship approaching at high warp, the signature is Cathamari,” replied the slave.

“That doesn’t sound unusual, we get hundreds of ships coming through every day and most of them are Cathamari,” replied the Warlord.

“No, what is unusual is its speed. The ship is traveling at warp factor seven point eight.” said the slave.

“Your joking right? The strain alone would rip any ship trying to go faster than warp five to pieces. If someone had broken the warp five barrier I should have heard about it,” said Sakass. She responded by tapping her screen and bringing up the sensor readouts to show a ship traveling at warp 7.8.

“I’m not, also the ship does not have a flight plan on record and has ignored all hails. It will be dropping to sublight in five minutes,” said the slave. The warlord getting the gist of things turned to the rest of the room and demanded order. It took almost two minutes to get things in order and then he ordered the defense fleet to intercept the ship.

The ship came out of warp in a massive burst of light and immediately began venting superheated plasma into space. Twelve cruisers and twenty-four destroyers from the defense fleet approached its position.

“Still no response to hails,” reported the comm officer.

“Order the fleet to open fire, shoot to disable,” ordered Sakass following procedure. Immediately the ships opened fire bolts of plasma sailing across space. Suddenly the cruiser performed a maneuver that should have been impossible given its mass. The bolts missing it by a large margin.

“She is charging torpedoes, sir,” said someone but he wasn’t paying much attention too shocked by the scene. Then the cruiser fired her torpedoes. Red-orange bolts ripped across space and struck one of the battlecruisers. Her shields flared red and buckled the remaining energy slamming into her hull melting it. The lights on the stricken cruiser went dark as she lost power. Another cruiser coming up behind the modified battlecruiser opened fire. Most of her shots missed due to a sudden maneuver but several hit knocking out her target’s shields. Who returned fire with a volley of torpedoes.

The volley struck amidships and the cruiser exploded in an impressive display of fireworks. Which snapped the warlord out of his trance, he turned to his science officer and asked, “How exactly has that cruiser been modified?”

“Some sort of distortion field is hampering our sensors, but it seems that someone has enhanced the engines and weapons,” said the science officer. Which told him basically nothing. Turning back to the screens he saw that he had missed the rest of the battle. The only ship left was the intruder and she had only sustained light damage. More concerning was the fact she was now accelerating toward the planet. He ordered more ships to intercept, but it was clear that it would reach the planet before the ships could reach it. The moment the cruiser entered weapons range of his station he gave the order to open fire. The cruiser rolled out of the way of his volley and returned fire with a volley of torpedoes. The entire station shook when they hit, and someone yelled about a hull breach. Their second volley grazed the ship, doing light damage, but then a torpedo strike knocked out the power grid. It took only a couple of seconds for the backups to switch on, but by then the cruiser had hit the atmosphere. An instant later, the cruiser along with an entire continent vanished in a massive flash of light. The shockwave was so powerful it traveled through space and shook the station. Her shields flaring as entire sections buckled and molten debris slammed into her hull. In the chaos that followed no one noticed the small probe that had been launched by the cruiser jump away after taking a number of discrete scans.

Captain’s Log March 10th 001 SDE,

Our probe has finally returned bringing with it news that our attack on Cathamari Prime was successful. The cruiser struck the planet at a significant fraction of lightspeed. The energy of the crash and the following explosion has devastated the planet. Her orbit has been shift four degrees away from the local sun and an entire continent was erased from her surface. Most of it was moved into orbit and has likely formed rings around the planet by now. The blast also dealt massive damage to her orbital infrastructure. Scans indicate approximately nine billion dead, with another Six point two receiving a lethal burst of radiation. The Krall probe’s subspace radio picked up a lot of comm traffic over the past month that indicates that the Empire is dissolving. Entire fleets have gone rogue, a number of individuals have declared themselves the rightful heir to the throne. Colonies are declaring independence, and slave revolts have occurred on almost every planet. A civil war is inevitable. We will be leaving this system later today and will be heading towards the territory of the Valorian Trade Confederation from what we have heard they sound like a friendly enough people. Their civilization is dominated by the major markets, and anyone with something to trade is welcome in their territory. They also control a significant chunk of the quadrant so we are hoping to purchase some star charts from them which will go a long way towards our goal of finding a new homeworld.