Countryman exited the lift on deck one, and could already hear arguing in the conference room. As usual, Williams had started another debate and was trying to get him replaced. He never really understood why, she had managed to reach the rank of captain, but she couldn’t accept things not going her way. He gave a quick nod to the guards guarding the door to the bridge, before entering the conference room. As he entered, Williams was calling the council a bunch of idiots. Countryman just shook his head for a moment and then walked to his seat and sat down without saying a thing. Looking around he could see all the officers on the council were present, and that he was the last to arrive. It was not the first time this happened since Williams liked to call these sudden sessions while he was on his walks or inspecting the ship. Calling a council session required the agreement of three members or the approval of the council head. Since he was the head of the council, she always did it through her lackeys on the council.

Several minutes passed while he just listened to her rant. He already knew what she was planning and knew nothing was going to happen here. She was just giving one last shot at convincing the council before trying to overthrow it. She just finished her rant and started looking around when she noticed him watching him.

“How long have you been here?” asked Williams.

“Since you said ‘you’re all idiots, leaving that cyborg in command is a foolish act.’” replied Countryman, “Anyway, we have been through this a thousand times. Why can’t you accept that you aren’t in command? This is why you keep failing to get the council to revoke my command. They all know that you won’t be satisfied unless you are in command.”

“You’re all fools!” exclaimed Williams, while pressing a little button on her bracelet. Instantly the door opened and the troops that started gathering outside the door a couple minutes after he entered the room, burst into the room. Williams, with a smug I won look on her face, said, “enjoy your time in the brig, while someone proper takes command.”

Countryman chuckled and looked Williams in the eye. “You know Williams, I did not get to be 195 years old without knowing who my enemies are. I have known for over three years about your little conspiracy. Bribing the commanders was a good idea, but greed only goes so far. As a leader, you must have the respect of the people, especially the military. Something you don’t really have, those willing to follow you being either dissatisfied with life here or agree with your silly stance on cybernetics. I let you get those commanders, I didn’t need anyone who would be so easily tempted by bribes,” said Countryman.

“That was your mistake then, I won,” said Williams not seeing where this was going.

“I did more on my walks than just inspect the departments and talk with people. I listened to their problems and did what I could for them. Speaking of people, Tom how is your daughter doing?” said Countryman. One of the soldiers stepped forward and said, “She is doing much better now, thanks to the medicine you helped me get.”

“Glad I could help. Could you do me a favor and arrest this fool?” asked Countryman.

“Gladly sir,” said Tom, then he and the others started arresting Williams and her lackeys. Williams screamed about and said something about the others not letting him get away with it, to which Countryman replied, “I already have, I look forward to seeing you at your trial.

Sali was following the guard, while another was behind her when she heard weapons fire. They had just come off the lift a couple minutes ago, and they were getting close to the brig. The only sound she heard was the distinctive buzzing of particle beams, but she didn’t hear the sounds of another weapon.

“What is going on?” asked Sali not expecting to get an answer since the guards seemed to like keeping her in the dark.

“Trouble, we’re going that way now,” said the guard in front of her pointing at a corridor she knew they didn’t take the first time. The other guard then said, “Don’t be so vague. Some fools did something stupid, and have decided not to go quietly. So a few firefights have broken out on a number of decks.” Of course, while the second guard told her more, he still left most of the details out. Something she noticed, but she didn’t really care. Mostly because she knew enough, and now she wanted out of the corridors. She was under no illusions about the risks of getting caught in a crossfire. The only thing she was wearing was standard issue prisoner's garb which wouldn’t protect her from weapons fire and her cell was suddenly a very attractive place to be.

A couple of turns later, they came across a corridor with fighting. Fortunately, none of the fire was going their way, but she didn’t like what she was told. “We need to go through that, so I want you stick close to us,” said the first guard.

“Your joking right?” said Sali hopefully, as she watched the blue energy beams firing back and forth.

“Nope, see that door right there on the other side of the intersection that's the entrance to the brig,” said the guard pointing at a large set of armored doors. Doors she realized she recognized, a look around and she realized he was pointing out the quickest way back to the brig. Then she asked if they could go around only to be told they couldn’t. So she did her best to stay between the guards as they crossed the intersection. Several beams passed right past her face frightening her a bit, but she kept herself as composed as possible. Imagining herself back in her cockpit helped her see them as missed shots and relax. Then before she knew it they were on the other side of the corridor. 

She then followed the guards into the brig proper, where she saw even more guards than she did when she left for her trial guarding the entrance. She had seen four guards on duty, now there were twelve. One of her escorts chatted with them briefly before leading her back to her cell. Once there she sat down in a corner, next to the small table in the cell. Then she began wondering what exactly the people the guard had called fools had done. She had come up with a few theories, by the time she saw people being escorted and in some cases carried to a cell. All of them were already wearing prisoner’s garb.

Countryman had to wait a couple of hours for the report that all of the mutineers had been arrested. Some of the commanders involved had some people who remained loyal to them and made things tougher. Looking over the report he was glad to see that there weren’t any casualties. He did see the report that Sali got caught in the crossfire, but her escorts kept her safe from the beams. So he made a mental note to mention it at the next crew performance review meeting. Once he had that report, he went over the paperwork and reports he had to do, before heading down to deck 180 to inspect the brig. All the while he was thinking about what to do with all the conspirators. On Earth they would have been sentenced to a mental reconditioning center, out here they didn’t have one. He also couldn’t just sentence them all to a life in the brig, no he was going to have to revive some old policies for this. The next step would be convincing the council to allow the death penalty. Unlike back when it was in use, they would have to do it immediately without allowing for appeal. Mostly since they didn’t have resources to waste on those that weren’t contributing to society. 

Sali had been fine for a couple of weeks since she was going to be assigned a job after her trial. Death row prisoners though, would contribute nothing since you can’t have them do a job while they are in the brig. Furthermore, they could be in there for months or even years wasting materials. As for who to execute the answer was obvious the leaders. As for the others, he was thinking a demotion and number of days in the brig based on how involved they were. As for the navigator’s position which was suddenly open. He decided he would leave it to Eri since she was a better navigator than Sanchez ever was.

 

Around the same time, Eri and Robert had reached the debris field orbiting the fourth planet. On her scanners were a number of asteroids and several frozen moons. She ignored them and double-checked her gauges. Seeing the digital gauges showing green across the board still, and that her fuel reserve was right where it should be, she armed her main cannons. The 1204 had a nice and very user-friendly weapons control console on her left. It was used to arm the cannons, missiles and torpedoes. Like most fighters, the firing button for the cannons was mounted on her flight controls. That was basically a joystick, which had two firing buttons on it, one for her cannons the other for her torpedoes. Just in case she needed it, she accessed the armor controls on her immediate right and increased the power to full. The armor controls were a subset of the system overview control panel, and just below that panel was the power control panel. 

She watched her AIF field climb for a minute before she hit the comms and hailed Robert. “I’m ready to test the weapons, I believe the only weapon the techs were worried about were the cannons, and they said launcher two might stick a bit on the launch. Does that sound right to you?”

“Yes, that sounds like the brief, I have identified a few good practice targets. I’m sending them to your targeting computer now. I’ll hold position here, while you test your cannons,” said Robert.

“Got it, Eri out,” said Eri. Increasing her throttle she started to maneuver towards the first target. Her first target was a small asteroid composed mostly of common minerals and ice with small amounts of metal ores. Coming up on it from behind a larger space rock, she locked her fighter cannons on it and opened fire on the rock. A barrage of blue particle bolts tore into the rock reducing it to dust. Making it almost indistinguishable from the surrounding clouds of dust and gas. Changing her flight direction she made way for the second target, while glancing at the cannons on the status display. So far the cannons were working just fine, but she hadn’t fired them at full power. After weaving around several large rocks she came upon the second of the targets.

The second target was a rather large asteroid, that sensors told her was rich in metals Mostly iron and nickel, but there were also decent amounts of other metals. As she came upon it she set the cannons to full power and strafed the asteroid. Doing large amounts of damage to its surface. Each impact reduced large chunks of its surface to dust and micro fragments that were catapulted into space. When she completed her strafing run there wasn’t much left of the asteroid, except a few large fragments that had holes bored right through them. A quick check and she had used about thirty percent of her weapon capacitor, which was right where she expected it.

After hitting a few more rocks, she made her way out of the debris field to rendezvous with Robert. The cannons were working according to specs, and while she did find one issue she was able to correct it from the system panel. The problem didn’t really show up until her long-range firing test, which revealed one cannon was slightly out of alignment.

“Alright Robert weapons test went fine, I found one minor issue that was easily corrected from the system panel. Shall we proceed with the launch test for the missiles?” asked Eri.

“We’ll have to do it in battle, I’m picking up seven Lancer fighters bearing down on our position,” said Robert. Eri glanced at her screens and saw the fighters were closing on their position quite fast. She was familiar with the Lancer, it was a common Valorian interceptor fighter designed solely for fighter to fighter combat. The Lancer usually didn’t carry missiles, but when they did it carried four plasma missiles that would be fired from two ports under the wings. Its primary weapon was a pair of low yield linked pulse cannons. It was very fast, but not as maneuverable as her own fighter. Being an interceptor her shields were lighter than those of other Valorian Fighters.

“I see them, arming missiles, discarding the dummies,” she had been carrying a few dummies. She took a quick glance and determined she had enough time for a quick dock with Robert’s shuttle and load the four missiles she was short on. Getting a lock she fired two missiles at them before informing Robert she was docking. His crew loaded her missile banks quickly, and just as the incoming fighters were getting into range she had undocked. Well, most of the fighters, the one she shot at was dead in the water, her cockpit a wreck of twisted metal.

They had expected to be here a while testing her missile launchers, and so Robert was carrying plenty of dummies, but also some real missiles in case she was attacked. It was not uncommon for shuttles to be outfitted to rearm fighters on long-range missions. Since their larger size allowed them to carry more ordinance than a fighter.

Moving away from the shuttle, she intercepted the nearest of the fighters. Opening fire with her cannons. Four cannons discharged dozens of bolts into the fighter’s forward shields. The shields strained against the volley, but held barely. The lighter intercepter shields being barely strong enough to withstand the hits. She flew past the fighter, and began to come around for another run as the fighters broke. Two of the Valorian fighters launched missiles at Robert’s shuttle. Robert increased speed and began evasive maneuvers to avoid the missiles. His gunners firing on the attacking fighters. One of them even got a lock on the fighter who’s shields she weakened destroying it.

She angled for a second fighter getting on its tail and began to open fire. The fighter pilot did a barrel roll, which allowed them to avoid most of her fire. She still scored several direct hits two of which penetrated the aft shields, rupturing the hull. Plasma venting into space, as her pilot increased speed. Then Eri’s fighter shook as one of the other fighters came on her tail and opened fire. The plasma bolts striking her aft quarter, she watched her AIF drop slowly. At that moment she also saw another fighter in perfect position for a missile, but she couldn’t open the armored missile ports with someone shooting at her. So she performed an old maneuver used by pilots for centuries and pulled the nose up looping around onto her attacker’s tail. Before firing into their aft quarter. Unlike the other fighter, this one was unable to shake her and was destroyed in a lovely fireball. Reducing the number of attackers to four.

The one that she damaged earlier was still running, probably back to base. Her pilot, however, had chosen a straight line making it easy to get a solid lock, and she fired missiles three and four at it. The missiles flew gracefully across space and overtook the fighter. The first missile knocked out the shields and the second tore the ship apart reducing it to a cloud of scrap metal. Coming around she locked onto one of the fighters harassing Robert. The fighter was on his tail and he was having a hard time shaking it. A pair of missiles took care of it, and then she turned towards another fighter.

The last two fighters were already breaking off. The one chose a poor path and moved into the arc of Roberts forward cannons, and he didn’t miss the opportunity to fire on it. A volley of blue bolts tore into its starboard dorsal, the shields strained for a couple of seconds before they failed. The bolts ripping into its hull, and reducing the ship to mangled metal. As for herself, she chased the other fighter a bit, as her pilot employed evasive maneuvers to try and throw her off. That lasted until she got a missile lock and she fired the last of her missiles. The pair of interceptor missiles easily caught up with the fleeing fighter and splashed it.

“All hostiles have been splashed, how are you holding up Robert?” said Eri over the comms.

“A little shaken, but we’re fine. Hull plating is holding at 64%, thanks to those missiles. Anyway, I located the ship that launched those fighters. There is a badly damaged light cruiser, Ophera class on the edge of our sensor range. Looks like she got caught in a plasma storm and it did a real number on her. I’m reading multiple hull breaches, severe damage to systems including communications, weapons, shields, and warp engines. I don’t think she has reported our position to their main fleet. We should take care of her before she can escape to report this encounter with their fleet,” said Robert.

“I see it on my scanners, as well. See what you mean about the her systems, those shields are still working though, even if barely. I’ll take care of her,” said Eri as she set an intercept course. The Ophera was the most common light cruiser of the Valorian Fleet and as she recalled it was practically a carrier on its own. With a capacity of nearly a hundred fighters. It also had fore and aft torpedoes and four banks of plasma pulse cannons. As she got closer it became highly evident why she didn’t send more fighters than she did. Her hangers were wrecked, and the breaches in her hull were wide rips. The storm must have wrecked most of their fighters and those seven were the only ones they could send. A quick scan from her own scanners told her the ship’s weapons weren’t just damaged, all but three guns on the ship were offline. As for her shields they were at 19% and fluctuating quite a bit. Leaving the ship with intermittent protection.

The ship was clearly accelerating and moving away as quickly as she could. However, it wasn’t fast enough to get away from Eri’s Fighter. She closed on it rapidly and as soon as she was in range she locked her torpedoes on the reactor, and fired. The 1204’s torpedoes were designed to fire in pairs. Two micro torps screamed through the nebulous cloud of the region and passed through the cruiser’s fluctuating shields. The torpedoes tore into the hull and exploded near the main reactor leading to a series of secondary explosions that reduced the ship to an expanding cloud of debris. With the ship destroyed, she followed protocol and initiated a high-intensity area scan. The scan revealed a small probe, just seconds before it jumped to warp, but no other ships in the immediate area.

“Robert, we were too late, they launched a probe, which just warped out. It is only a matter of time before the fleet learns of our position. Fortunately, the probe is low warp and doesn’t have a long-range FTL radio,” said Eri over the comms.

“Well, I just finished recovering your discarded dummy missiles. We should return to base and report this. Anyway how were your missile launchers?” said Robert.

“They worked like they were supposed to. Launcher two did stick slightly according to the computer but it isn’t noticeable. I’m changing course to rendezvous with you,” replied Eri. 

The flight back was long but fairly uneventful. During the flight back she made use of the rear of the cockpit, which contained the facilities needed on long flights. The 1204 like most human fighter designs was designed with long flights in mind, but her facilities were not designed for comfort. The rear contained a small storage cabinet which contained ration packs and the machine needed to prepare them. On the other side was what passed for a toilet, but it wasn’t convenient to use since they made it as compact as possible. There was also a hatch in the back that would let her reach the rear systems to repair battle damage.

The landing in the hanger went off without a hitch and she stepped out of the fighter to stand on the deck. Looking around she noticed an unusual amount of gossip going on, and the atmosphere seemed strange. She headed to a nearby comm panel and tried to contact the captain. However, he was not on the bridge, his office or quarters. It was late so she had expected him to be in his quarters, and if he wasn’t there the bridge. She had tried the office as her last theory. This meant she was going to have to physically find the captain. Heading into the locker room to change, she stopped someone and asked if the knew what was going on.

The person informed her that Williams had tried to overthrow the captain and failed. She and her cohorts were now in the brig facing charges of criminal conspiracy and mutiny. Most of the gossip going on was people trying to figure out the sentence. She ignored the other girls guess as it felt wrong to her, and headed to the locker she used earlier. She pulled out the privacy screen and opened the locker so that she could change back into her uniform. Once she was properly dressed, she left the locker room and went looking for the captain. Something that heavily involved asking people for leads.

About an hour after she had landed she was down on the lower decks, talking to the guard captain. The guard captain had confirmed that the captain had come down here to inspect the brig. So she was now asking if the guard captain knew where to find him.

“Yes, he hasn’t left the brig yet. You’ll find him near the rearmost cells. If you like I could have a guard escort you?” said the guard captain.

“No, thank you. I’ll be fine,” replied Eri before leaving the room. Navigating the brig wasn’t too hard. While she hadn’t been here herself she had memorized the layout. She had felt it prudent to memorize the layout of every section of the ship just in case. Something all the bridge officers had done because it helped if they ever needed to find the captain. Honestly, she wished the ship, had a feature to locate the captain like some of those ships in old science fiction shows.

She found the captain outside of William’s cell, which was one of the furthest cells from the entrance. Being located near one of the edge sections, she could see alert lights opposite the cell, with no opposing cell. As she reached the captain, he turned towards her clearly about to leave.

“Ah, Eri, what brings you to the brig?” asked Countryman

“I have an urgent report about my flight,” replied Eri.

“Let’s find somewhere more appropriate for that report. There is an observation deck a couple of sections from here. At this hour it should be pretty empty. Not much of a view, but it should do,” said Countryman. Eri told him it sounded good and followed him to the observation deck. The viewports were open, so she got an excellent view of the outside. Not that there was much to look at except ice and snow.

“The report?” said Countryman.

“During the weapons part of the test flight, we encountered a flight of fighters launched from a nearby and damaged light cruiser. We sunk all enemy fighters, and I personally destroyed the cruiser. Unfortunately, I was unable to prevent them from informing the fleet. They launched a small probe, sir. It warped out mere seconds after I detected it,” reported Eri.

“How long do you think we have?” asked Countryman.

“It was low warp, and its comm system short range. A week maybe two?” replied Eri.

“In that case, it will be all hands on deck to complete, our maintenance and refit those weapons. Report to the hanger tomorrow, you and the other pilots will be deploying jammer satellites around the system. Our inventory only includes about a hundred of those, so deploy them carefully. If you need more, there are enough materials here to manufacture more. Those jammers should buy us another week,” said Countryman.

The next morning Sali was startled awake not by the normal wake up call, but a general announcement. It took her a couple of moments to focus on the message. She also found herself more tired than normal for a wake-up call, and the lights which were always dim were off.

“Now hear this, at 1740 hours yesterday one of our flights encountered a Valorian Cruiser near the fourth planet and destroyed it. However the ship launched a probe that escaped. It is only a matter of time until the Valorian fleet learns of our presence here. All hands are to report to their duty stations for updated duties. We are accelerating our time table here. All non-critical factory projects are delayed until further notice. All pilots are to report to the hangers, regardless of their normal duty stations,” said the announcement before repeating. Hearing this she wondered if it meant a chance for rescue, but she had a feeling the ship would be gone by the time the fleet found them.

She didn’t have long to think about the announcement before a guard showed up with breakfast. After the guard pushed it through the door and onto the table, she asked him if that announcement would affect her. She asked primarily since she knew her first day in the factories was today.

“Yes, it will, but not as much as it affects everyone else,” replied the guard just before he left. Her breakfast was the same as yesterday’s if a little warmer. She had just finished her breakfast and cleaned up the way she had been taught when three guards arrived. The one opened the door and it wasn’t long before she was being escorted somewhere. She was guessing the factories they had mentioned. The walk to the lift wasn’t long, but they weren’t going to an upper deck. They were going to a deck below their current position, they input some code and then told the computer to go to deck 193.

Deck 193 was very busy when the lift opened. Dozens of people could be seen performing various tasks. Large hover carts laden with supplies were being moved around by people to various doors. All of the doors were larger here, and the halls made wider as well. She was lead down the hall and past what looked like missile casings. She was led into a large room filled with equipment, all of it entirely alien to her. Nothing in here even remotely resembled the equipment she had seen before, except the conveyors which weren’t all that different from Valorian models.

She saw a number of workers being briefed on what they would be doing for the next few days. Behind the man giving the briefing she saw a blueprint display that looked like some kind of jamming device to her. She, however, was led to a stern-looking woman. The woman looked her over for a moment.

“You must be Sali, today you will be moving materials for us,” said the woman words that marked the beginning of what proved to a hard day in the factories.

Captain’s Log July 9th 004,

Our factories finally running full force thanks to the minerals flowing into our cargo bays from the mines we setup. Modern mining techniques never cease to amaze me. What would have taken months to do when I was born can now be done in a matter of days. Today the live weapons demonstration I wanted is going to take place today, putting it together took a lot of effort. However the test field has been set up, and several craft have been outfitted with the new weapons. I’m personally looking forward to the weapons test. The test will include several phases, in the first phase the weapons will be tested against live mockups. These mockups are made of differing materials, and will show how well the weapons deal with different materials. Some of the mockups have been outfitted with structural enhancers to increase their resistance.

In the second phase, our craft will engage armed drones in a live battle. We managed to put together four dozen combat drones for the occasion. This will test how the weapons will fare in an actual battle. In the third and final phase, the weapons will be tested against a mockup of capital ship armor. That had been the most difficult part of the test to set up. The hardest part was getting enough titanium to build it, fortunately there is a huge vein just a kilometer beneath the ship. Which we used to get the titanium we needed. In other news, we pulled some old satellites out of storage, they had been transferred aboard the Enterprise from Star Tech One as research materials. Each satellite was designed as a prototype in the miniaturization of Energy Vent Cannon technology. The satellites had never been tested, so we tested one yesterday, the beam split a small moon in two. Not entirely surprising since the beam, was a high energy compressed antimatter particle stream, generated by the energies of a reactor operating at near overload. Still, the destruction was higher than we expected, the notes from Star Tech One predicted a yield of half the observed results. Instead, the satellite mounted Vent Cannons only lost a third the yield of the one mounted on Star Tech One.

We only have twelve of the satellites, which we have deployed strategically around the system. Some parties have proposed adding a vent cannon to our armament, but I and most of the council disagree as powerful as they are. The chief problem is that they are dangerous weapons to operate, the slightest mistake and you blow yourself up. Anyway if we need more we could build more satellites. Some of our scientists want to develop a safer more powerful version of the weapon. Personally, I don’t think anything will come of it. I feel the Vent Cannons are a dead-end in weapons technology. At least without developing a more powerful power source.

Countryman adjusted his environmental suit, which was actually light personal armor as he headed to his shuttle to observe the weapons test. They had erected a prefab observation dome to observe the weapons test with. They had built a number of prefab structures for when they found a suitable world. Prefab domes were considered a good choice since it opened more worlds to colonization. The shuttle was going to land outside so he was wearing this to keep warm on the short walk. The reason was due to a lack of winter coats, no one had foreseen the need to march through the snow. So none were included in the supplies that the Enterprise was loaded with. Fortunately, they could make some, but they were too busy with other things, and they had personal armor and extra atmospheric work suits that could be used as substitutes. 

The flight in the shuttle was leisurely, while normally Countryman would sit upfront, but this time he sat in the back talking with the scientists, who were also on his shuttle. The reason being the conversation was more interesting than the view. Endless fields of ice and snow, marred only by the occasional depression or hill were not all that interesting to Countryman. The flight itself lasted only about twenty minutes. During this time Countryman had an interesting conversation with the heads of several research departments. During this conversation, he made sure the materials department assigned a team to work with the team already trying to create a new generation of Electro Cannon.

As the shuttle was landing, one of the scientists brought up the vent cannons again.

“Sir, we really need to study the potential of the vent cannon. If we can create a more stable and powerful version of it the potential is enormous,” said the scientist.

“I’m sorry, but no. Your talking about a weapon that operates at near overload, sure the power is enormous, but it is a dead end. Nothing will come of further research, instead focus on developing a more useful tech. One that we actually need, as interesting as a new weapon of mass destruction is, we don’t need it. What we need is better armor, sensors, conventional weapons, and most of all stealth,” replied Countryman.

“Sir, your a scientist as well, surely you see the potential for what we could learn in high energy physics with this research,” said the scientist.

“Yes, I do. Which is why we did this research on Earth five years ago. We came to the conclusion that this is a technological dead end. As for the high energy reactions, we documented every test of the cannon and stored the information in our database. Some of that data has already been applied to more practical technologies. The computer uses it to help simulate the workings of new weapons is just one example of the benefits. There is no further benefit to this path,” replied Countryman.

The scientist fell quiet after that, while Countryman thought to himself, “I’m not a scientist, more of an engineer, and a leader before that. I can’t have my head in the clouds doing research just for the sake of knowledge.”

After a brief walk through the snow, they entered the prefab dome. Taking a seat near the front, Countryman waited for the live weapons test to occur. Many members of the top brass and scientists had gathered here to witness the demonstration. Countryman didn’t have a long time to wait before the modified shuttles took off to demonstrate the new weapons. The first phase was over almost before it began.

The shuttles flew out over the mockups of various alien ground vehicles. Some based on real ground vehicles others imagined. Then they began shooting. The bolts and beams ripped through the targets in seconds. Many of the bolts and beams tearing through the fake craft and deep into the ground.

The second phase was longer and made it painfully obvious that beam weapons weren’t the best choice for engaging fighter craft. The reason, being fire rate. While the beams were more accurate, in the time it took a beam cannon to kill one drone, the pulsed cannons would kill three to four. Countryman found the phase two test rather enjoyable, and informative. The final phase revealed that the beam weapon was far better suited for penetrating capital ship armor than the pulse cannons. Taking less than half the time to cut through the armor than the pulsed weapons did. The results weren’t all that surprising, but proved the improved weapons as viable. This allowed Countryman to give the go-ahead on refitting the weapons.

Nearly two weeks after the probe left the fleet commander was watching the replay of a battle. The screen showed two blips one green the other yellow. The green blip was clearly trying to retreat, while the yellow one closed rapidly. As it was getting close, two red blips separated from the yellow one and closed even more rapidly on the green blip. The moment the blips came in contact with the green blip that represented her cruiser, the blip vanished.

“How many were on that ship?”

“Of her crew of seven hundred and eighty, only three hundred forty-seven were still alive when the ship was destroyed,” reported her first officer quoting the logs recovered from the probe.

“At least we now have an idea, of where in this infernal region they are hiding. Have all remaining battlegroups converge on sector Yecha Four. Let’s flush them out,” said the commander. They had already lost too many ships to the weather, and she hoped she could finish this quickly.