Shiro stared at her readouts. Her battlegroup was already in formation with their newfound friends, and in just a few minutes the Cylovans would be warping out not far from their present coordinates. Her ship, and her sister ship the Accentor had a number of experimental warheads prepared for the engagement. After blowing up the ruins between the two of them they only had about twenty experimental AMF warheads. They were going to save them for use against the twelve enemy cruisers, but she knew she would have to use them carefully. Twenty warheads were not enough to guarantee that all twelve of the cruisers would be sunk.

Which meant she would need every advantage she could get to ensure a win. They were outnumbered and more importantly very few of their weapons could actually puncture that hull of theirs. This meant she couldn’t risk losing warheads to impacts against their shields. As she saw it they would have to get in close and knock out the enemy shields first. Then they could finish them with the experimental warheads. Their photons had already proven to be of little use against their neutronium laced hull, so she would reserve them for use on any destroyer that attacked them.

The greatest advantage she could think of was something they had only attempted in small-scale, and while it worked she wasn’t sure it was the best idea. She was thinking of telepathically linking with the entirety of her crew, and that of the Accentor’s crew. Her Sabre escorts were manned by machines so there wasn’t anyone to link with on the four destroyers. The important thing was that by doing this they would be able to dramatically increase reaction times and coordination. The machines already had a similar network, so the largest delay would be in communication between networks. She already knew of the potential mental side effects, but decided that they were worth it. She was a little worried about the strain of being linked to so many minds at once, but she hoped that they could handle it. Then the first Cylovan ship appeared in front of them in a burst of light. Instantly she reached out telepathically to her crew. In seconds a network formed between them and then they reached out to their sister ship.

The resulting link was nothing like the small scale network she had read about. They were so intimately linked with everyone else in the link that they were effectively a hive mind. They were still individuals, but their collective minds had created an overall directive purpose. They knew they could dissolve the link whenever they wanted and they would revert. The new hive mind consulted the problem before it, and accelerated signaling the escorts to maintain a protective formation around their two cruisers.

The cruisers closed the distance on the Cylovan cruiser that had warped out ahead of the task force rapidly. The alien ship targeted one of the destroyers and opened fire. A green energy beam raked over the hull of the Sabre Class destroyer, but failed to penetrate the ship’s armor. Before it could fire another shot or get away the formation opened fire with their electro cannons. The blue lightning bolts slammed into the shields and in a flash of light, they collapsed. An instant later, a bright blue bolt fired from the Accentor slammed into the Cylovan Cruiser. The torpedo had flown right into the open forward hanger bay, and slammed into the rear wall, detonating on impact. The massive multi gigaton blast ripped apart a massive chunk of the hull. Leaving the core of the cruiser exposed, its spherical hull now missing over a third of its mass. The rest of the cruiser went dark, but to be sure the Katana unleashed a barrage of photons into the core of the cruiser. The barrage targeted at known critical systems, and as intended the barrage set off a few secondary explosions. As the rest of the alien task force arrived in a flash of light the ship broke up.

The commodore of the Alliance task force watched his screens in surprise. She had never seen a Cylovan Cruiser be sunk so quickly. Then the rest of the hostile task force arrived, and she knew that she didn’t have time to think about it. Especially when a dozen destroyers broke off from the main group and headed her way. She had nearly three hundred ships under her command including forty capital ships. Most of which were cruisers, but her flagship was a battleship. Nearly three kilometers in length, and heavily armed with Photon Cannons, Photon Torpedoes, and Photon Missiles. So she felt she could handle a dozen destroyers, but she would need to make her choices carefully. The battle could go either way.

The rest of the destroyers broke away from the Refuge ships and headed straight for the Mydorian line of battle. The Mydorians had a full fleet in the system this time, and she knew the battle could go either way for them as well. She immediately focused on her own, however, as she couldn’t afford to worry about them. She gave orders to the fleet and waited for the ships to enter weapons range.

As soon as the Cylovans entered weapons range, her entire fleet focused fire on the lead destroyer. A barrage of orange and red photon bolts collided into its shields, which buckled under the strain. Allowing her torpedoes and missiles that followed to punch into the hull. The ship’s hull collapsed under the strain.

She managed to splash a second one in the same fashion before the Cylovans changed their tactics. The remaining ten ships made a short hop right into the middle of her formation. One of which must have miscalculated or something as it crashed into one of her light cruisers, and exploded on impact. Her cruiser losing the entire forward section, and escape pods were launching from the aft not long after. Her sensors told her that the damage was fatal, and that the ship would never fly again. The rest opened fire on her ships and at the same time, they unleashed wings of fighters right into her midst. She gave her own orders to counter this move, but was helpless as she watched a number of ships be destroyed before they could gain some distance.

Over sixty of her ships were destroyed before she could reorganize her task force, but they didn’t go down without a fight. Two more of their destroyers, along with nearly a thousand fighters had gone down with them. The two groups were now locked in a brutal exchange of energy weapons fire, with neither having a clear advantage. She spared a glance at the tactical plot, and noticed the Mydorians were faring a bit better. Having sunk thirteen of the twenty-four destroyers to have engaged their fleet. At the cost of over two hundred ships, but they were all light ships anyway, and easily replaced. Unfortunately, it looked like the remaining Cylovan ships had managed to get the upper hand and were winning at the moment.

Then she glanced over at the Refuge, and noticed that they seemed to be doing well. They had managed to sink three more cruisers, but one of their destroyers looked to be taking a beating. She watched on her screen as three cruisers fired at it simultaneously. The armor seemed to absorb the beams at first, but then the plating buckled. The beams punched through the hull, and tore out the other side. Suddenly the ship broke formation heading straight for the nearest Cylovan Cruiser. More blasts slammed into her armored hull, tearing horrific rents into the hull. One of the beams sliced through the struts and the port nacelle separated from the hull. Seconds later she saw pods separating from the hull, moments before it lept into high speed, and slammed into the cruiser it was heading for. A massive explosion resulted from the collision and claimed both ships.

“That’s one way to lose a ship,” she muttered to herself, and then turned her full attention back to her own battle. One of the Cylovan Destroyers was losing shields, and she ordered her ships to focus fire on it. She had her own guns trained on a different one, as its shields were also close to failing. Orange bolts slammed into the two ships, and their failing shields collapsed unable to withstand the barrages. The following bolts slammed into the armored hulls, which simply couldn’t absorb the energy being directed against them, and the ships were ripped to shreds. The loss of these two ships gave her a clear advantage and she took full advantage of it.

Two more ships fell to focused fire before the rest jumped away in typical Cylovan fashion, and she ordered her remaining ships to move in to assist the Mydorian fleet. As it would take a few minutes to actually reach the Mydorian line of battle, she turned her attention to the Refuge fleet.

It seemed they had gained the upper hand while she wasn’t looking. One of their destroyers was busy collecting escape pods from their lost ship, and another four Cruisers had been sunk. The Refuge ships were definitely taking a beating though, as she noticed a few hull breaches on all of the remaining Refuge ships. However she also noticed a distinct lack of Cylovan fighter support, and then one of the cruisers exploded when some Refuge fighters made a run at the ship. She had to rewind the sensor footage to see what happened. What she saw was the fighters swooped in and used their shield disrupters to knock out the shields, and then one of the Refuge cruisers fired a single torpedo at the ship. Which impacted just as the fighters got clear of the ship.

It was clear that the remaining two cruisers were attempting to retreat, but they weren’t able to do so. She watched as several fighters ran at the cruisers, and disabled their shields. Then the cruisers fired a single torpedo at each Cylovan ship. Both ships took massive damage, and were then finished off with a barrage of photons and particle fire.

A couple moments later her comms officer informed her that the Refuge task force was hailing her. She ordered him to put it on screen and a familiar female appeared on screen. It was their captain, Shiro.

“I see you are moving to aid the Mydorians. I trust I can leave that to you?” said Shiro seeming relaxed in her command chair.

“Between our two groups we should have the advantage, but what are you going to be doing?” asked the commodore.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I have taken a fair amount of damage. I’m going to salvage what’s left of the Baselard. The Katana has just about finished collecting her crew, but there are some larger pieces of the ship to salvage. Then I’m going to rendezvous with the fleet for repairs,” replied Shiro. The commodore thought her answer made sense. Her ships had taken quite the beating engaging the Cylovans at fairly close range. They had lost one destroyer, but the other three looked to have taken fairly heavy damage as well. As for the cruisers they both shared dozens of hull breaches. Based on the visual damage alone she guessed both cruisers would need a month in drydock with the destroyers being smaller requiring about two weeks, but she had no idea how the Refuge was going to fix that damage. As far as she knew they didn’t have ports in this part of space.

“Well you took care of the biggest threats, so I’ll leave you to the salvage and help the Mydorians out.

Around the same time the LPC was conducting its first mock battle. The fighters swooped in on the ship’s port flank and opened fire with a volley of simulated torpedoes. An energy web sprang into existence, and most of the torpedoes were blocked by the web. The rest impacted the hull and draining the plating. However none penetrated the hull armor.

The ship's turrets swiveled about and returned fire with simulated particle bolts. The streams of blue energy accurately seeking out targets, but the experienced pilots were able to shake the fire quickly enough. Two of the fighters were a hare too slow, however, and their computers told them they were dead. The bolts having penetrated the hull of their fighters and being simulated as dealing fatal damage.

The ship swung around and attempted to hit some of the fighters as they pulled away with the forward cannons, but not a single shot actually hit. The fighters broke off into two directions, forcing the ship to follow one of the wings. The other group used the opportunity to get on the LPC’s tail and opened fire with their cannons and firing another volley of simulated torpedoes.

The cannon fire splashed against the hull armor doing little apparent damage, and most of the torpedoes were once again intercepted by an energy web. Two turrets swung aft and returned fire. Forcing the pilots to conduct evasive maneuvers to avoid being hit. Their armor couldn’t absorb many hits from those guns, so they made full use of their maneuverability.

The group in front, however, was having a harder time, as they struggled to evade shots from the other turrets and the forward guns of the LPC. Then suddenly a beam lanced off from the ship and tore into a fighter. Her pilot being greeted with the dreaded ‘you have died’ screen. It quickly became clear that it wasn’t a lucky shot when three more fighters followed in quick succession. The wing behind them fired the last of their simulated torpedoes, and this time scored a few decent hits. However none of the damage they inflicted was critical, and the other group proved unable to shake them. As the LPC was almost as maneuverable as a fighter. Her beams quickly proved to be her deadliest weapon against the fighter wings, and a few minutes later the simulated battle ended with a victory for the LPC’s crew.

Sayuri leaned back in her chair and relaxed after she won. While her life hadn’t been in danger that didn’t make the mock battle any less stressful. Especially since her aft plating had gotten pretty weak. One of the hits on her aft section had even come painfully close to damaging her fuel lines. If the simulated torpedo had hit just a half meter to the left it would have dealt a great deal more damage. She was, however, finding herself starting to like this ship, but she still wasn’t looking forward to spending the night in the crew cabin.

A few moments later Countryman hailed to congratulate her, “Good job, commander, and congratulations on your victory.”

She shifted slightly in her chair, and replied, “It feels nice to win a fight, but I think I need to run a few target practice drills. My gunners weren’t exactly pulling their weight.”

Countryman smiled, and said, “That is a good idea. In the meantime, I suggest you move on to the next item on the shakedown cruise.”

She nodded her head and agreed before closing the channel. Then she ordered Sali to make the calculations. Her hands moved over the console with the practiced ease of an experienced pilot and a few moments later she heard the hum of the warp engines as the ship jumped to high warp.

Taskforce 819212 Gamma has reported a failure in its mission objectives. The primary objective has been destroyed. No presence of species 2793 found. Species 11257 has been determined as responsible for the destruction of the objective.

Species 11257 has demonstrated increased offensive abilities, and revealed a new torpedo weapon. The device has been analyzed and determined to be a high yield compressed plasma explosive. Sheer power of warhead limits adaption options. Propose reconfiguring SIF fields to further dampen explosions. Reduced beam protection determined as a worthy tradeoff.

Current beam weapon adaptations deemed effective at countering unique armor of Species 11257. Overall threat level of species 11257 reevaluated. Assigning additional resources to developing specialized ships for fighting species 11257.