Countryman sighed as he stared at the screen, and considered what to say for today’s log. Their latest experiment with Hyperwarp derived technology had been a success, well sort of. The experiment actually did far more than they intended it to, and now he needed to think something up to deal with the repercussions of this.

Hyperwarp was a very interesting technology that functioned using powerful multispatial field generators to tunnel through hyperspace to create a conduit that connects two points. These conduits allowed ships to travel between any two points at incredible speeds. A conduit once opened created a permanent shortcut in space that could later be reopened by a ship with the appropriate equipment. The Cylovans had not really been using the technology outside of propulsion, but it did have applications in communications. Creating a hyperwarp radio wasn’t all that difficult with all the data they had stolen from the Cylovans. It was crude, and rudimentary not to mention inefficient, but it made an excellent proof of concept. They were still working on refining it into a practical prototype, but the priority was currently low. Still, they did have an entire lab devoted to it, as they felt it would be useful when the time came for them to split the fleet. Just they didn’t expect to reach their supply limit and need to split the fleets for another five years.

What was more interesting was that the very same devices had potential in weaponry. It had taken them two years to adapt the Cylovan technology to their systems, and refit all of their ships to be Hyperwarp capable. They didn’t have the power generation of Cylovan vessels, so they solved the problem by making use of their superior energy storage technology. They did have to beef up their main batteries but they now had Hyperwarp capability, albeit limited. Their jump range was less than half that of a Cylovan Dreadnought, and while the Dreadnought could make a jump at any time they needed about two days of charging the batteries before they could make a hyperwarp jump. As for the jump itself, they needed about the same amount of time to form a conduit and make the jump. They had spent the last three years optimizing these systems and streamlining the process.

Most importantly they had found a way to weaponize the projectors used to form conduits. It was not the most efficient weapon, but it was definitely powerful. When directed at a planet their new weapon could cause significant seismic shifts, and if left focused long enough it would rip the planet apart. It was a powerful effect, but the really interesting effects happened when it was directed at a star. The projector beam when directed at a star disrupted the ordinary processes of a star resulting in a spike in solar activity. This disruption can be controlled and directed. They had been able to employ this controlled disruption to force a coronal mass ejection powerful enough to completely scorch the surface of a nearby planet. That planet had been a dead world not unlike Mars before its terraforming in the star’s habitable zone.

The effects had led them to wonder if they could induce a supernova, and the answer to that proved to be sort of. They did get something like a supernova, but the star was still there. Albeit a bit dimmer, and missing a good chunk of its fuel. As for the wave of destruction it unleashed. Well that went FTL, and was now threatening to engulf the entire sector and its surroundings. At least most of the Planets in the danger zone were either uninhabited or colonized by the Rykoni so he didn’t think anyone would miss them all that much. The only world he knew of that wasn’t Rykoni that would be threatened by the wave was Ilyatria and they were technologically advanced. He was sure they had the time they needed to protect their planet. He had already tried to warn them about it, but the wave disrupted any communications that passed through it.

Anyway, there was no way past the wave without getting ripped apart, so they just had to wait it out, and not be in the area when people inevitably come to investigate what caused the explosion. Some of them would be highly irrational, and emotional. They wouldn’t care that it was just an experiment gone wrong. The very fact they had a device that could explode stars would frighten the hell out of them. As for the device, it wasn’t a weapon of war, at best it was a terror device. It had taken the entire fleet a full six hours to accomplish this. A single ship would never be able to do it. So unless they wanted to end up like a certain fictional battle station it was best not to be around, when the angry distraught alien that just lost his home came looking for revenge.

Then suddenly his computer beeped he glanced to see he had a call from engineering. He accepted it, and Megumi appeared on the screen looking a bit dirty and tired.

“I’m glad to report that the radiation shields have been restored, sir. Sensors indicate radiation levels inside the ship are dropping back down to safe levels,” said Megumi.

Countryman nodded, and said, “That’s good. Get some rest, you look like you need it, and may I suggest a bath?”

She looked herself over and nodded before saying, “Yeah, I think one of those would be in order. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She logged off, and Countryman leaned back happy to hear the shields were back. They were practically useless most of the time. However, they were practically vital here. In the Ikar Radiation Belt deadly radiation permeated the entire region that was detrimental to both biological life, and technology. The pulse from the star had disrupted the shields of every ship in the fleet. Leaving them temporarily unprotected from the effects of the radiation. Tomorrow they were going to have to sweep the ship for damaged electronics, but the shields hadn’t been down long. Not long enough for any detrimental effects anyway.

His thoughts then drifted back to the last five years. Life in this belt was fairly peaceful, and while they hadn’t found any habitable worlds here it was rich in minerals. They had identified a few good sites for a colony, but they were gone now or soon to be. Not a big loss if he was honest. None of the sites had much in the way of a biosphere and would have been expensive projects to terraform. Both in time and resources. Most were expected to take decades to terraform. Not that they really wanted a colony. They were more interested in the locations as a permanent base of operations.

As for the fleet itself they had done well for themselves over the last five years. The phase lance project had proven very successful especially in the area of beam weapons, but they had managed to develop a pulsed version of the weapon system. As such phase lances had completely replaced their traditional particle weapons. Abundant resources had allowed the stockpile a large number of their powerful AMF torpedoes. In addition, readily available materials had allowed them to refit the entire fleet with more advanced hull armor, and to modify the loadouts of the fleet. The new alloy he had created was a bit more expensive to produce than the old. However. it was three and half times stronger and had half the weight. Given that it was also twice as responsive to enhancement. it was a remarkably strong material, making it well worth the cost. As for the name, well the crew had taken to calling it Titan II alloy. That wasn’t the official name for it, but it was the most common name for the material in use.

As for the thousands of metric tons of titan alloy that had been used in the old hull plating. That was now sitting in storage. As the material was still quite useful. Since they were no longer using it for hull plating the electronics integrated into the plates were stripped out before they were stored. Those materials removed from the old plating were actually used in the manufacture of the new plating. Currently, the plan for the stored alloy was to keep it in reserve for ship repair. They may have replaced the hull plating, but many of the internal bulkheads and the star frame were left untouched. Besides replacing it would have changed things from a refit to a rebuild.

His thoughts ordered he began to write his log. However, he decided to omit all mention of the exploding star and what caused it. Instead, he marked the day as uneventful except for the passing of a strong wave that temporarily knocked out the shields. As for the experiment he decided to classify at the highest level and keep the data locked in vault. In the log, he decided to mention the Mark Four Electro Cannon. It was nothing special, but it was a marked improvement on the Mark Threes that were introduced three years ago. Most importantly they solved a number of the issues that plagued the mark three.

The Mark Three represented a conversion of what was originally a short-range weapon into a medium-range weapon system. As anyone could guess that came with all sorts of problems. The Mark Three was slower to recharge than the older mark two and required more energy to fire. In addition, it was highly prone to burn-outs and overheating. Along with a few other reliability issues that plagued the systems. The Mark Four had been designed to correct these issues, and actually had a slightly longer range than the Mark Three, along with slightly more power. It was still just as slow as the Mark Three was to recharge, but most of the reliability issues had been ironed out. System was still prone to overheating if fired too quickly, but they could deal with that.

Right now the Mark Three was really only in use on the Star Knights. Most ship captains preferred the more reliable if shorter ranged Mark two. As for the Star Knights they had proven to be fairly reliable cruisers. The fleet currently had about forty of the ships that had been built over the course of the last five years. They were used quite heavily for reconnaissance, but the cruisers were also employed for raid missions. Their ability to carry LPCs in their hangers was invaluable for scouting missions. Since the ships could range far ahead of the fleet. This increased how far they could deploy LPC’s from the fleet for scouting. Just beyond the far side of the Ikar Radiation belt is a fairly lucrative region of colonies and planets that they had found three and a half years ago. The Star Knights had proven very effective at locating and raiding several pirate operations that preyed on local merchant shipping, and mining operations.

The locals had a limited and undermanned policing system that was unable to actually deal with the pirate problem effectively. The fact that all of the local inhabited planets were either at war with each other or loosely allied made things worse. Tensions were extremely high, and the cluster was politically unstable. In fact, it seemed to resemble a certain peninsula back on Earth before they unified into a single nation. All of the local system states had high levels of industrialization and military power. Even the pirates were well-armed and equipped. All of this factored into the fleet choosing to avoid the region. They already had their spoils, and the place was too unstable to try making a home near. The Orialias belt and its partner the Ikar Radiation belt were vast, and he was comfortable spending years looking for a good site to set up a permanent base. As for the sector itself they hadn’t been there in over a year now.

The last time they had ships in the sector they had encountered a Cylovan Cruiser engaged with a local battlecruiser and her twelve escorts. Their Star Knight had come across them late into the battle. The Cruiser had lost shields and sustained light hull damage. A third of her fighter complement was depleted as well, but she had the upper hand in the engagement. The reason for this was that the Battlecruiser had sustained heavy damage. She was on reserve power, her shields and weapons were down. Her hull armor was buckling, and she had sustained multiple hull breaches. Her captain was wisely attempting to retreat while the escorts covered the retreat of the more valuable battlecruiser. Three of those escorts had already been overwhelmed and were being swarmed by Cylovan fighter craft.

Seeing that they were in a bad position the crew of the Star Knight SFS Roland chose to engage the cruiser. They had been outfitted for raiding pirates, and Cylovan encounters were not expected. As a result, they were carrying photon torpedoes and not the more powerful AMF torpedoes. This meant that they didn’t have the firepower to outright destroy the Cylovan Cruiser. In fact, the ship straight up outgunned them, and in an outright slugging match would have destroyed the lighter Refuge cruiser. The Star Knights’ greatest advantages were its speed and jamming abilities.

Ital Sector 1455 hours November eighteenth 077 SDE, SFS Roland:

The captain double-checked his readings and glanced at his crew. Normally they would have been no match for the cruiser on the edge of their passive sensor range. Right now that wasn’t the case. The fleet had already chosen to bypass this sector deeming it “Too politically unstable to warrant the risk of passing through or interacting with the locals.” Thanks to this the fleet was continuing on a course through the sparse Ikar radiation belt towards the galactic edge. Well sparse in terms of stars. Every single one of the stars in the region supported systems that were contrary to expectations rich in rare and valuable minerals. The most accepted current theory was that the pervasive radiation in the region was the cause of this. The other theory was the frequent spatial anomalies were the cause. Personally, he was thinking that both were true.

None of this however factored into his decision. He announced that they were going to engage the Cylovan cruiser in battle. The damaged battlecruiser and her crew deserved a chance to escape. Not to mention that if this attack was a prelude to invasion than the damaged battlecruiser could warn their people if they escaped. He gave the order, “All hands tactical alert. Helm full speed ahead. Operations prepare to jam all frequencies on my mark. Tactical standby all weapons, load photons on all forward tubes.”

As per his orders moments later the Roland swept into the field from the left. As soon as she was in range she opened fire. Vibrant violet-blue energy streams slammed into the Cylovan hull. Each one punched through in mere seconds melting deep holes into the alloy, and lacerating sensitive electronics. Since the cruiser’s shields were currently down the Roland was taking full advantage of this weakness to disable critical systems. Each strike tore deeply into weapon clusters, sensor arrays, and communication systems.

The cruiser quickly took notice and returned fire. Green energy beams lanced out from the hull towards the Roland. Only to go wide and miss the lighter ship entirely. The smaller lighter ship easily slipped out of the firing arcs, and let loose a targeted photon barrage. The glowing blue projectiles splashed against the armored Cylovan hull. Seemingly with no effect beyond some superficial hull damage.

Again the cruiser returned fire, most of her green beams going wide of the Roland, but one of the beams caught the Roland. Striking the ship’s port bow. The plating rippled, but held against the hit. Several more vibrant violet-blue energy streams lanced from the light cruiser to lacerate her opponent. One of the beams punched through the cruiser’s starboard hangar door. Penetrating several hundred meters into the ship, and lacerating several fuel storage cells. All of which were filled with full intended for the ship’s fighter craft. The cells ignited from the impact and exploded. The entire hanger went up in a large fireball. The resulting damage looked far worse than it actually was, but the hanger was out of commission. Along with it, several weapon clusters were disabled as well.

At the same moment, the cruiser’s fighter craft having pulled back from attacking the battlecruisers escorts engaged the Roland. Tiny beam cannons raked over the hull of the Roland with little effect. While on the surface of her hull flak guns opened up on the passing fighter squadrons. Unlike the larger cruiser, they were actually scoring hits even if they were ineffective at penetrating the armor of the Refuge vessel. On the flip side, the Refuge flak easily shredded any squadron unlucky enough to get hit, and her hit ratio was high. Within mere moments the fighters were gone, and the cruiser was firing her main guns at the Roland again.

Several green beams lanced across space only to strike nothing. Her poor weapons lock forcing her to saturate the general area rather than directly target the light cruiser she was fighting. Still, three shots hit the Roland. The first hit her again near the port bow. The second struck her amidships, and the third grazed her dorsal plating. None of them penetrated her enhanced armor. Not because they lacked the power to do it, but because the Cylovans couldn’t get the weapons lock they needed to unleash the concentrated barrage required to penetrate the hull plating. As for the Roland while her beams were penetrating the armor, with the exception of the hangar the resulting damage was actually fairly light. Her captain had just been waiting for the local battlegroup to escape before he retreated himself. Without AMF torpedoes he didn’t have the firepower to actually sink a Cylovan cruiser. However contrary to his expectations, the other group opened fire. The Battlecruiser’s crew had apparently taken the opportunity to restore main power, and opened up with their main guns. Firey orange-red beams lanced from her main batteries to slam into the cruiser’s side. The armor simply disintegrated under the barrage, and secondary explosions soon followed. Their fire wasn’t any more accurate than the Cylovans, and half the shots went wide. A couple came close to striking the Roland. The reason for this inaccuracy was simple, the Roland was not just jamming communications but disrupting the sensors of all ships in the area. The only ship not affected by the disruption was the Roland itself.

The Roland unleashed another photon barrage after an orange-red beam came within twenty thousand kilometers of it, and then increased her distance. Her barrage penetrated an opening in the cruiser’s hull and exploded with massive force. Something critical that had avoid damage earlier when the rent was opened by the battlecruiser exploded. The force of the detonation was impressive, and the ship lost power. A couple more hits from the battlecruiser finished her off, and the ship broke apart. With the cruiser destroyed the Roland canceled her jamming field, and was immediately hailed by the wounded battlecruiser. She ignored the hail, and instead jumped away quickly disappearing from their scans.

As for the captain of the battlecruiser, from his perspective, he had just been attacked by a silent enemy, and then he was helped by an equally silent ally. So he watched the ship leave, and was left wondering why none of these aliens wanted to talk to him.