As the Bastion was busy fighting, Countryman was in his main office cleaning up. He had a meeting with a pair of medical researchers in an hour, and thankfully he had finished his paperwork. That left him with nothing to do until they got here. Since he didn’t have a lot of time for one of his regular tours, he decided to do something he doesn’t often do. Clean his office, it wasn’t that bad. Very old habits of his meant he did not have to do too much. Just organize a little clutter and dust.

Opening a drawer containing old notepads, not the paper variety, but cheap electronic ones. On a ship, paper was considered a luxury good. In fact, it was cheaper to buy a brand new computer than a book. While that might seem strange, it came down to the fact that space came at a premium on ship. Much of their agricultural space was devoted to food production, so they had few resources to make paper with. The materials to make computers were easy enough to get in comparison. Assuming you knew where to look, but the riches of the void were vast. Not to mention they knew well where to look after spending the better part of a century out here.

He leafed through the pads checking each one’s table of contents. These pads contained records that weren’t in the ship’s database. Some of it was data that was too sensitive. Classified scientific reports, council meeting records, and even a few proposals. Finding a pad containing such proposals, he leafed through them. Some of them were older and no longer valid. He deleted those, but a few were still worth keeping. Mixed in were a few newer ones, like the Common language acceleration proposal. That one had already been approved but was still here because it had not been archived yet. Having a large multi-lingual population had led to people combining tongues. The proposal was to have a bunch of linguists create a common accepted combined form of their combined tongues and a combined alphabet. The idea was useful but had been overshadowed by recent events. He put that aside, and went back to leafing through.

The next item of interest was an old research project proposal. One that was never funded, mainly because they lacked resources at the time. It detailed a theory about employing a cascading fusion reaction to generate a high energy plasma stream. In theory, the stream would shoot out from an aperture like a CME. Starting as a beam, before rapidly spreading out. In other words just a more powerful version of the obsolete plasma throwers they already had. Plasma throwers had great power even today, but they lacked range.

Suddenly a thought struck him like a lightning bolt, and he quickly grabbed a couple of other pads. He then accessed the database for reference to recent official research. Connecting the different projects, he wrote out a draft. He was still working on it when there was a ring at his door. A glance at the clock said it was time for the meeting. He bade them enter.

Two younger women entered the office a moment later. One carrying a large pad in her arms. The other carried a small stack of standard-sized pads. They looked around, and the smaller one on the left frowned. “Is this a bad time?”

He shook his head, “No, you are just in time. This is just a distraction. I am caught up with my paperwork, and was working on a side project while waiting.”

The younger women took a step forward, “A side project? Before we start, may I ask what it is?”

Countryman started organizing his pads, and said, “It’s outside your field, so I will keep things simple. I am revisiting hundred-year-old theories and using more modern knowledge to refine them and apply them to a new one. Specifically, I am working on a theory for a plasma-based version of our Phase Lance technology. The idea might not get any funding any time soon, but we have been revisiting old theories regarding plasma recently.”

“Why don’t you think it would be funded?” asked the other woman.

Countryman sighed, “Cascade fusion reactions are needed to produce the required plasma, and those are tricky to control. Not something we can easily experiment with, and certainly not on the Enterprise. Anyway, that is not why you are here. What have you got?”

They both sighed, “Well that super pheromone is proving quite tricky to figure out. Very potent as well. Thankfully we do have a little good news. It’s not a cure, but more of a stopgap.”

He leaned forward, “A stopgap? That sounds like progress. Is it something we can use?”

The older one nodded, “In theory yes. We noticed that the pheromone appears to have little effect on those already pregnant. Therefore, in theory, tricking the body into thinking it is pregnant should do the trick.”

Countryman nodded, “That makes sense, and it is something we already know how to do. I can approve a trial right now.”

They both frowned and shook their heads, “Not quite that simple, anymore. That is with Humans. Our physiology is a good deal more complex and has developed redundancies the human body never had. Not to mention more robust, and most important is our immune system.

“With humans, the preferred method is with an implant, but with us, that won’t work. Our bodies aggressively attack anything foreign to itself. It doesn’t matter if it is biological or technological, the immune system will attack it. Not to mention with all the little changes to our physiology, we can no longer be certain which treatments are still effective.”

The younger one interjected, “We do have a few treatments in mind to test, but ...”

Countryman seeing where this is going, interrupted, “Let me guess. Since I am the only person on the ship with implants, and as I haven’t rejected those implants, you want to study me.”

She nodded shyly, and the other one confirmed, “We would like to take a few scans, and a blood sample yes. Even that little bit of data could prove enlightening.”

He sighed, “That won’t be necessary. My bio data is already in the system, just not on the mainframe. Given the importance of your project, I’ll see about getting you clearance for it. Just a word of warning, you might find your selves roped into a classified project if you actually succeed in making a viable implant with it.”

The younger one gave him a look, and said, “Your bio data is classified!? Why!?”

The older one sighed, and looked down, “I suspected that might be the case.”

The younger one gave her a look too. “You knew!!?”

She replied, “I suspected. I didn’t know for sure until just now, though.”

Countryman interjected, “Cyborgs like myself, while not always welcome, were in high demand in certain fields. We make excellent researchers and great soldiers. In the seat of a fighter, cyborgs are unmatched. We weren’t widespread for two major reasons one was because a large number of people disapproved of cybernetic augmentation, even in the military. Today we don’t have that kind of backlash, but as you noticed our bodies reject implants. Makes using them complicated. The other factor limiting the spread of cybernetics is cost. Cybernetic augmentation is sadly not cheap.”

The older researcher nodded, “that lines up with what I remember. I can guess what the other project is for, and why they needed your biodata. We could use any advantage we can get.”

“That we can. Now is there anything else, you need to report about the pheromone project?”

She smiled, “Yes, as I said the first item was a stopgap. We think the only way to permanently solve the problem is with genetic engineering, but that could take years. It's the kind of thing we have to be careful with. Just look at ‘The Storm.’ We solved our radiation problem with genetic engineering, and that led to a mutation problem.

“Thankfully this time we have a stopgap to help us, and the problem isn’t life-threatening. We have the time to do this right.”

Countryman sighed, “We have the time, but our resources are stretched thin. I’ll see what I can do about the budget for that.”

“Back up a bit, that theory you were working on. It sounds important.”

Arlie nodded, “Important yes, but not immediately. It would later play an important role in laying out the groundwork for our signature weapon, the Phased Plasma Beam Cannon. Commonly referred to as the PPB. PPBs replaced Phase Lances and were devastatingly effective weapons. Although it would not be until 310 SDE that a successful prototype was created.”

“But you are already laying out the groundwork, and its only 82 SDE!”

She gave the two a look, and said, “True, but it would be years before we actually got to work on proving the theory, and we faced a few setbacks. However, while I said successful, there were earlier working prototypes. They just never made it to the production phase.”

“Earlier prototypes? Why didn’t they make it to production?”

“Same reason most projects are scrapped, flaws cropped up in the testing phase. Now let’s get back to the story, we have a battle to check in on.”

The ship shuddered under the force of a heavy disruptor barrage. Being engaged by four dreadnoughts and their escorts at once was taxing the armor, and really testing the limits of her ship, the Bastion.

A moment later, several arrays lit up brightly in the void and vibrant blue energy streams cut across the void. With impressive force they slammed into the side of a cruiser whose shields were failing. The glowing barrier flickered briefly before collapsing. The armor and hull melted as the beams cut a path of destruction through the ship and out into the void. Several small flashes indicated internal detonations.

As the arrays powered down to cycle, the detonations continued. Quickly followed by a few larger ones, as the ship tore itself apart. Given the heavy damage it had previously received, and where her officers had targeted the beam weapons she had expected that.

Several ships returned fire, a few missed entirely. Other beams found their mark, and her ship shuddered under the impact of another barrage. “AIF integrity has dropped below fifteen percent!”

Kirk was not comfortable with that, but at the moment she was buying time. Mainly for the carrier, her escort cruiser was already moving again. As for the rest of the taskforce, they had regrouped and were attempting to draw forces off of the Bastion with little success.

Speaking of the taskforce, they were down in strength. Several destroyers and a cruiser had been lost before she had even arrived. Sinking those ships had cost the collective though. There was plenty of wreckage here already, and her current course would take her near the floating wreck of a Cylovan cruiser, and a cloud of debris from a Refuge destroyer. Both being ships that sank before her ship arrived on the scene. Those wrecks could prove useful, and she knew a little trick that could extend the life of the AIF a little longer. Not to mention, a second taskforce was about to arrive. She just had to keep them busy for another five minutes. No problem at all.