July 24th, 003 SDE, 1520 hours:

  Countryman looked up from his desk as Greyman came in. “Afternoon sir, I have the test test results for your review.”

  Taking the offered report, he started looking it over, “Anything I should know?”

  “The forcefield projectors are definitely more stable than the earlier versions, but I’m not sure about taking them into combat. Vera and Ruri haven’t been able to fully compensate for the stability issue and the system remains vulnerable to high energy bursts.”

  “So they still need more work before we can conduct open bay hangar operations. Noted.”

  Greyman took a seat, “During combat yes, they are stable enough for field use and she did fix the issue with the catapults. We can freely use the catapults during unch without worry of field colpse.”

  Sighing, “But they will still fail if someone takes a shot at them. I guess it doesn’t change that much really.”

  “No,” replied Greyman, “we don’t exactly want the enemy shooting at an open hanger anyway.”

  Countryman ughed, but before he could reply a kxon went off. “All hands general quarters, all hands general quarters. Captain Countryman to the bridge, repeat Captain Countryman to the bridge.”

  “I guess something happened,” commented Countryman as he slipped out from behind his desk. In a smooth motion he turned his monitor off and slipped the report into a drawer. Before following Greyman out of his office and into the short hallway outside his office. Taking a right, he rushed past the two guards on duty and entered the upper level of the bridge. Countryman surveyed the screens as he closed on his chair. Quickly noting the double diamond shaped vessel closing on their position

  That was a shape he wasn’t familiar with, indicating to him this was a first contact. The ship didn’t have sweeping elegant lines common in Valorian design, their ships were more artwork than combat vessels, nor did it have the predatory lines of Cathamari design. That double diamond didn’t seem entirely out of line for Krall ships, but the lines were wrong. The Krall favored a triangur prow section that often led into a rugged rectangur main body that fred into rge sweeping wings.

  This hull featured strong rugged lines with two diamond shaped wedges stacked on top of each other. Something that became quite apparent as the vessel maneuvered around a rge chunk of ice. Giving him a good view of her lines, the ship featured several massive thruster ports mounted along her rear.

  “Report!”

  Misaki looked up, “According to the Krall database, that’s a Toral Confederacy Battleship Imperator css.”

  “The Toral? I thought we were lightyears from their space.”

  Kaori looked up from the tactical console, “They are charging weapons.”

  Misaki’s console beeped, “We are being hailed.”

  He gestured for it to be put on screen and an alien man appeared. Countryman couldn’t help comparing him to a Goril. It certainly was an apt comparison. Although he was clearly a goril with four arms, fierce eyes and tusks. He spoke tersely, “Nothing against you but I can’t have anyone knowing we were here. Prepare for battle.”

  Greyman commented, “That was odd.”

  Countryman nodded, but didn’t say anything. He had a battle to fight, “Alert all away parties, load all torpedo tubes. Bring us about to heading one one six mark two four ahead full.”

  Kaori nodded, “Loading tubes.”

  While helmsman Eri turned the ship onto the new course and increased speed. Countryman took a quick moment to access the database and review the Krall intel on the ship type. Imperator css ships were marked as dated with the st production run of the css having ended forty years ago. He noted that down, as he quickly familiarized himself with what weapons the other ship had. It was armed with Toral particle projectors which basically sounded like a different take on their own particle cannon technology, just much slower to fire, but with a higher energy impact per round. The ship also carried pulse missiles and torpedoes. Countryman quickly digested that, as the ship shook under the fire of alien guns.

  “Hull pting holding sir, but that hit was powerful. I wouldn’t recommend taking too many of those,” commented Kaori.

  “Noted, return fire aft tubes, maximum yield, full salvo.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  The aft unchers hummed as multiple blue bolts sailed out. The alien shields fred as the energetic projectiles smmed into them at high velocities, but a good number got through.

  “Direct hit, Toral shields holding, moderate damage to their forward hull pting. No significant damage to report, sir”

  Countryman had doubted that would do much against the ship. The file he was reading described it as a fortress, however her aft pting did have a few weaknesses. Sadly they weren’t on her tail, he was showing his to the enemy but that wasn’t going to st.

  A second ter Coto moved in, he spotted her on the screens, coordinating with the Umikaze. Both ships came around pieces of floating debris and opened up with their forward tubes. The battleship’s shields fred brightly as the projectiles punched through them, about half detonated on the Toral ship’s shields, the rest tore into the armor.

  They were clearly doing damage, but unlike a Valorian ship, that vessel actually was built to take a beating. It was clear to him they would have to take out the shields, then the cannons would really be able to shine. He smiled, for once they were facing a proper opponent, with serious hull pting, and strong weapons. On the surface they were pretty evenly matched.

  As the battleship returned fire on the destroyers, scoring two hits on the Coto and one on the Umikaze. Both of which penetrated the armor, but failed to inflict serious damage, he was barking new orders. “Engineering jump start the main reactor. Tactical charge the electro cannons, helm adjust heading sixty one degrees to port and prepare for pulse detonation.”

  The bridge leapt into action and the ship shook again. “Port pting buckling, damage to sections 323 alpha to 670 beta, no penetration.”

  “Matter antimatter reaction confirmed, reactor cores one and two coming online. Warp power in ten minutes”

  “Electro cannons coming online, psma capacitors at 24 percent and charging, ready for fire in t minus three minutes.”

  “Engine charge nominal, sir, ready for pulse detonation on your mark.”

  “Mark! Set for one minute”

  The ship leapt, as the inertial dampers strained to compensate for the sudden extreme acceleration and deceleration, as they were quickly pulled out of range.

  A second ter a flight of fighters entered visual range, coming out from a rock just as they slowed down. They’d jumped out of range of the ship shortly before the fighting, and were escorting a shuttle unched earlier as part of Ruri’s tests.

  “Clear them for the port side hanger entry and bring us about.”

  “Aye sir.”

  The seconds ticked by as the flight conducted a hot nding. Quickly entering the bay, and securing before it could repressurize. As the doors were closing he gave the order to jump back into the fight, just as tactical reported the electro cannons were ready to fire.

  Then they made the jump, everyone felt the acceleration as they instantly closed back into combat range. Countryman gave the order the moment they had a line of fire, “Fire!”

  Kaori grinned as she maniputed her console and fired the electro cannon batteries personally. Multiple empcements fired at once, sending charged psma streams into the Toral battleship, several thunderous cracks reverberated through the ship, while on screen Countryman watched the Toral shields fre brightly before overloading in a luminous burst.

  “Toral shields have colpsed, sir!”

  “Fire at will, all avaible batteries.”

  “Aye, sir. Firing at will.”

  Numerous turrets turned to unleash a heavy barrage of particle fire into the alien battleship, which returned fire with a heavy barrage from its own projector mounts. The ship shuddered under the heavy strikes, as the two ships raked each other in a heavy exchange.

  At the same moment, Countryman coordinated a new attack with the destroyers Coto and Umikaze. A heavy torpedo barrage from above and below targeted the battleship’s primary engine manifolds. The rear armor was weaker, so he was hoping the torpedoes would inflict considerable damage when they hit.

  Just as he was informed of confirmed unches, operations officer Misaki looked up, “Hyperspace window detected.”

  “Identify,” ordered Countryman.

  “New contact, Toral vessel configuration unknown.”

  He blinked, another hostile? “Divert...”

  “We are being hailed.”

  Sighing he commented, “Is this standard Toral behavior, warp in and then decre battle before attacking? Put them on.”

  This time a female figure appeared on the screen. Countryman was rather astonished at the difference from the males. If he had the time for questions he would have asked them. The alien woman on the screen was much smaller than the male and cked facial tusks, but she did have four arms. Her skin was a pale shade of green and she was dressed in a sharp uniform.

  The woman smiled, “I’d introduce myself but it seems we have little time for pleasantries and I see you have already encountered the rogue.

  He blinked, “rogue?”

  “I’d expin if we had more time, but I’d keep it short. The Simple Devastation has gone rogue, we’ve been sent to bring her back.”

  He quickly noted that down. It seemed they had an ally, he would talk more but his attention was required.

  “Port pting buckling sir! Hull breach deck forty two, section 978 Epsilon.”

  Countryman quickly signaled to cut the hail and jumped into giving a series of orders. Some of them likely redundant, “Isote that section, dispatch damage control. Tactical lock cutting beams on the following coordinates;...”

  Kaori confirmed the target, a section of pting that had weakened from heavy fire. Entire sections of the Toral armor were starting to degrade. Sure they had breached his pting but internal damage was minimal, this location appeared to be a vital section with a primary power distribution node located in that area. One responsible for powering a number of the Toral particle projector mounts.

  The beam arrays lit up a moment ter, discharging a concentrated stream of particle energy into the targeted section. Entire sections of pting buckled one after another as the beams tore through yers of alien pting in rapid order. The alien abtive merely served to slow the attack. In response, the alien projectors retargeted, attempting to shut down his beam emitters with limited effect.

  The ship shook as high energy bursts smmed into the hull. On screen a barrage of torpedoes smmed into the battleship. Just as the Coto swept in from below, her guns firing into vulnerable thruster ports. Several of which had already been shattered from previous torpedo hits.

  Countryman kept an eye on the toral cruiser, but she was well out of range. The ship was on course for the area though and would be in weapons range in two minutes. That would be his real indication for how things would go.

  “The Toral cruiser has opened a channel with the battleship.” reported Misaki.

  A moment ter she spoke up again, “The cruiser is demanding the battleship surrender, but the battleship isn’t having it.”

  “Missile unch!”

  Countryman blinked, but it turned out they weren’t the target. Hundreds of Toral missiles streamed from the battleship straight for the newcomer. Well there went his theory about them pying games with him. They weren’t friends, as that wasn’t pulling your punches. The cruiser returned fire, with her own stream of missiles.

  The Enterprise shuddered, as another hull breach was reported. No major damage. He gnced at the screens, just as the beams cut through the alien pting. “We are through the pting captain.”

  “Lock all cannons, fire!”

  Kaori refocused her fire on that section and opened fire. Heavy particle bolts streamed into the puncture in the pting with explosive results. The entire section colpsed under heavy fire as meters of scorched and ruptured pting was blown off the hull. Internal struts were ripped apart, as fires erupted several projectors sputtered mid shot before going silent as power disruptions rippled across the alien ship.

  Then the Umikaze swept in, adding a volley of torpedoes to the mix. Several warheads smmed into the wounded section and detonated, sending fming metal and bodies into space.

  Countryman quickly targeted a new section with a simirly focused fire, and the armor quickly buckled under the barrage. The battleship turned to try and break distance, her jammer fields shutting down and Countryman was quickly informed of an energy surge in her engineering section. Her captain was trying to retreat, just moments before the pulse missiles came into range. Numerous light turrets activated to whittle them down but multiple warheads still got through. Mostly impacting on the armor, but a few found more vulnerable sections that had been compromised in the fighting.

  “Sir, the cruiser has just activated her FTL Dampers.”

  A moment ter, the cruiser entered the particle cannon range of the battleship and she opened fire. Targeting the engines, several high impact hits tore into already damaged ports, which soon failed entirely. For him however, the battle felt over, “Pull us out of range.”

  “Aye sir, changing course, increasing speed.”

  As the distance grew, he watched the Toral cruiser, quickly shut down the battleship’s engines with concentrated fire, then she shut down the remaining weapons. Taking advantage of the compromised armor and failed shields to target key nodes with minimal effort. Then she opened another channel to the battleship.

  “The cruiser is making another demand for surrender.”