Chapter 11: Chapter Nine Departure

The young woman smiled to herself as she walked down the corridor. Today was a good day. Command had given her a promotion, and new orders today. She was now officially a ship leader, and she was heading to take command of her new ship, the IKS Teketh. She was an ‘Honor’ class Heavy Cruiser. The ship was a modestly sized capital ship with a decently sized crew. Main power was provided by two antimatter reactors, with several fusion reactors placed throughout the ship for auxiliary power.

The ship was a real beast, she had nine plasma beam arrays. Along with 24 plasma cannon banks, and eight banks of spatial torpedoes. Her main ship-to-ship weapon were the plasma beams. They fired a focused phase-coherent plasma stream that could punch through shields and carve through ship hulls. They were deadly weapons and gave most Krall ships a decisive advantage in battle. Few races outside of the Imperium had access to sustained beam weaponry.

They were supplemented with the plasma cannon which fired contained plasma bolts that were known to explode on contact with shields, armor, or hull. They could also detonate when the spatial containment field collapsed. They were versatile weapons useful for engaging both light craft, and capital ships. 

The final weapon her ship carried were the spatial torpedoes that employed a spatial flux warhead. They generated intense spatial fluctuations on detonation that would rip a ship apart. They worked really well in combination with the plasma beams. As a single warhead could destroy a battleship. A few well-placed hits from the beam arrays could knock out the shields of a target leaving it quite vulnerable to a spatial warhead. As the torpedoes did little against a shielded hull.

For protection, her new ship was plated with only a ‘meter’ of Duranium plating, and she had type III shields. Most heavy cruisers had type IV which are stronger, but the Honor class Heavy Cruisers were designed for extended range. As such, they carried extra fuel pods and had weaker shields. Not that it mattered, the Krall had some of the best shields this side of the quadrant, only Valorian Omicron shields were stronger. The Type III shields her Teketh was equipped with would be quite sufficient.  Against most threats, they should buy her more than enough time to charge her Inversion Drive, and jump out of the system. Assuming the other side didn’t have something to keep her from making the jump.

The Teketh was equipped with a class IV Inversion drive which is among the fastest drive types in the fleet. With it she could jump a distance of several lightdays in an instant. Although it would need to cycle before she could jump again. Speed was a function of jump range and cycle speed. Krall ships could jump vast distances in an instant, but the drives were slow to cycle. It took time for them to cool and recharge. Standard practice was to let the drive recharge for about a day after each jump, but if needed, they could jump faster than that. The Class IV drive could recharge in two hours if needed. With that cycle speed, they could reach 1800 times the speed of light, and the engine could safely cruise at that speed. It was actually rated for it, but most Inversion drives couldn’t handle the stress of that many repeated jumps. It also wasn’t the most pleasant for the crew, hence the standard practice of waiting a day. That practice however cut the ship’s speed by a factor of twelve reducing it to a cruising speed of 150 times light speed. Which was fast enough most of the time. More than enough to get where you wanted to go.

Both the Valorians, and the Cathamari, for example, were typically limited to speeds below 150C. So even with that limitation of waiting a day, they could outrun them handily. Although she had heard rumors that the Valorians were developing a new engine capable of sustained travel at warp five which is a thousand times the speed of light. If that was true it would give the Valorians a decisive tactical advantage against most other powers in the quadrant. Not that they would use it. They were not a warlike race, unlike the Cathamari who were aggressively expanding their territory. The Valorians were traders, and they sure got around. Over seven thousand systems were part of their confederation, and their ships could be seen trading with just about every power in the quadrant.

She turned a corner, and was greeted with a sight of her ship through the viewports. She wasn’t far now, soon she would be taking command of her ship. She had been ordered to take it to the Iskel sector. Tensions with the Cathamari were on the rise, and she had been ordered to investigate their activities in that part of the galaxy. She had heard rumors that the Council was planning to declare war in fact. It was about time too, since the Cathamari had invaded and conquered over a dozen species in the past five years, and those were just the ones she knew about. Many of them either ended up slaves or refugees fleeing into the territories of other powers. Although some of these refugees ended up taking up piracy or other acts of desperation because of the Cathamari. Something needed to be done.

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Countryman waited for Greyman and Richards to respond. The Evacuation of Luna was almost complete. The Quartermaster was doing a good job of getting everyone settled, and he had taken the time to discuss his ideas with them. 

Richards nodded, “A school won’t be too difficult. I could repurpose one of the smaller cargo bays for that. We would lose more storage, but I have to agree we do need a school. Especially if this journey is going to take years. The kids will need something to do, and we do have to think about the future.”

Greyman said, “Yes we do. I concur about the school. I can think of a few spaces on the lower decks that can be repurposed into storage if we need it. A school matters more than a few supplies though. Not only will the school give the kids something to do, but they will need the education. In fact I would recommend one focused on teaching them ship systems.”

Countryman shook his head. “Better to maintain a general education at first. We can let them start helping out with various departments when they get older. Let them learn on the job.”

Richards interjected, “We have plenty of time to figure that out. We do need to design the school, and figure out who we are going to have teaching the kids.”

Greyman responded, “That part is easy, we have plenty of people aboard with nothing to do. Ask around, someone will volunteer. Although I do have someone in mind that might enjoy the job.”

Countryman smiled, “Glad you two agree on this. Now about that orphanage, what do you think?”

Richard sighed, “That one is a little harder. I’m just not sure where to put one. Although I do agree we need one.”

Greyman suggested, “We are already converting a couple of cargo bays into living quarters. Why not cordon off part of one bay for the orphanage. It might not be ideal, but it would be better than nothing.”

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Richard nodded, “That might be the best we can do for now.” she paused, “Although I think I can do better than simply cordoning off a section.”

Countryman said, “I would be surprised if that was all you did. I’ve seen what you are doing with the bays. That was a rather smart use of the space both horizontal and vertical.”

She smiled, a clear sign of pride in her eyes, “Had to be, given the fact that you want us to house and support nearly fifty thousand people. Speaking of which, I would like to expand the main hydroponics bay. We will need the extra space to feed everyone.”

“Permission granted. Just don’t go overboard, we still need space to put everything.”

She gave him a look, “Wasn’t planning on it. Although as it is, I fear we may end up eating protein paste.”

Everyone grimaced. That stuff was easy to make and had a high nutrient value. Unfortunately, it lacked flavor, and the texture was like a soggy cracker. No one liked that stuff. “I hope not, but if we do, I hope someone can find a way to make it palatable,” said Greyman.

Countryman replied, “We’ll just have to get creative then.”

They just gave him a look. “Lets really hope it doesn’t come to that.”

After a moment of mutual silence. They started to discuss something else. “Anyway I think I can get both the orphanage and the school done before the end of the week.”

Countryman was happy to hear that, “Glad to hear it. I’ll let you go ahead and get started on that.”

While Megumi was turning to leave, Greyman said, “If you will excuse me. I will go ahead and get started on the personnel hunting.”

Megumi was slipping out the door, as Countryman nodded. “Of course. I have some things to get to work on myself. I wish you luck.”

Greyman turned to leave. Countryman was not kidding about having things to do. Running a starship had a lot of paperwork involved. Especially right now, with all the reports that were crossing his desk. Including updates sent by the Coto and Umikaze. Both ships had found more survivors on their sweep of the debris field for things they could use. Although, so did quite a few other ships. 

They were almost done with their tasks in fact. They would be meeting him here at Luna in a few hours. By then they should be about done, and ready to depart. They would make a brief stop at Star Tech One first, and then they would be lugging the station with them across half the system. They had already chosen a site for stowing the station. It could easily be hidden in Mining Sector twenty-three. That location had a large number of active radiation field generators and several minefields. Enough of a deterrent to ensure few would look there. The station still had active weapon emplacements as well, including a high yield particle beam weapon. It would be a simple matter to set it to automatically fire on anyone who did penetrate the perimeter. With all the traps no one would think much of a ship going missing here. Factors that should keep the stash they were making safe from scavengers, not completely, but as safe as could be. 

Hopefully, they would not need what they leave here, but if they do come back, doing this would leave them a cache of useful supplies. Supplies that they would likely need if they were coming back here. Especially given the current state of the system. It was the best they could do with the station and the stuff they could not take with them.

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