Countryman shifted in his seat and let out a breath. They had been here for over an hour discussing the fate of the rescued Valorians. After much back-and-forth discussion. His people and the Valorian representatives had come up with a plan of action. They were going to locate a suitable world for them to disembark with supplies but only for those who wanted to leave. All Valorians rescued were going to be offered a chance to sign on as new recruits for the Enterprise. They would have some time to consider as most of the local worlds were already occupied and defended. There were a few unclaimed systems nearby but none with the right kind of world for the plan. Reia had proposed a world about two months travel away but in practice that would likely take longer. They needed to make a stop to rearm and repair.

Countryman glanced at Reynolds and Drakes for a moment before addressing Richards. “Alright with that out of the way, we should discuss our current situation. How is the plating looking?”

She sighed, “I have finished a more thorough sweep of the systems. It seems we took more of a beating than we thought.”

Reia frowned, “Um, should we be here for this?”

He gave a wry smile, “Maybe not, but you are going to be here a while. You do have a right to know what kind of shape the ship you are on is in.”

She nodded, “I guess.”

Richards waited and when signaled continued, “The plating itself is fine but we have burnouts throughout the system. Damage that was found to be more extensive than our initial assessment indicated. We lost one out of every six AIF generators, nearly...”

Someone interjected, “Wait! Does that mean you lost nearly a fifth of your shield generators?”

Countryman laughed, “AIF and shields are different things. Both shield generators are currently fine.”

They seemed rather confused and someone said, “What is an AIF, then?”

“Armor Integrity Field Generator. Its what ensures that the hull plating doesn’t disintegrate when hit by say a high-yield plasma burst,” said Richards.

Countryman glanced around, “I take it you aren’t that familiar with powered armor systems?”

There were many blank looks on the Valorian faces. Only Reia and her sister seemed to have an idea.

Neira spoke up, “Most of us don’t really encounter them. I have some familiarity with polarized plating.” she looked around, “but it looks like most of us would need a refresher.”

Countryman nodded and said, “Understood. Now Polarized Plating is pretty basic as far as powered armor goes. We don’t really consider it true powered armor seeing as its only really useful against energy weaponry. Polarized plate takes conventional armor plate and adds a circuitry layer behind the plating. This layer draws power from the ship’s grid and produces a polarization field through the plating. The charged plating acts to repel incoming fire, weakening or in some cases outright nullifying an attack. However, it is worth noting that hull polarization means nothing against kinetic rounds or neutron beams.”

Neira said, “that sounds about right.”

Reia interjected, “Many cultures start there and then move on to basic energy shields.”

“Well we did not. Around that time we started experimenting with structural fields and someone had the brilliant idea to utilize a specialized generator just for the hull plating. The result is what we call the gen one concept. A rather basic powered armor that uses strong structural fields combined with a polarization field. The result was a reasonably potent defense that outperformed other defense schemes of the era.”

“Gen one concept? That would imply at least a gen two.”

“It would, the Enterprise utilizes the gen three concept with a few minor improvements. We did away with polarization fields in favor of high-density electromagnetic fields and graviton layers combined with a dynamic armor integrity grid. Allowing us to shift the density of the armor field to better protect areas that are under attack or adjust it to better withstand the strain of high-intensity maneuvers.”

Several Valorians interjected all at once, “Gravitons!?”

Richards responded, “They are a byproduct of our main drives, we have found them quite useful for a number of applications.”

One of the Valorians, a younger woman leaned forward, “In that case, I’d like to stay.”

A man next to her said, “But just a moment ago you were pushing to be left behind on some moon or planet as soon as possible.”

“That was before they mentioned they have easy access to gravitons. Gravitons!” she turned to Ruri, “Now where do I sign to get on your staff?”

Ruri blinked. While Countryman mentally reviewed what he knew of the young woman. She wasn’t a captain like some of the others here but a science officer. Her ship had lost the entire command staff and most of the upper-rank officers. Less than a third of the crew had made it off that cruiser before it had been destroyed by Valorian torpedoes. She had been quite lucky after that with her pod drifting right through the crossfire between Enterprise and the Throne before eventually crashing into the Enterprise. Where it remained sitting on the hull until someone went outside to retrieve it. She was one of the few his crew had personally rescued. As he recalled she had introduced herself as Vera of Clan Rel.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Countryman interjected, “Crew assignments are handled by my first officer Commander Greyman but allow me to pre-emptively welcome you to the crew. We can make it official later Miss Vera. I presume you already have a project in mind?”

She nodded, “I keep myself up to date on the latest research. There are a number of projects looking into using gravitons for energy shields. The simulations are quite promising. The only issue is generating enough graviton particles.”

Countryman nodded, “Get your proposal set and I’ll see what I can do about getting you a lab. May I also suggest looking into some kind of atmospheric shield? Its quite inconvenient having to decompress the hanger bays every time we need to launch or receive a shuttle.”

She blinked, “That shouldn’t be too hard. Depends on what I am working with.”

Richards interjected, “Anyway we were discussing the hull plating. As I was saying a number of the generators burned out due to stress. We also have burn outs in a number of other related systems.”

Countryman addressed her, “How long to repair?”

“It will seriously eat into our reserves, and our gold supply will be completely exhausted by the repair. The overall repair will take a week maybe two.”

Reia frowned, “Um, given your lack of a deflector will this damage impair your ability for warp travel?”

Richards shook her head, “No there isn’t enough damage to seriously impact AIF function. There is some loss of function and I would not recommend high warp but we can safely reach cruising speeds without issue.”

Reia interjected, “That sounds nice to hear.”

Williams grumbled something, and then Neira spoke, “Will you have to take the plating offline?”

“Not right now but there will be a couple points where we will have to.”

A door opened and Greyman entered the room. He had left earlier to take care of something. In his hand was a pad, one he did not have earlier. “I’ve received an update on our replacement crystals. They have passed the stage three testing. All of them.”

Countryman blinked, “That’s good news. How long before they are ready?”

“If they pass the final test, I was told they will be ready in two weeks.”

The Valorians in the room were all confused, but it was Neira who spoke up first, “Replacement crystals? Crystals for what?”

Countryman glanced at Greyman and Williams interjected, “Don’t tell them! You have already shared too much.”

Greyman replied, “They would notice anyway when we start conducting tests in two weeks time. Rather hard to hide something like that.”

Countryman sighed, “You might be right about that.”

There was silence in the room for a moment before Richards spoke, “You know I would have expected at least one bad crystal by this point. Its nice that all of them are looking good. We might actually have spares for once.”

Ruri interjected, “If we do, I could certainly use them in the lab. I can think of several projects that would need them.”

Countryman could think of a few as well. That included Vera’s shield project. If she wanted gravitons for it, she was going to need a crystal. It was the Rydium crystals in the drive core that were responsible for the ship’s supply of gravitons. Gravitons which were in turn harvested and stored before being shunted into the ship’s armor grid. The rest were actually used by the engines themselves as part of the pulse wave that provides thrust.

With that in mind he said, “I can as well. Notably including the project Vera wants to undertake.” he looked over the faces at the table and then while looking towards Vera, “The crystals Greyman was talking about are Rydium Crystals, specifically propulsion crystals used in our main engines.”

Reia blinked, “Wait does that mean you are down an engine?”

Countryman gave a wry smile, “Unfortunately yes.”

“I never would have guessed.”

“Well most of the time you wouldn’t have noticed and even without it we were still faster than that dreadnought. Although, I might have had a couple more options with an extra engine.”

Reia nodded. That did make sense to her.

Greyman settling into his seat again, spoke, “Have we discussed the torpedo issue, yet?”

Countryman shook his head, “We have not gotten to that one yet.”

Williams interjected, “Why would you want to discuss that anyway?”

Reia gave Williams a look, “I think it fairly obvious why this council would want to discuss that. In the recent battle you expended a rather large number of torpedos and I believe you aren’t exactly close to any friendly ports in the area. Replacing those warheads would obviously be fairly difficult, especially given what happened at Cantra.”

Neira nodded and Vera spoke up, “Speaking of those torpedoes, how were they passing through our shields?”

Ignoring the question Countryman said, “Well yes we do need to replace the warheads we used. Thankfully we won’t need a port. Just time and materials. We have some of the materials we need on hand already.”

Countryman tapped a key and everyone received a list in front of them. “So I presume these are the materials you need?”

Countryman nodded.

There were some looks and chatter before Reia spoke up. “The Zah system isn’t too far from here. It’s on the edge of Confederation space. Minerally abundant, but there is a problem.”

Countryman frowned, “What kind of problem?”

“The Zah star has an unusual radiation profile, and subjects the entire system to lethal levels of deadly radiation. Worse local conditions in the system have been known to disrupt shield systems, especially in the inner system.”

Countryman’s frown deepened, “Doesn’t sound like a very hospitable place.”

Vera interjected, “Its not. Prospectors have been interested in it for decades but local conditions make mining operations needlessly expensive and very dangerous. Ships can’t stay in the system long.”

“Well it might be worth looking at. It really depends on the local conditions.”

They spent the next couple of hours discussing the system before ultimately setting a course.