(Conference Room, Blackstone Station, Star’s Reach system)

Slave-Commodore Virstina rose from her seat, and began her presentation. “First, I wish to say that Vice-Admiral Zyrsys would have been here, but the complete implosion of the Kul’tiran Navy due to the deaths of the majority of their senior officers has caused a great deal of chaos in Alliance space, and it is threatening to spill over into the Confederacy. For that reason, she felt her time was better spent overseeing the situation from Madrigal Base.”

I nodded. “I had heard the reports, but how bad is it, really?”

Virstina sighed. “The Ashvane Admiralty’s legitimacy was called into question almost immediately after the Boralus Massacre. A source in the Alliance Council leaked reports from Alliance Intelligence to news networks, claiming that Admiral Ashvane was responsible for adding psychotropics and subliminal messaging to the therapy sessions that Admiral Jaina Proudmoore was taking to deal with the aftermath of the Theramore’s destruction and her humiliation. According to the leak, that pushed her over the edge, to the point where she eventually had a breakdown and used her psy powers to kill most of the Kul’tiran Admiralty. In a ‘coincidence’ of timing, Admiral Ashvane was ‘delayed’ in getting to the meeting due to her personal shuttle experiencing a fault in the startup sequence, forcing her to call for another shuttle. She arrived on Boralus Station fifteen minutes after the massacre.”

“Following the leak, Commodore Talia Fordragon declared that Ashvane was a traitor to Kul’tiras, and demanded that all loyal Kul’tirans help her to overthrow Ashvane. The situation quickly devolved into a civil war. Currently, Ashvane has control over 40% of the Kul’tiran fleet, while Fordragon commands 36%. Another 20% deserted, and appear to have turned to piracy and other rackets. The remaining 4% were seen fleeing through the Gateway along with a large contingent of civilian craft, likely carrying their families. They were last spotted by our stealth probes in the Amazon system, but their last known vector takes them away from both Nuevo Edo and Star’s Reach. The presence of a couple mining and manufacturing ships suggests that they are intending to try and set up a new colony somewhere.”

I nodded slowly. “Nothing we can do about the civil war in Kul’tiran space. Our involvement would only stoke the fires, I’m afraid. However, this band that ran off to make a new colony is different.”

Bringing up a listing of ships currently in port, I found the section for the Star’s Reach defense group. “The local defense group has been filled out, but some of them could use a bit of seasoning. Detail the Romulus, two Assassins, four Gunboats, and the Collateral Damage to do a reconnaissance in force starting in the Amazon system and continuing on the last known track for the Kul’tiran deserters.”

“As you wish, Admiral. Their orders?”

“Stealth reconnaissance. Call it wargaming for if we needed to track down a pirate base in this arm of the galaxy. Maintain stealth unless discovered, otherwise, observe and report. Fire if fired upon. I want to know what these people are doing in this area of space, but I don’t want to engage in hostilities when we might be able to coopt them instead.”

“Understood. I’ll have the orders sent out immediately.”

“Very good. Now, we have deviated from the topic somewhat. What does the Navy have in store for me?”

“First, we have some minor improvements to beam weapons and targeting systems that the engineers have come up with, which, when implemented across the fleet, should increase firing rates by 3% and accuracy by 5%. Those numbers may seem small, but according to the engineers it is mostly a change in software, with a couple minor upgrades needed to the power regulators. These changes could be rolled out immediately, and incorporated into future designs from the start.”

I nodded. The numbers weren’t much, when taken on their own, but when applied across a fleet in battle, then that could prove to be a significant edge. “Make it so. Next?”

“Thorough analysis of the captured Shadowgate ship, crosschecked with the information we’ve been able to recover from the Enrichment Center computers, confirms initial suspicions. The fleet, in its current form, would be unable to function in ‘Dark Space’, as it is called, due to the different physics at play there. Primary concerns are the ships’ hulls and propulsion systems.”

“For the hulls, it appears that the properties of Dark Space render sustained electronic fields inert for reasons we do not quite understand. Their weapons, for instance, are laser weapons that use charged capacitors, loaded like artillery shells. The capacitors can be reused, but they must be hand-loaded, as the ‘gun deck’ of the ship is exposed to vacuum during an attack. The electrum alloy used in their hulls acts almost like a faraday cage, keeping the electrical fields inside the ship operational, so long as the hull is not breached.”

“Obviously, this setup is incompatible with the Black Star Navy’s composite material approach to ship hulls. Using electrum in the hull would negate the majority of our advantages that we enjoy in our current ships. Because of this, current Black Star ships are unable to engage in battle in Dark Space.”

“This is before we even consider the problem of propulsion in Dark Space. It would appear that conventional engines do not work in that space, and maneuvering requires a projected light ‘sail’ and a mechanical rudder to steer with, like a blue-water sailing ship. Frankly, even beyond the technological aspects, the Navy does not have the correct skill set to properly fight in this Dark Space.”

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I nodded. That pretty much summed up what I’d heard before. “Options?”

“Fortunately, transition into and out of Dark Space is only possible at Lagrange points, due to some quirk of physics. We would suggest having stealthed sensor buoys at every Lagrange point in a system. Since our ships can’t go into Dark Space, and their ships are wholly inferior to ours when they are in real space, we don’t judge it to be worth the expense of trying to build platforms or lay minefields around every point in the system. It was suggested that we build weapon platforms in Dark Space, but static defenses without mobile support are only good for target practice and delaying actions.”

I leaned back in my chair. Certainly, that would be the smart approach. However, it was a little passive for my liking. “Very well. Since Shadowgate is the only power we know to use Dark Space, we can make this a low priority. However, tell the design teams to start drawing up ship designs for craft that can fly and fight in Dark Space, should it become necessary. And commission a corvette-sized ship to be used as a test platform for new weapons and technology testing in Dark Space. We won’t make a big push on this now, but I want some people thinking about it, in case it becomes a problem.”

“Aye, Admiral. Next, I’m happy to report that research into the Anchor Drives is proceeding nicely. While the science teams still do not understand all of the forces at play, we have managed to refine our understanding of the design somewhat. By increasing the charge time of the drive to forty minutes instead of thirty, we can cut the ‘entry’ window at the destination to five minutes. We also believe that charging the drive for an hour would allow instantaneous entry on the other side.”

“Why haven’t any of the other powers considered this, and why do the X’thari not charge the drives longer?”

“We are the first group to truly do research into the X’thari drives, primarily because the X’thari have a habit of relentlessly hunting ships with their drives, as we saw at Coldana. There was little will to explore what the drives could do. As for why the X’thari don’t do this, there are two options. Power requirements for the extra ten minutes of charge are 60% greater than normal for the drive, so it could be an issue of power generation, transference, or storage with their biomechanical systems. Alternatively, if the suggestions that the X’thari as we know them are a devolution of a formerly more advanced species, then they might not have the technical expertise to alter the functioning of the drives.”

I breathed out a sigh. “All right, we’ll keep the drives as normal, for the time being, but have the scientists keep refining their work. I like the idea of instant-arrival X’thari drives. That would give us a huge tactical advantage against enemies.” I paused, and then said, “So, how goes the work to refit the fleet with the dual-core X’thari drives, like we have on the Starhunters?”

“Thanks to the research done on the Starhunters, the new version of the X’thari drives have been further reduced in size, and have increased efficiency, both of which have made it easier to refit the existing ships. We are currently cycling the Battle groups first, but once all the current ships are refit, then we will get the Defense groups updated, as well. Current projections have the fleet completely refit to have X’thari dual-drives in eighteen months.”

I nodded. That was a long time, but there was no way to get around it, unless I was willing to take entire groups off station at a time, and stop all other work at all Black Star shipyards. That simply wasn’t possible, given the commitments we had.

“And what of Chaotic Space?”

Virstina grimaced. “Things are both better and worse on that account, Admiral. Thanks to the Chaos Brigade, we have good test figures on ships capable of entering ‘Hellspace’, as some crews are calling it. To start with the bad, at this time it does not look like we will be able to refit our current ships to open the portals to Hellspace that are needed to enter and exit that realm without a rift. The modifications required would be too extensive for ships that already have space at a premium.”

Hellspace, huh? I shook my head at the name. It was certainly fitting, given the horrors that were supposed to exist there, and it definitely rolled off the tongue better than Chaotic Space did. The Chaos Brigade would probably object to the name, but that was too bad. With a smirk at that thought, I motioned for Virstina to continue.

“However, refitting ships to include the psychic shields that will protect ships and crews from the energies of Hellspace is possible. These shields would be secondary systems to the main battle shields, like the navigational deflectors designed to ward off debris and environmental hazards. Propulsion systems, shields, beam weapons, and solid projectiles still function as normal within Hellspace, but the Starbolt torpedoes have a magnified effect within that space, as seen with the psychic wave that emerged from the Sol rift during the initial contact with Hellspace.”

I grimaced at that.The wave was bad enough experiencing it in real space. I didn’t want to know what would happen if you got caught in one while inside Hellspace. “Issue orders that Starbolts in Hellspace are to be last resort weapons. And make sure that all ships have plenty of Dragonbreath torpedoes.”

Virstina nodded, “Yes, Sir. Now, as stated, we can modify all ships of gunboat size or larger to fly and fight within Hellspace, but we currently do not have the ability to reliably get them into or out of that dimension. To remedy this, the design teams have come up with a ship capable of opening a portal to Hellspace and holding it open long enough to allow a fleet through.”

She touched a button on her pad, and a hologram of a ship was displayed. It was nearly three times the size of a Wrath-class Battleship, which was shown next to it, for scale. It looked mean, too, as I could see plenty of weapon emplacements.

“This is the Diety-class Hellbreacher ship. As you can see, the design is significantly larger than a Wrath-class. It has multiple redundant systems, including the rift-generators, and as much shielding, armor, and defenses as we can give it, along with some of the most powerful engines we’ve yet designed. In real space, it will be able to match the Wrath-class for speed. In addition to her beam weapons, torpedo launchers, and rail guns, she also carries room for two fighter squadrons, as well as a detachment of three Hellspace-capable Crow-class assault ships and four Marine drop ships, in addition to a full complement of shuttles and repair craft. We are currently working on a new fighter design to compliment the Hellbreacher which will be able to operate inside Hellspace.”

“Obviously, this thing won’t be able to get through the Gateways.”

“Yes, Admiral, that is true. However, it will be equipped with the X’thari dual-drives, which will allow us to circumvent the issue of maximum size allowable by the Gateways. Additionally, these ships, while capable of supporting a fleet, the Hellbreachers will also be fully capable of independent action. They are equipped with planetary-grade communication suites, which should allow them to contact us from anywhere in the galaxy, so long as it is in real space. This will enable our ships with X’thari drives to quickly come to the aid of a Hellbreacher, if there is cause for concern.”

This ship was a beast. But it needed to be. If it took a fleet into Hellspace, then the Hellbreacher was a single point of failure. If it was disabled or destroyed, then the fleet was trapped in Hellspace. That was, quite simply, unacceptable. So, they had made as many redundancies as possible, and dialed up the defense as much as they could. However, this was not a ship to simply be added to the existing fleet structure, but something that could be used as force projection all its own.

That said, it was a monumental undertaking, with unproven technology. There would be a lot of crew members on that ship, and they would literally be going into harm’s way, just stepping into Hellspace, if everything I’d read was true. But without this, we would be vulnerable to attacks from Hellspace with no way to go and hit back. And I hated the idea of people being able to attack me and just run away, without me being able to hunt them down and make them pay.

“Very well. I will authorize the construction of the Pallas Athena Diety-Class Hellbreacher as a test platform. However, I also want more economical designs drawn up. We might not be able to refit our existing craft to open the way to Hellspace, but I want strike craft capable of entering or exiting Hellspace independently as escorts for the Athena.”