Return of an old friend

The 30,000 ton ship was quickly identified as a Gionetti-class Light Cruiser. That meant it was Imperial Navy, and that meant trouble.

Reaching the bridge Slayed hailed the other ship, which was only 400km from the space station - close range. "Who are you and what do you want?" The screen lit up and a familiar face appeared. There, in full Imperial Navy uniform, was Admiral Darokyn.

Darokyn announced that he was here to ensure that Admiral Slayed and his colleagues would be stopped. They would no longer be allowed to perform acts of piracy and treachery. They were to immediately surrender by order of the Imperium. Lady Nitrane whispered "tell him we've already stopped".

Slayed asked what would happen if they surrendered. Darokyn said that they would be taken prisoner and be given a fair trial... And at that moment Slayed ordered all weapons to open fire.

Battle
Achieving some measure of surprise, the first salvo of over 240 missiles sped toward the imperial ship, which automatically deployed electronic countermeasures and point defense batteries, but about two hundred missiles struck the smaller ship. At the same time the ion cannons sprayed charged particles at the navy ship to reduce its power output, and particle beam bays shot out, causing damage and irradiating the other ship.

Darokyn returned fire, the spinal meson cannon shooting out enormous particle beams and hitting the station square on. Missiles streamed from turrets all over the cruiser. These converged on the station while the point defenses and countermeasures attempted desperately to halt over five hundred missiles. Many hundreds hit, up and down the side of the station, causing warnings and alarms to sound. Other turrets fired beam lasers and the station retaliated by using sandcasters to disrupt the lasers so they caused little or no damage.

Salvo after salvo sped across from one side to the other. Missiles sped, light flashed, particle weapons coruscated, and a field of debris and sand started filling the gap between the station and the navy ship. The cruiser was hitting harder, but the armour and immense size of the space station meant it was taking less of a beating.

After another round of salvos Darokyn, apparently realising that he had underestimated the firepower of the station, ordered the cruiser to move away from the station. It appeared to be preparing to jump. With fuel leaking and clear signs of significant damage the navy ship could take no more. On the station damage to ion cannons and sandcasters was worrying but none of the offensive weapons was damaged and Slayed kept firing even as the other vessel turned tail.

With one last salvo hitting it the imperial ship exploded. The hull had been completely breached and finally the thousands of un-fired missiles had been hit. The ship disintegrated.

Aftermath
On the station repair drones were already hard at work stopping leaks in the hull. Rather luckily the only serious hits had been to weapons - there were no fuel leaks and no engineering sections had been hit. Another salvo or two from the imperial ship however and there would have been much much more to worry about. The navy ship hit hard.

Slayed ordered that any breaches be repaired immediately but repairs to weapons could wait, as could the parts of the hull that were damaged and weakened, but not breached. He had other tasks in mind for the crew.

He asked Goff to put into action his plan for moving the jump drive from the megafreighter and installing it into the space station. Additional jump drive capacity would need to be built, and this would take some time. Goff said it would take him three days to plan everything and at that point he would know roughly how long it would take, and importantly how likely it would be to succeed.

The construction yard and manufacturing plant had not been damaged in the fight, so the prototype ship was able to be completed. The estimates were that it would be only another 11 days. Finally the so-called space station seed crate, containing manufacturing, computing and power facilities that had all the Sindalian knowledge and capability to build a new station if necessary, was only a few days from being completed as well.

Salif
Needing to inform others, Slayed and the travellers jumped to Salif in the Sorrowful Maiden to tell Tiznee what had happened and to ask her to pass a message to Lady Yemar as Palindrome was too far to jump to in the time available.

Arriving in Salif they immediately sought an audience with Tiznee who was keen to meet with them. She told them that Darokyn was in the region and that they should be careful. They sighed and told her that he had visited their station, attacked it, and had been killed. She cautioned that he had been in the Salif system with four ships; the cruiser had been accompanied by a Kinunir-class and two Gazelles. They had jumped two days after Darokyn's cruiser but she did not know where they were heading.

Rather than delay any longer they decided to jump back to the station.

Space Station
Another week in jump passed and they arrived at the space station. It was there (sighs of relief) but still showing the scars of battle. They were immediately informed that the Kinunir and Gazelles had jumped in, actively scanned the area, and jumped out. Nobody on the station had been keen to fire any weapons at them without provocation.

In Slayed's mind this changed nothing. He was told by Goff that adding the jump drive to the station was possible, although likely to be very difficult. The additional jump plant needed would take three months to manufacture. The obvious choice was to do the preparation on the station first and move the jump drive from the freighter later. This would keep the freighter operational should it need to be used.

The prototype ship and the space station seed crates were finished. The party decided that they would go on the first trip, along with Goff, Krrsh, Jaggad and Professor Cheese. the seed crates were added to the cargo hold in case they found a suitable asteroid or other location to set it up.

The biggest worry was the morale of the crew. The station was no longer a secret, the imperial navy were almost certainly going to return to finish the job, and the travellers and senior leaders were departing in a new ship and not sure when they would be returning. Slayed gave a somewhat rousing speech and seemed to have mollified the crew a little, but the undercurrent of unhappiness was there.

Nitrane pointed out that the ship that had been send to Wildeman to tell them to call off the blockade was likely to be returning soon, although with the defeat of Drinax, the close call with the imperial navy, and the backing down of the blockade without any kind of negotiations held, it was bad news all round. One or more returning ships would just emphasise the trouble they were in.

Prototype
The prototype ship, looking exactly like a rich noble's yacht, left the station with all on board and started a very abbreviated trial near the station. Deciding that 24 hours would be sufficient to see if everything worked, the people on board tested every system and underwent manoeuvering exercises and weapons tests. The only unproven components were the collectors and the new drive, the former seemed to be working in a six hour trial but the whole point of the exercise was to test the latter.

Picking the empty hex between Salif and Number One as their destination Slayed looked around at everyone and hit the red button.

To be continued...