Captain's Log, Stardate Apparently you really can't just turn this off.

So we're a bit nervous about this new Romulan government & have been keeping our ears open to learn what we could about them.

What we hear is not encouraging and it's only been a couple weeks.

Business is still good for now & we hope that will continue. But just in case we're diversifying our trade so it's a bit less dependent on the Romulan Neutral Zone. Among other things, we're working with the Kzinti contacts we got when we bought out the business-genius. That's going well, one of them is even in a position to arrange the sale of certain ships (Q-ships and pods at least - maybe more), so we bought 2 new Kzinti-built Large Q-ships to trade in that area & set up routes.

The ships are Sopwith Dolphin and Sopwith Rhino & are outfitted the same as the rest of our Kzinti Q-ships.

Captain's Log, Stardate I'll see if I can get my guys to reprogram it.

Well, I don't get caught by surprise much, but today was a doozy.

Rinthrak, an officer on a ship here to pick up cargo, asked to speak with me. He told me that was was with the Orion pirates here to discuss a deal!

I was spechless - just too amazed to think they'd ever consider dealing with us after the beating we handed them when they tried to strongarm Grandpaw when he first set up here. Well, it turns out Orion pirates have rival clans. We weakened the one that was here (the Happy Worker clan, which is mostly focused on slaves), so this new one who spoke with me today (The Black Ledger clan) is looking to move in on their territory.

He said that Black Ledger clan (who is mostly focused on smuggling) has no beef with us & even feels a little gratitude towards us for opening such an opportunity for them.

While that is interesting, their offer was not.

They wanted to buy our station for "pennies on the dollar" as they used to say.

When I told him what I thought of his plan, he surprised me and remained polite! Well I'd meant to be insulting, but he said it was just business & if I changed my mind, to contact him.

Amazing!

Anyway, we searched his ship & cargo & anything he'd come near, just in case. It looks like they were expecting that, so they didn't have anything on board we would object to. But you can't be too careful with pirates.

Captain's Log, Stardate Stupid Machine won't let it go.

Well, we had begun to expect something like this, but it's still sobering when it happens.

Today a Romulan navy Destroyer got here with ultimatum.

They say that we'll be paying taxes to them from now on.

At the rate he named, it isn't taxes, it's ruinous extortion. We couldn't pay that for long without going out of business & having to sell out (presumably to them).

We told him no such thing was going to happen - that this is the Neutral Zone & not under their jurisdiction, so we weren't going to pay them a dime.

He got all worked up (Romulans are pretty arrogant most of the time, though the ones we have working for us know how to control themselves), and made vague threats along the lines of "you will regret this".

We'll see.

They can't send navy units here without violating the Neutral Zone treaty with the Federation, and without combat ships, what can they do to us?

Though come to think of it, today's Destroyer was here in violation of that treaty & they didn't seem to care. We'll send the tapes of it to the Feds & let them hash that out with the Romulans.

Captain's Log, Stardate Infernal Machine.

Well, the Feds sent a 'sternly worded letter' to the Romulans. Apparently that's about all they are willing to do. I guess it fits - no treaty is worth anything unless, when push comes to shove, you are willing to go to war to defend it. And the Feds are far too peaceloving to be willing to go to war, or even incur a tiny risk of that, for anything that isn't really major.

Fine.

We can defend ourselves. We let all our ship captains know the situation and that they should be on special alert.

Captain's Log, Stardate, never buy a machine that promises to do everything for you!

So that went downhill in a hurry - the Romulans wasted no time. The morning after we told them we wouldn't pay tax, they flooded the Neutral Zone near us with small naval ships (mostly that means Frigates and Destroyers) acting like pirates.

They stop and board every ship they see and loot valuables from them, which they call 'taxing' them. I think it was intended to hurt us, with a side benefit of 'taxing' others as well. It is really hurting our trading partners, since we can't be everywhere. We have a number of ships, but nowhere near as many as the Romulan Navy does. That's like comparing a sandbox to a seashore.

So anyway, Junkers and Bleriot (That's 2 of our Q-ships) got pulled over early on, by a Snipe-B Frigate and a Battlehawk -R Frigate respectively.

Then soon after that, Sopwith Pup got accosted & boarded by a Skyhawk-A destroyer.

All 3 of our Q-ships got boarded and all 3 won their fights.

Nobody expects ships (especially freighters) to have any significant amount of troops, so we just keep winning every time they try it.

It isn't even a contest mostly, and the surprise when they realize they are not facing what they expected – that sure does help.

Anyway, it keeps getting funnier every time I see it.

Now you may be wondering about the suicide charges Romulan ships have. Yup, they still have 'em.

But see, nobody really wants to die.

You have to really work on your folks to get 'em so hyped up they're willing to die rather than be captured. And the Romulans have let that slide. So not one has blown themselves up yet.

No surprise - I wouldn't blow myself up either. Nor would I ask my crews to, so we remove those charges when we find 'em.

So Bleriot and Junkers had no trouble towing their captured frigates back to Oz. We docked them to the base and set to work breaking their security. See, most naval vessels lock up all their power and weapons systems to prevent an enemy from using it if it gets captured. They call that 'setting the security interlocks'.

We don't have the codes, so we don't get to use it...for a while.

Now techy folks know that if you have physical possession of something, no security can stop them for long. Heck, think of it this way – we have a full repair base here: at worst, we can completely disassemble a locked down weapon or engine into its component parts, then build a new one from mostly the same parts. What's left would be the ROM's (That's Read Only Memory chips) with control software & which are locked by the codes we don't have. But we build new systems like that all the time – we have our own ROM's and software we can just swap in. Then we're good to go (sure, there is some translating of the controls to do & such, but that just takes a little time).

Anyway, then we can study their ROM's at leisure to crack what's inside them &, by comparing ROM's and other esoteric approaches, we can break those codes.

But all that takes time, so the captured ships got towed back.

Now Sopwith Pup had a harder time of it. She was towing back her Romulan prize (the Skyhawk Destroyer) when she sees another ship coming on her Scout sensors. That gave her a little warning time, so she called for help, then figured the vectors & such to confirm her need, then called to confirm that. See, she was far enough from base that she couldn't get there before the other ship got to her & she couldn't just turn & run from the other ship.

Freighters, even Q-shipped freighters, are slow.

And with her towing a Romulan warship, she figured rightly that there was no way she could fool them into thinking she was just a harmless little freighter.

Now Q-ships need that appearance of harmlessness, since they have thin shields & little power for reinforcing them, so they don't stand toe-to-toe and fight very well.

We don't know why that Romulan was headed for Sopwith Pup – maybe that Skyhawk got off a distress message before it was done.

It had to be something like that. See, ships towing other ships look (from a distance) like bigger ships & that's not who the Romulans are out to get – they expect large & small freighters, free traders etc. Anything bigger than that could be a threat, so they call in information about it & then go stop someone else unless reinforcements arrive to help.

Anyway, Oz scrambled Pseudo-Fighters and they went maximum speed towards Sopwith Pup. PF's are speedy enough that they got there in time, which, I imagine, was a big relief to captain Graf (he's a Gorn).

So this oncoming Romulan Light Cruiser gets a good look at the Sopwith pup & what she's towing & he gets all angry and unreasonable – enough so that he didn't turn tail and run when he saw a flotilla of PF's arriving.

Well that was his last mistake.

He got warmed up a little by long-range fire, then he learned how much damage Gatling Phasers can do at close range.

We towed back the wreckage which was all that was left of him. It's good for scrap metal at least.

Now we put the rest of Oz's PF's on patrol in case of any similar need arising. And that sorta helped, since the Romulans stayed further away generally, but sorta hurt, since, one time, the PF's weren't there when we could have used them.

See, a free trader we have a contract with was being pursued by a Romulan frigate and calling us for help, but we had nobody nearby at that time to send.

But he did manage to get close enough that we could launch drones.

Now these drone launchers are on the base to give us better range, as I think I mentioned. So when you want better range, get better range.

No half measures.

So, we had loaded up fast versions of Type 3 drones. Most drones have enough endurance to keep going long enough for you to fire 2 or 3 volleys of Phasers (if that gives you a reference point).

Now that's a lot of range, for the fast ones.

But Type 3's are special. They go more than 8 times as long as the others. They can fly so far that we can't see targets for them, despite having scout sensors (though if you have a Scout PF forwards, he can spot targets for them & that make the range truly amazing.

Anyway, this trader was running for us as fast as he could & so we fired a full volley of drones to help him.

Now there are only so many weapons on a frigate & he was going to have real trouble with just one volley, but just in case we fired a second one quick. Now he could have still saved himself.

No not the way you're thinking – he couldn't turn and outrun the drones – they're faster than that.

But all ships carry emitters they can load into their shuttles and charge up with energy from the ship, such that they can launch that shuttle and have it fool seeking weapons into thinking it is the ship, so they hit the shuttle instead.

They call that Wild Weasel.

But you can't do that if you are moving fast, or if you fire, since that lets the seeking weapons (drones in this case but it works against Plasma Torpedoes too) know which one is the real ship.

Anyway, this Romulan was not in a situation where he could have used a Wild Weasel unless he made the decision immediately (they take a while to charge up) and took immediate action on that decision (an emergency slowdown, that is, which also has its risks, and would have let the Trader get away).

Well, we don't know for sure, but it looks like he didn't decide quick enough & those drones blew him apart.

The Free Trader decided he didn't want to do business in this vicinity for a while. So after transshipping his cargo with us (he IS a trader – they don't wank away from contracts almost collected unless it's unavoidable), he took off for greener pastures.

So did a bunch of other traders, we came to find out.

Anyway, so far so good – we seem to be weathering it, and our captains did well and got bonuses for it, but the real amazing story of the day was Captain Connors of the Spad.

He's ex navy – they threw him out for being a maverick. He was way too unorthodox for their tastes. It seems he still spends his time thinking up all kinds of unconventional strategies.

So he got pulled over once & captured a destroyer, just like the other captains. But then he went back out and aggressively set himself up to be pulled over some more.

He cruised around watching the Scout sensors for any ships spotted, then carefully positioned himself so he could 'accidentally' fly by it and get seen by it, while heading the right way so that he can then convincingly make a 'hopeless' run for the Federation border, and thereby pretty much guarantee he got pulled over.

He took over 2 more ships that way before the Romulans give up, for now, on pulling ships over.

His take for the day was 2 more Snipe -B Frigates and another Skyhawk -A destroyer.

His bonus was quite large.

Captain Connors, when he heard about the drone volleys we fired, even started talking about a way to improve on that.

See, there's regular explosive mines & then another type called "Captor" mines, which have weapons they fire instead of exploding. Then he got really technical, but the short form is that there's something special about how immobile bases maintain the mines & can control their weapons, so that a Captor mine full of drones can launch them fully six times as fast as a regular drone launcher.

They have other kinds of captor mines too – some have Phaser 2's and some have Disruptors etc – variations for all the major weapons systems.

But only the ones with Drones or Stasis-stored Plasma Torpedo Type F have that faster fire rate.

Anyway, mines like that are universal – every empire has 'em. So it wasn't too hard to send off for plans to start making some of our own.

We'll fit a few in our build schedule, then get back to work on the newly captured ships and our normal repair business.

All the captured ships are docked to Oz while we work on getting them ready for use again.

I don't know what use we have exactly for warships – escorting trade convoys maybe? If nothing else we can sell them, but to get the most out of that, they have to be working (and you have to demonstrate that).

So we are advertising that we're hiring more crew & also have some of the Romulans on our staff translating things & otherwise preparing them.

So the Romulan Navy has pulled back for now – apparently they don't like losing ships like that. Maybe they'll give up on harassing us, but somehow that seems unlikely.

Captain's Log, Stardate Not now I'm busy

So I'm glad that, when something happens, we always have meetings & plan what to do next time & chew over a few "what if's".

A "What if" happened today.

It's only been a couple days since the Romulans tried stopping every freighter & lost a few ships, but they're back at it again today.

But this time they are using troop-carrying ships to do it.

See, a lot of their destroyers and cruisers are modular – so they can swap out a set of A modules (for general combat) and swap in a set of D modules for a Minelayer, or E modules for a Pseudo-fighter tender & so on.

So now we have a bunch of Sparrowhawk (that's the Light Cruiser) and Skyhawk (it's the destroyer, remember) ships running around with the G modules on, making them troopships.

There aren't enough of them to stop everybody, but they stop enough (especially since shipping has fallen off these last few days). And, more importantly, they don't get captured by any ships they stop.

Troopships have enough boarding parties to take just about anything.

Just about.

Remember Spad was also a troopship? Yup - It has a troop transport pod instead of a cargo pod. Plus it has our usual extra boarding parties and extra barracks.

So while most of our ships used their Scout sensors to stay far away from Romulans, (since we only like one version of chip capturing – the one where we win), one ship, the Spad, coincidentally run by Captain Connors, went out and ran interference for the rest.

See, for any Romulan ships which would be hard for our other ships to avoid or outrun, Captain Connors would hurry over 'get in the way'.

That is, he'd "just happen to get caught" by the Romulan ship in question, which would pull him over and board him.

With the Romulan thus distracted, our other ship would get away.

We're not sure how Captain Connors managed to always be in the right place at the right time, since Spad isn't that fast either.

When I asked, he said something complicated about skillful use of sensors & interpolating & integrating what all our various ships were seeing.

Whatever he does, it works.

First he caught a Skyhawk-G. That was a surprisingly hard battle: they carry a lot of troops on those, but Spad carries more (plus, we carry the best - Gorns are tough as nails & Kzinti are fast & agile & love to fight - so much so that we have to constantly have plenty of sports available for them to play, special sports, so they can work off that energy. Also, any outstanding individuals that can keep up with Kzintis and Gorns - and some of those individuals are so impressive they can take on a whole boarding party {a normal one} in an even fight).

So anyway, when Captain Connors got that one towed safely back to base, he got replacements for his casualties, then called for volunteers to ride in the cargo space, just for a day or so.

See, he said there was an urgent need to teach the Romulans not to do this & that Spad was the ship to do it.

Any of the rest of our ships they could capture, but not Spad. And so Spad had to go out & give them the idea that this approach was a bad one & they should give it up.

And he needed the extra troops in case he ran into a Sparrowhawk Cruiser set up for troop transport.

See, as many troops as he normally carries, the SparrowHawk carries more, and that could be bad.

It's lucky he did (he says there's no such thing as luck – just good planning). Anyway, that's what he ran into: a SparrowHawk -G troop transport. Well you can bet they were confident when they pulled over this unremarkable freighter.

But boy were they surprised when they lost the boarding action.

Now you couldn't normally run around with troops in cargo space – not for more than a day or so at most, but this is the kind of thing that Captain Connors is known for – making stuff work & pulling off things you'd have said couldn't be done. Well, he went back out looking for more, but nothing came of it.

So I have a bunch of Romulan Navy ships docked to my base all of a sudden.

Well, ex-Romulan Navy.

Coincidentally (not) the Romulans have pulled back again & aren't pulling ships over anymore while they figure out what to do.

Speaking of figuring out what to do, I'm not naming the new ships unless I keep them, and that isn't decided yet.

We'll get 'em fixed up and working again, then see what they can do & if we can find a use for them. Idle ships are a money pit, but they'd bring a good price if we sell them.