Captain's Log, Stardate Oh the joys of a helpful machine (not)

So I have all these small bits and pieces of wreckage floating around my base just now & getting it all swept up is a pain. All the shuttles, tractor beams, & PF's with tractor beams will be busy all day picking up little hazardous fragments of Heavy Cruiser.

But we can't leave navigational hazards like that lying around.

See, the Romulans are a mite upset with us for having acquired some of their ships. What seems fair to me apparently doesn't seem fair to them, and they got all bothered even by a simple suggestion.

Romulans aren't smart when they are bothered.

Well the story goes like this – a FireHawk Heavy Cruiser (heavier than most too – almost a Battle Cruiser) pulls up to the base and demands that we return their ships, plus pay taxes, fines, & penalties. I nicely pointed out that this is the Neutral Zone, not Romulan Territory, so they don't make laws here, and that the international laws on piracy and salvage said the ships are mine. Then I very kindly offered to sell the ships to him if he wanted them. I named a fair price (though with a nice profit for us in it), but for some reason he got really upset. No, more upset than that.

See, Romulans have a problem with how upset they can get & this guy was an expert at it. But one thing he wasn't an expert on was ship construction. Base construction specifically.

See, he saw the construction work happening on the base, and all these bare support beams & spots wide open to space & such & figured we were helpless, or mostly so.

He was pretty impressed with his own ship too, and seemed to really enjoy telling us all about what he was going to do to us.

When I tried to inform him he was mistaken, he really blew his top and fired on us.

That was his last mistake.

He had annoyed me a tad too, so I didn't wait for the Phaser 4's to take him apart – that might have taken 2 volleys or maybe even 3, his ship was that tough. No, I gave him some drones too. I don't think he liked the gift, but we'll never know.

If the Romulans were upset before, I doubt this will have improved things.

Trade sure has fallen off & doesn't look like it will pick back up again soon.

Captain's Log, Stardate Tiresome machine

So young Captain Andrews seems to be out to make a name for himself and try to catch up with his uncle, Captain Bill Connors. He grew up with his uncle Bill and apparently some of his stories and ideas sunk in, since Captain Andrews today demonstrated a good bit of talent and initiative. He got a good bonus for it too.

See, there he was in the Handley Page (that's the Large Ore Hauler we got turned into a Q-ship. It doesn't make as much profit as the rest, so seemed a good place to start off a new Captain – there's not too many ways to screw up hauling inert bulk cargo for which contracts already exist. Also the payout on ore is low enough that pirates don't bother her as much as the rest).

Anyway, he was Captaining the HP as her crews like to call her, picking up ore at our mining claim on Tweedle-Dum, and spreading grass seed to the winds because it's at that stage of terraforming, when a Romulan Warship shows up.

They keep looking for ways to hurt us & thought they'd try this new one - taking our planets (though they've already hurt trade here severely – few ships come by anymore and boy does that hurt us.)

Well young Mac (that's Captain Andrews) played it cool, acting like a normal innocent ore hauler & ran for it.

See, the best way to get a predator to chase and catch you is to run from it. And Warships are predators, especially when crewed by Romulans.

So the Romulan Cruiser chases him down and demands he halt etc. Apparently the Romulan Captain wasn't concerned that he might be a Q-ship, (though the news about that has to be getting around the Romulan fleet by now) since nobody Q-ships Ore Haulers. This worked because Mac and the HP were already past the range of the Planetary Defense Satellites (DefSats that is). See, if they hadn't been, then those would have shot at the Cruiser (A SparrowHawk-D minesweeper) and forced a different sequence of events.

But anyway, not only did we get the usual result of being boarded (we captured them, in case you weren't sure), it actually happened fast enough the Romulans didn't get a chance to set their safety interlocks (which you do when getting captured to prevent the enemy from using the ship soon).

See, Mac kept most of his boarding parties hidden in that vast cargo area while the Romulan boarding parties entered his ship. He played at actually being captured, which put the enemy ship offguard, meanwhile his boarding parties got into position, snuck across to the enemy ship suddenly and in overwhelming numbers, and the rest of his troops ambushed the Romulans on Handley Page & defeated them too.

Net result: Mac in is control of both ships and the Romulan ship is usable right now, except for the cloaking device for which we don't have the codes yet (though we're working on that – the more ROMs you have the easier it gets and we have several).

So Mac Andrews puts a skeleton crew onto the Sparrowhawk-D, calls in to us so we know to expect it & separates the ships so he can leave.

Well, right then the other half of the Romulan task force arrives. Apparently the Cruiser had gotten ahead - it didn't want to go as slow as the freighter.

So anyway, 2 new Romulan ships show up – a Battlehawk Frigate and a Large Ore Hauler. Well, Mac figured it'd look to the Romulans like he'd just been pulled over & taxed, but wouldn't look that way for long – they'd call their cruiser & want to talk over something or other, so he had to act quick.

Well he chose a course that took him near the enemy freighter, but not too near, and when he was close he grabbed it in a tractor beam.

See, mostly folks only use tractor beams at range 1, but you can use them at range 2 or even 3 if you're willing to pay exorbitant energy costs (which is why most folks don't even consider it an option & tend to forget you can).

So, if he'd flown by at range 1, they may have been concerned, but not at range 3. But he grabbed them anyway & then blasted the Frigate good.

See, the Romulans had arrived with Plasma Torpedoes charged & ready to fire, in case of any problems, but seeing a non-threatening situation which their cruiser appeared to be on top of, they let the charge go & the Plasma went inert again.

So all this frigate had to shoot back at us was 4 Phaser 1's, which almost knocked down HP's shield, but not quite, since the range was 7 and they don't do well at that range.

But the 4 Plasma Torpedoes Type F (or just Plasma F) that Handley Page launched back sure did a number on that BattleHawk.

Surprisingly it didn't blow up, but the hulk that was left was in no condition to fight.

Well Mac boarded that too, if you can call it that. Another way to put it was that he rescued the shell-shocked survivors and took them into custody.

The Romulan Ore Hauler turned out to be using its vast cargo space to bring in planetary defenses. They had had extra troops too, but not enough to matter. It was shipping in DefSats, Mines (several types), Planetary Defense Bases, plus Fighters and even Pseudo-Fighters to base at those bases.

Now that'd make for a pretty effective defense overall, but it'd also take time to set up.

A lot of time.

And Mac judged that we didn't have that time.

See, on his scout sensors he could see a curious thing – at very long range, he saw a flotilla of Pseudo-fighters suddenly appear out of nowhere headed this way, & then disappear. Now that can mean only one thing – a cloaked Pseudo-fighter tender is coming here & has launched outside of what it thinks is your detection range.

With PF's launched, he is ready for battle, and a full flotilla of PF's plus their tender would have no trouble taking out poor Handley Page.

The Sparrowhawk wouldn't have been enough help even if it had a full crew (that would have resulted in something like a fair fight, and we avoid those, since they cause a lot of damage win or lose, especially since this fight would have been at a disadvantage for our side). Anyway, cloaked ships move slowly, since they have to use a lot of their energy for cloaking, and they don't see very well, since they have to use only the passive sensors, not the active ones, so Mac had a little time.

So he collected our DefSats (the standard constellation of 5 wouldn't bother a PF flotilla much, so he saved that investment for later) and the mining base, and prepared to leave quick.

Now he could do that quicker than you think, because the cheapest option had been to put down a pre-fab mining base, which is basically a specialized pod. And the planet was not yet habitable (though getting close) so the miners tend to stay in base for everything they can (like refining & smelting & so on) and work in enclosed vehicles to do the actual mining.

So Mac gave them the minimum warning, then just pulled the base right up off the surface with a tractor beam.

The same for the 2 vehicles that were away from base at the time.

He had the new SparrowHawk he'd just captured tow that and the Battlehawk hulk, back to Oz as fast as they could. Even towing those, they were still faster than the cloaked ships, & so got away.

He wanted to leave the Romulans some mines to play with, but there just wasn't time for more than two. We hope they got a lovely surprise.

Mac accompanied the captured ships partway, until it was clear they were going to make it. Then he showed real initiative.

Bravery too.

He figured that if the Romulans were moving in on Tweedle-Dum, they may be planning to move in on Tweedle-Dee at the same time, so he headed over there quick – as quick as he could, knowing the "it's just an ore-hauler & can't be a Q-ship' mentality won't last long.

Now the Tweedles aren't far apart, but it still took enough time so that when he arrived, the Romulans there figured they had the situation under control.

See, Mac sees the wreckage of our DefSats in orbit around the planet, with a Romulan PF Tender (SparrowHawk-E to be exact) there and all it's PF's docked.

It looked like they'd taken just a little damage from fighting our DefSats, and the tender pulled them in to repair them. You wouldn't do that in a combat situation, but it seems he felt combat was over & he had friends on the way, to arrive soon, anyway.

So the Romulan Captain is there feeling confident when this ore hauler arrives, apparently here to collect ore from the mining operation on the planet.

Ore Haulers usually have only a single Phaser 3 and a Phaser 2 – barely enough to shoot down a single drone each, so he isn't concerned about it, especially since Captain Andrews turned out to be a good actor.

Mac is so good at acting obsequious & terrified, that the PF tender did not even launch PF's, it was that confident.

So it boards the Handley Page & is captured, along with its PF's, which never did manage to launch.

Well right in the middle of that boarding action, the Romulan Ore Hauler which the Romulan had been expecting arrives. So the cruiser calls for help & the Ore Hauler, which normally wouldn't think about getting into a fight, pulls up and boards, thinking that their extra troops would make a difference.

Not enough of one.

We captured both ships.

Then their frigate arrived late, but in time to get destroyed by HP's fighters while it de-cloaked (see, there's a brief fade-in while he's helpless. It's brief, but plenty of time for fighters already in position and waiting for you).

Mac called down to our mining base & boy were they relieved to hear his voice – they were expecting to hear the Romulans calling again, this time to say it was time to be hauled off to a prison world. So they were glad to be picked up and hauled back to Oz, along with the 2 Romulan Ships (the frigate was just so much drifting wreckage, some of which we pulled in, since the alloys are worth something, but we didn't have time for it all).

It was all that the HP could manage to cram in her cargo holds and tow, but she did it (with some complicated gyrations involving tractor beams from the Romulan Ore Hauler too, since it didn't have interlocks, not being a naval vessel).

They left behind a few mines for the Romulans to find too - hopefully unexpectedly. They'd have left a nice thick minefield, but couldn't risk taking the time to do so – there were indications the Romulans had gotten a distress call out.

We figure we can go back to the Tweedles when things calm down a bit.

But young Mac Andrews wasn't done yet.

He had a lot of captured Romulan crews sitting in cargo and you can't keep that up for long. So he wanted to repatriate them to Solos (well, kinda repatriate – they'd be with other Romulans, but free to go back to the Empire or stay and farm, as they chose), and he wanted to check on Refuge too, while he was at it.

We'd have sent other ships with him for that, but none were in the area at the time (though Stumpy was on the way).

Refuge and Solos have been good trading partners.

So off he goes, to Refuge first, given that it was closer.

Big surprise, he finds the Romulans there, in the middle of taking it over.

They have a Monitor (that's a ship built for defending things – it's slow but heavily armed) with a couple DefSats already set up & working on more, and a ground base just being set up.

So Captain Andrews does his thing and pretends to flee in panic on seeing a warship, which gets the warship to make sure to demand he stay still and prepare to be boarded.

This is, of course, what he wants.

The boarding action goes the usual way (I never get tired of that) and we capture the monitor. It controls the DefSats, so they didn't shoot at the Handley Page (they were told not to, so it could come close and be boarded, and they never got told otherwise) but the interlocks are on so we can't tell them to stand down & be captured.

So HP had to shoot them down.

That went easy because the stupid machines were told not to shoot HP & so just stayed inert while being destroyed.

Then HP launched fighters to go take down the ground base and any other Romulan Military things they found. They were helped by the citizens of Refuge, who called Mac with information.

Well after blasting a few vehicles and bunkers, the fighters were done, having freed Refuge again.

The citizens were very happy about this and found the occasion motivational – they dipped into their budget (which had grown tremendously from trading with us) and bought a bunch of defenses. The same kinds of stuff – ground batteries, DefSats, mines, but no fighter bases or PF's, since they didn't have trained crew for those.

We accepted the order (they bought from us) and delivered it as fast as we could, which turned out to be just a couple hours away – Stumpy had arrived back at Oz during the battle, so she loaded up with DefSats etc & took 'em straight to Refuge, then hauled the Romulan Monitor back when they were done.

Stumpy didn't mind hanging out there for a while, setting up defenses, because she can take care of herself pretty well, with her full squadron of fighters.

Well, while Stumpy was busy doing that, Handley Page hurried on to Solos.

But apparently her exceptionally busy day was pretty much over – the Romulans hadn't arrived to take it over.

Not yet at least, though the trend seemed pretty clear.

Clear enough that they emulated Refuge and bought a bunch of defenses from us, so they could be ready when and if the Romulans did decide to annex them.

So as soon as Stumpy was done at Refuge, she went to Solos and did it all again – setting up DefSats, mines & all.

Handley Page just brokered the deal, dropped off the captured Romulan crews (I understand Solos has a class they make them attend to see if they can get them to see things their way) & then came home for a much needed rest after a very busy and impressive day.

Though, on the way, she did swing close enough to Tweedle-Dum – just barely in range mind you, to see that there were several Romulan ships there – far more than we care to try conclusions with.

The whole crew is going to be rich after their bonuses from the day. That will dip into our savings for now, but we'll more than make it good once we sell the ships.

Hopefully that will be soon, since, with trade around here almost entirely dried up (we're about the only ones still shipping around here & even we have to be very careful about it) our income has plummeted.

We checked with a few possible buyers but no have takers yet (none that count – the Orions will buy anything, but we won't sell them combat ships, given the evil they'd do with them). The Federation is afraid to buy captured Romulan Ships – they fear that doing so may upset the Romulans. The Gorn aren't interested – they think Romulan ships are inferior to theirs. The Kzinti and Hydrans don't want to use technology that is that different from what they use now & don't want to pay to convert them.

We hope to talk somebody in to it soon though.

We're not going to sell the Ore Haulers though – we can use those, especially once we crack the codes to use their cloaking devices.

And we need them working for us.

So we're working on them to bring them up to spec: we bought a pair of Kzinti Battle-Pods (one for each Ore-Hauler – those Kzinti contacts we got from the business-genius are working out ok), worked them up the same way that we did the Kzinti Battle Pod that is part of Spad, then inserted them into the ships in place of one cargo pod each, just like on Spad. We gave 'em our usual other upgrades too (a couple barracks and so on). We also gave one of its remaining cargo pods the treatment a small q-ship would get (Kzinti type to go with the battle pod, so that's a Phaser 1, 3 drone launchers and 2 fighters).

Then we got adventurous – we recognized that one of the ships was slow and underpowered (they're different designs), so we swapped the engines for a set that was going to go on a Free Trader (we build and sell those, so we had a couple sets on hand). Now that upgrades her warp power by about half, and makes her look a little non-standard, but lots of freighters are non-standard, so they should both still make convincing Q-ships.

Plus she'll get around lots faster & the more cargo runs they can make in the same time, the more profit we get.

We'll probably do the same upgrade to Handley Page and Zeppelin too.

It leaves us with her old engines on hand but we can use those on new freighters we build to sell, or maybe even experiment with attaching them to a Monitor, in addition to its existing engines, to make it go faster. I'll have Vindair and the Whiz Kids look into that – that's our group of experimenters, tinkerers, and scientists, and their leader.

We named the new Romulan-built Large Ore Haulers Sopwith Buffalo and Sopwith Hippo (that's the one whose engines we upgraded). They're not done with upgrades yet (they just started), but when they are we'll put 'em to work asap.

Oh, as an aside, you'd think all this Romulan Navy activity in the Neutral zone (where they are prohibited from being by treaty with the Federation) would bother the Federation, right? Not so much, apparently. They just sent another sternly worded letter. Great.