They had to prepare.
Fortunately, thanks to Sinclair's advice preparation's had already begun, one such was the design and building of some new starships built specifically to fight the shadow.
The first built and commissioned is an entirely new class of ship designated the Titan class.
Built on the frame of an omega class earthforce dreadnaught, it is very deceptive in appearance, purpose built to fight, it has been equipped with multiple layered regenerative shielding, ablative hull armoring, increased the bow mounted heavy lasers from two to four in number, replaced the defensive beam projectors along the spine and keel of the ship with type 10 phaser cannon mounts that have a full 360 degree arc, the rotating section has been kept and several sensor suits have been installed there as well as crew living quarters.
A total of 10 torpedo launchers have been added with several shared storage bays to reduce necessary storage space, four of them bow mounted around the bow launch bay entrance, and a total of 10 more type 10 phaser beam emitters have been strategically scattered along the hull.
You would think keeping lasers on a vessel would be redundant considering lasers, even large ones have little effect on shielding like the federations or Klingons, but, their ability to fire continuously makes them effective against weakened shielding or unshielded targets, on targets where they penetrate shielding or unshielded targets they effectively become large cutting beams and can cut through hull plating with ease.
Christened the UEA starship, Titan, she was built to be a beast in battle and be right up there in the front line bringing the pain heavy and hard.
The Titan class wasn't beautiful like most Starfleet built ships, they were built to fight.
Even the Klingons were impressed by her and that is not an easy thing to do, so much so, some even fought each other for a chance to be the first Klingon to board and serve aboard her as a representative for the empire.
The Sinclair class fighter, the Klingons took to and quickly fell in love with, it has performance and maneuverability beyond even what their finest bird of prey or their own fighters have, they very quickly adopted it as one of their own and began building their own versions of the stout little craft, lately aboard the station when one asked what fighter they would recommend, they would say the Sinclair class, it may be built by peace loving humans, but they surely know how to build fighters!
There were several other ships in the process of being designed, but none but the Titan class and the Sinclair class have been built yet.
The shadows would have a nasty surprise waiting for them when they returned.
During this agents of the shadows did try to send intelligence to others but thanks to the sensitivity of Vulcans who had volunteered to be aboard the station and several ships, that failed.
it would not be long before the new ship had the chance to prove itself against a potent enemy.
Two white stars were trapped in the anomaly that brought the station to this dimension and one was currently being studied by federation scientists, it would not be long before another new class of ship was created.
Many of the star furies themselves were also retrofitted with new tech as well, shields, micro torpedo launchers, and various other systems to make the fighters even more deadly and faster in combat.
At first they were getting scattered reports of seemingly random attacks by black vessels that seemed to appear out of no where, disable a ship, and take her crew, or destroy the ship should her crew prove to be resistance or too resilient to be taken without a fight, it was during one of these attacks the new ship, the Titan, proved herself.
The Titan out on her very first patrol had received a distress call from an older D'Deridex battleship on patrol for the romulan republic, it had sent out a distress call when it came under attack from shadow vessels, it was managing to hold it's own due to some brilliant tactical maneuvers, but barely, the Titan moved to assist.
The Titan warped in just as two more shadow vessels had arrived, it fired all four of it's forward facing large lasers, turning the first shadow vessel to slag in seconds, it moved forwards into the battle despite being in the middle of a storm of laser fire.
The Titan launched a full spread of torpedoes, two more shadow vessels exploded under multiple impacts of torpedoes loaded with antimatter warheads.
Two smaller shadow vessels attempted to flank the Titan but themselves were very quickly turned into bubbling slag as her spine and keel mounted phaser cannons went to work, the cannons literally cut the unshielded shadow vessels to ribbons in short order.
The last shadow vessel turned and attempted to cloak, it was captured in a tractor beam and chose to self destruct rather than be taken, even at such close range the explosion did little damage to the ships shields.
The D'deridex was heavily damaged, but still had put up an impressive fight, the Titan escorted her back to B5 where they could receive enough repairs to be able to warp back to new Romulus (Mol'Rihan) for full repairs at the shipyards.
The Titan herself, had taken moderate damage to her shields, they still had held up and protected the hull beautifully.
Starfleet soon got the report on the Titans performance in heavy combat and reviewed the recordings of the battle, the order was soon given, production of the Titan class swung into full motion, soon, there would be more of them, the shadows wouldn't stand a chance.
Sinclair himself in the following months and much to his pleasure, found himself with a Titan class ship at his command, with his knowledge of shadow tactics, the Defender, the name of his ship, would be a potent ship indeed.
The following month the romulan empire (not the republic) mounted an attack on B5 in an attempt to take territory in federation space, it did not go well.
Seven warbirds three D'Deridex and four Valdore class ships decloaked within weapons range of the station and demanded the stations surrender, Shields were already raised on the station as soon as the energy distortion of the warbirds decloaking was detected, the response was to their demand was, bite me.
That puzzled them but they repeated the demand and were told in far ruder terms to leave.
They opened fire on the station.
Two ships warped in seemingly from no where and a Valdore exploded, then a second Valdore exploded, They were hailed and told to surrender or leave, those ships that had just arrived were Titan class dreadnaughts and easily a match for all their ships present combined.
They soon cloaked and left after a shot from one of the Titans penetrated one of the D'Deridex's shields and left a long burn on the ships hull.
It is suspected however, the romulan empire keeps a cloaked scout ship nearby that's monitoring the station after this incident.
Continued in the next chapter.