Luckily, our shields made their lasers and gats completely useless for planetary attack. The only weapons my bases had to worry about in that fleet were the 20 nuclear missiles aboard the colony ships ... and my SoD reported that even if none of the missiles were wasted against my fighters, and the Alkari were so amazingly lucky that every shot actually hit its target (thanks to our electronic counter-measures, they were expected to miss the defensive platforms with more than half) they still wouldn't even take out one of our bases. We couldn't blow up their ships very quickly, but it didn't really matter; their starforce was forced to retreat.
That wasn't the biggest Alkari threat to one of our worlds, but it's also not the really good news from this year! Black Cloak's buddy - with similar taste in clothing style, I notice - has already completed his first collaborative project on Proxima with the Psilons! He asked me to pick a type of scientist for him to be, just like old Black Cloak used to, except he gave me a choice of all six fields! Well, I happened to remember that the Psilons already knew about bringing life to dead worlds like Rayden, and nothing else in the field I couldn't already do, so I decided to take a flyer on planetology.
Just as I hoped! Controlled Dead Environment will now allow me to spread life and therefore hope even further through the galaxy! It's funny though - this guy doesn't just share Black Cloak's clothing tastes: He also eschewed Darlokian! For whatever reason, he sent me the notes on our new tech in Psilonese.
2380: Should I be wearing a black cloak too? Is it the new style? We've got yet another researcher like that, unless the guy from Proxima's got all the way over to Mentar since last year. He refused to be a planteologist, but was willing to try anything else. So I went with computers to see if I could speed up my universal translator, and he gave me plans for Battle Computer Mark II - in Psilonese, just like his friend ... or just like him, from last year. It's hard to know for sure which is which. It's not easy ruling a race of shapeshifters. But the thing is, there's another scientist in black out there - in fact, he's up at Altair! I wouldn't have thought the Alkari would want to cooperate with us after declaring war and all, but our clever science teams found a way around that pretty easily!
See, they knew it was to both our benefits to work together, so they just shapeshifted into Psilons! They knew even the xenophobes like the Alkari would be willing to cooperate with their allies! And I got the designs for an Inertial Stabilizer out of it, too! You can tell from this that even when we're at war, we can always benefit from close, friendly cooperation. Plus, we keep discovering things - like Willow, a green star with a nice little Steppe world in orbit way off in the west of the galaxy. The funny thing is, it's not really fertile, even though - kind of like Stalaz - it has literally no mineral wealth anywhere on the entire planet! Maybe it's because it's so cold there....
2382: Oops! I forgot to mention one other thing that's been happening over these past few years. It's just been so busy, I haven't had time! See, while we were building a Deadlander at Beta Ceti - it's on its way to Rayden now, after finishing last year - and tricking their scientists into mutually beneficial cooperation with us, the Alkari were ... um ... attacking our newest, smallest colony. Again and again. And again. Our Turret couldn't even get there in time, so we had to hold them off with Gunscouts.
Luckily, we had dozens of them, reinforced almost every year, and Ariel was only sending probing fleets. We'll make friends with those birdies yet ... someday. Blowing up their attack ships is a good way to start, right? I mean ... they have to give it up as a lost cause eventually....
2383: What was I saying about our scientists working with the Alkari again? There was something about the reason I was sure they'd work with Psilons ... something something allies something ... wait. ... You know, I actually asked the Psilons to break that alliance more than once. I told them it would only lead to grief. They might have listened if I'd said we should really go to war on the same side against the birdies, because aliens are insane, but I didn't ask about that; I thought it wouldn't really be the honorable thing. I guess it's a moot point now though. Two-front war it is. Plus, when a Newscout finally made it up to Tao, that blue star way off in the north beyond the nebula, it turned out to be one of those annoying star systems whose planets are poisoned by their mineral richness. This one had so much uranium and stuff that the planet was completely irradiated. I don't think we'll ever be living there - not even with or quantum-whatsit algosomethings telling us the Meklar home star must be right next door.
2384: My Deadlander's finally gotten to Rayden, now my seventh colony! We'll take care of all those silly minerals on the surface and make it a lush, thriving world of ... wait a minute ... really? An invitation to what, now? For me?
I'm flattered, really. Even though nobody actually went so far as to vote for me, and even though the Meklar and I were the only ones abstaining - Ariel and Meson hate me so much, they voted for Mirana to spite me, and of course she was trying to vote herself in - but it's still an honor to be nominated in the first place. And holding a veto with five of fourteen votes is pretty nice too.
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Next: Time for Some Real Diplomacy!
