Two years later, the Klackons took Trax from the hands of the Psilons so they could no longer threaten the Iranha colony ... even as weapons engineers develop a deadly Omega-V bomb, and a new starship went into production especially for the second - the first but Refakira - of the Seven.
His banks on banks of Hard Beams would be sufficient to deal with any of the fleets the Klackons yet had seen, and could penetrate any planetary shielding that yet existed in the galaxy.
The next year, Beemont reached Altair and found the Alkari defenses wanting. All their assault ships and all their bases burned. The year after, 57 combat transports reached Meklon, and ended Meklar bandit raids forever, inflicting better than five-to-one casualties ... and the new dreadnought for Anticus was ready. In the following year, an earthquake of enormous scale rocked the very foundations of the Mu Delphi colony, but its people recovered rapidly ... unlike the Psilons of Exis, where 55 Klackon transports landed, their troops marching forward in andrium-armored combat exoskeletons carrying deflector shield generators and shoulder-mounted ion rifles, while the Psilon raiders on the surface, outnumbered more than two to one, tried to make do with primitive slug-throwing rifles and duralloy vests. Among the ruins, Klackon engineers discovered plans for a long-coveted but never-to-be-deployed repulsor beam. At Mentar the next year, Beemont, Earwigi, and Fleads encountered the bulk of the Psilon fleet: 56 destroyers armed with death spores meant to murder civillian population from the skies. Their weapons could do nothing against the dreadnoughts, nor could seventeen bases avail. 170 Klackon transports landed behind them, and recovered a neutron blaster design from among 174 factories after inflicting better than nine-to-one casualties.
Altair fell the following year, followed the year after by Maretta, the Psilons' final colony. So as dawn touched the skies of Cryslon in the year 2445, it stood as the only remaining bandit haven in all the galaxy.
Anticus and Dustmit set off across space for that final world, their Phantos-built dreadnoughts representing exactly one third of the Klackon starfleet.
The next year, they came to Cryslon. Eight starships and nineteen missile bases stood in their way...
...temporarily. Two hundred and seven transports arrived with them, very few of which were actually needed.
Last of all, Ngxskgkgrkhgg the bandit lord fought at bay in a narrow cave, too small for ion rifles to be effective. He used all the mass of his stony body to crush his adversaries as he swung an enormous inertial axe against them. The bodies piled high until Refakira Kurosawfly himself alighted in the cave entrance. "Come out and surrender," he advised, "as so many of your people have done. There shall be no further bandit raids in this galaxy. The food and livelihoods of the Klackon people shall hereafter be safe, and of all those civillians who your bandits had taken captive."
Ngxskgkgrkhgg roared with hatred, and bore down on Refakira, the terrible axe swinging high.
An arc of light: Sunlight on steel. The axe fell from Ngxskgkgrkhgg's hands, shorn in twain. The very stones of Ngxskgkgrkhgg's body shuddered, and fell asunder.
Quietly, the ronin stood above the rubble, examining the edge of his katana blade, barely stirring the air with his four membranous wings.
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