“I've managed to put together a complete order of battle for what's left of the pirate fleet, and I've confirmed that they're definitely using the Gas mining facility as a base," she said, as she pressed a few buttons, bringing up the listings for the pirate fleet.

John was astonished as he glanced through the itinerary of decommissioned Terran Federation vessels, and he finally exclaimed, “Twenty ships! How could they have bought and outfitted so many ex-Navy vessels?"

"That's the other thing John," Calara continued grimly. "I've been studying the listings for ship registrations, and all these old military vessels were decommissioned from the salvage yard at Port Heracles. They should have had their weapons stripped, and then the hulls sold off to salvage dealers, but that didn't happen."

“This stinks of corruption," John said, his jaw clenching in anger. Calara nodded, confirming his dark suspicions as she said, "They were all bought by the same buyer, a Mr Everett Hitch.”

“And who authorised the transactions?" John asked forebodingly. Calara's face looked bleak when she replied, “Commander Rupert Grant." “Grant! I knew I should have put a bullet in that bastard's head!" John fumed.

Sparks looked at Calara, Alyssa, and John, seeing a wide range of emotions on their faces: sadness, shock, and anger respectively. "Sorry to Interrupt, but who is this ‘Commander Rupert Grant' guy?" she asked curiously.

“We had a run in with him at Port Heracles. He's the Commander of the station, and in charge of this sector," Alyssa explained. "Plus he tried to ruin Calara's lif she added angrily.

"I hate him already!" Sparks said vehemently John blew out his breath in a big sigh.

“OK, we'll deal with Grant later, we need to focus on the Pirates for the moment," he said calming down.

He Looked through the listings for the Pirate fleet, and called out the ship classifications as he read them, "Corvette, Corvette, Destroyer, Frigate, Corvette... Heavy Cruiser!"

He looked over at Calara in shock, and asked her in disbelief, "That can't be right?"

‘m afraid so, John," she said soberly.

“How in the hell did they get their hands on that?" John blurted out, before slumping back in his chair.

“That's bad, right?" Sparks asked, concerned.

Calara nodded grimly, and brought up the detailed specifications for the Heavy Cruiser as she replied, "The Heavy Cruiser Stalingrad is armed with six beam Lasers, and eight heavy cannon on both the port and starboard sides. It's designed to use broadsides in combat, but also has full coverage with a defence grid, and laser cannon turrets."

She brought up the weapon arcs for the formidable Looking ship. At just over seven hundred metres, it was significantly larger than their Assault Cruiser.

“Can we fight that thing in the Invictus?" Sparks asked, her voice tinged with worry.

Calara paused for a moment before continuing, "Yes, but it's going to be a very tough fight.”

Silence descended on the bridge as they absorbed this troubling news.

“Wait a moment," Alyssa said brightly.

“Look at the yaw and pitch ratings for that ship!"

They all Looked up at the detailed information displayed in front of them, but nothing immediately jumped out at the others why this would be good news.