A War for the Stars

[Erax]

CODED TRANSMISSION
From: Dr. Lorn Joh, Sector Research Division
To: Admiral Wiers

Syned I, 2405.0

Admiral,

We now have a preliminary report on the artifact from Klozar VII. Our on-site research teams have determined that the weapon is no less than eight thousand years old, which means it is almost certainly the work of the Ancients or one of their servant races.

The weapon itself is an ion beam projector, similar to Imperial ion cannon but much more advanced; among other features, it induces subtle variations in the beam which can disrupt and burn out a ship's engines. Much of its operation is still a mystery to us. We tried to build a smaller replica of the weapon here on Syned, but there is some sort of scale factor involved - all of our smaller Versions lacked the engine-disruption effect. If there is no way around this constraint, it means we are limited to making exact copies of the weapon.

Your designers have determined that our Sector's current ship hulls are too small to carry a full-size Version of this 'engine killing' weapon, but it can be mounted on our ground-to-space emplacements without too much trouble. They will prepare a list of possible designs and send them to your weapons development people at the Capital.

We will continue our research here. A full report on this alien technology will be drawn up and sent to you in a tenth or two.