We spent a few days patching wounds and securing cargo we were as ready as we could get so we salvaged everything we could from the wrecked ships which took several days by itself and then headed to Mars station for resupply and to sell the scrap. We entered Mars dock our ship covered in scorch marks our ammunition depleted but intact and capable of combat we presented a story that was quickly passed around the station we were the ghost the unkillable ship the dock master was in awe of the shear number of scorch marks on the ship the kind you only get from missile impacts but even the original alloy we were using would not have held together for the beating we had received missiles and cannon hits showed that our hull was intact but littered with what was clearly the results of hell of a fight.
We sold the salvage and I hired a team of researchers to reverse engineer the armor I had a plan I'd build a battle cruiser armored in that alloy composite combind with my engineers shield upgrade and the best drives that could be found it would be unstoppable in battle. As I planned for the future I didn't know that my foes had plans of their own and were waiting for us to leave the station meanwhile I hired a few new crew finally we had a proper skeleton crew for the frigate we had been to this point operating on maximum automation and pure sleeplessness.
With our new crew vetted and squared away we loaded up on ammunition and supplies and set out with a new sense of confidence in our ship we held ourselves high on the pride of our ship and our skills. We went to hyper and two days later we were in the outer sector on our way to deliver a shipment of medical supplies the crew outfitted with personal inertial dampeners in the unlikely event we got into another battle and moral high. We had just started detecting Irobotu station on long range sensors when we were attacked by a literal hoard of ships 41 corvette class 15 frigate class and a single cruiser class ship.
Missiles boiling into space it looked like soup our detectors showed a wall of red in every direction, we immediately returned fire going full defensive and started taking hits luckily we had upgraded our emitters and even improved our engineers makeshift shield modification increasing its shield capabilities by another 20% all total we were running shields 231% stronger and 32% more durable than we should have on a ship our size impressive thought to achieve that the railgun would only have 4 full power shots at most. We had stocked up on flak rounds for our guns and they proved there worth on the 312 missiles inbound on our ship as our first few volleys took out 12 missiles at extreme range and just kept going until the missiles entered medium range and we ran out of the flak rounds.
Guns blazing I went on the shipwide coms and said "it has been an honor serving with you my faithful crew we have not been together overly long but I'd like to take this chance to tell you I am proud of you but first let's fight on and when we finish this battle I owe everyone of you a bottle of your preferred drink and 1,000 credits plus a raise don't let me forget lol" our gun fire never waned my crew knew their jobs. Hits began registering across our shields as our enemy closed to cannon range granted there technically isn't a maximum range but an effective range where the chance of scoring a hit goes from a fraction of a percent to percentages.
As we started taking hits I ordered the railgun to go maximum fire on the enemy cruiser the only ship likely to be able to fire more than a couple volleys of missiles and then I watched as my crew put all 4 shots in the capacitors into the cruiser ot was perfect shooting almost as if they knew where it would be usually in a space battle there is atleast a few misses but not this time as I watched the cruiser take the 4th shot and saw it penetrate deep into the ship. The first wave of missiles arrived it started with 100 but we had whittled it down to 12 the second wave was only a second or so behind it though and it still had 30 missiles in it and then the 3rd wave was a couple seconds after that and still had 56 missiles flying.
The impacts shook the ship but we kept fighting our point defenses managed to knock out 12 from the second wave of missiles we still had 18 incoming but we were still fighting as the second wave of missiles hit we started taking appreciable damage at the 6th missile of the volley. The final wave of missiles we had whittled down to 21 missiles before it hit and the shields had recharged some but we took serious damage this time but by this point we had killed half of the corvette class ships taken out the cruiser and damaged 3 of the frigates enough to cripple them and put them out of the fight.
Armor was blasted off the ship as the final volley of missiles rendered hardened composite alloy into shrapnel and vapor as compartments were compromised and the shields failed completely. As the final missiles beat the ship we fought on our remaining ammunition firing in defiance of our fate as we took 8 more corvettes our hellbore tearing through two of the enemy frigates leaving only 10 frigates and 13 corvettes remaining as we expended the last of our cannon ammunition. Our guns had run dry half of them taken out our armor compromised our shields over loaded but still fighting with our hellbore and railgun and what point defense lasers were still operational venting in 8 compartments we fought on.
As we kept killing the corvettes and frigates soon there were only a couple left as they couldn't penetrate our armor though as they fired on us they were slowly chipping away at it occasionally taking out a turret my crew had come through the absolute beating we took and were working on restoring shields as we fought as hard as we could we were down to thrusters only by the time we finished the last enemy ship over 90% of the hull would need replacement and nearly every turret we had would require replacement our ammunition was completely depleted and most of our systems were damaged in some way but we had survived.
We effected what repairs we could salvaged everything we could going to the point that our ship was towing 3 salvaged frigates that were filled to the top with salvage along with our own cargo hold full and we had even restocked some of our ammunition from the salvage and then we limped into Irobotu station. The dock master had watched the fight at maximum sensors range and was completely riveted by the impossible battle he had just watched and when he watched us towing 3 vessel's into port he had ordered maximum defense mode as he had assumed we were some kind of pirates but he was stunned when he received our com "The Gray Shade inbound from Mars station with medical supplies we require a repair dock and some r&r we have salvage in tow and would dearly like to sell it if possible" he rewatched the com three times and responded with a request of our battle logs I was in a worn out and tired state but I knew that if he watched them there would be a number of uncomfortable questions so I replied "I will allow it under a contract of confidentiality and only in person" he accepted the condition and we docked.
Repairs to our armor was nearly impossible but we were able to cobble together a temporary hull and restore our atmospheric integrity and replace the damaged equipment meanwhile the dock master had watched the battle 4 times and still couldn't believe it he wasn't the only one who had watched the battle on the sensors but he couldn't explain why or how we had won but he was asked a number of questions and his only reply was "57 ships VS 1 and the one won I cannot say more as I am under a confidentiality agreement" it earned him looks like he was insane bur all he could do was shrug and tell them to ask me.
Our ship was in the dry dock for months but our budget was quite extensive as we had so much salvage so several upgrades were made to our ship and 10% of the armor was replaced before they ran out of the armor composite alloy we required. Our ship back into a flyable condition we headed back to Mars station as we knew they had more of our alloy composite plating we ran into no trouble at all and our legend had grown we had defeated a fleet and shocked an entire station. As we arrived on station with a cargo of raw materials for trade I received a com from the researchers for additional funding which I promptly transferred and then we began replacing the temporary hull patches with composite alloy fixing a little over half of the damaged armor on our poor battered ship it took a week and finally the lab had a breakthrough and found the specific combination of alloys and structure our armor was made from but now I didn't have the funds to commission the construction of a ship but I did commission the construction of a small factory which would take 6 months but would be able to supply our armor needs in any thickness or quantity albeit slowly in the future.
After getting everything started and sorted we made quite a few profitable trade runs as we had a reputation of getting anywhere regardless of what lay in our path and gradually we entirely replaced the damaged armor on our ship and even had a sizable fund for the future.
1 year later
our factory running at maximum capacity had filled its storage with alloy composite our wallets filled quite nicely I took the plunge and ordered the construction of a proper battle cruiser complete with reinforced alloy composite armor granted it was slower than it would have been with something cheaper and lighter but I didn't care the shear survivability of it was what I wanted though I did have larger than normal drives installed. As the battlecruiser was under construction we ended up landing in hot zones more and more often but the pirates quickly fled when they realized that we were the so called unkillable ship. We managed to get a decent haul and construction moved slowly but finally after what felt like years the battle cruiser was finished my crew had grown to 90 people by thisvpointvsovwe took our shield mod out and moved over to our cruiser leaving the old frigate in our dock.
As we got comfortable in our new ship I checked over the specifications and realized the monster we had created, 2 railguns 100 20mm guns and 12 100mm cannons along with 6 internal missile bays and 6 hellbore laser cannons 12cm size and 200 point defense laser turrets coupled with a full meter of alloy composite armor plating we had now named Skelter composite and shields incomparable to anything else in the system as they were stronger than even the largest and toughest dreadnought shields by 25% meaning our ship had shields 290% stronger than a ship of comparable size and class a previously impossible feat of engineering. Our battle cruiser was a monster and could fit an entire corvette in its cargo bays and because of its shear monstrous status I named it "Mourning Star" because any who fought it would be mourned by their kin.