I'm playing my first game, and had pirates show up for the first time.

It's still fairly early on (I just got access to Medium hulls), and the pirate fleet showed up right next to a setup I have around one of my better planets, with a Military Starbase, an Influencer (which, oops, I forgot to put a defense module on), and lots of asteroids.

It doesn't *look* like it should be an insurmountable challenge (one medium-sized Pirate, one fighter, but it is.) The frigate has Stinger IV missiles (which I have) for a 4 attack, but an anti-missile defense of 7, which makes it nearly impossible to even dent, let alone destroy.

I've tried every short-term thing I can think of (like hasty upgrades of my flagship and local fighters, stripping them of everything but weapons and defense, and/or swapping Stingers for Lasers, unfortunately my best non-Missile weapon.)

Every tactic I use to destroy the frigate fails, and it ends up destroying my starbases.

What I'm wondering is:
1. Is there any way to win a battle in the short term?
2. How do pirates act, in general? After they blow up my starbases, are they just going to keep targeting me, as the human player and/or leader, mercilessly until they blow up everything I own, or is it possible they'll wander off to bother some other empire?