The Return...(now closed)

[Aegeus]

OOC: I gotcha mate. ok, here goes. BTW the PoK isnt actually completed yet, so when you think of it, think of the picture with some plating missing, and think of it with lots of scafolding all over the hull with worker bees buzzing around. Also feaz, sry bout nuking your Sci vessel so fast, but i needed to show how powerful compresion cannons can be at close range.

BIC:

When the Aegeans do something big, they do it right. <I>The Pride of Keltoi</I> Had been monitoring the two bogies for some time now, scanning them, rescanning them, and ascertaining that they carried no weapons. This wasn’t really necessary because the outer hull of the ship had already been completed. Nachtium is ridiculously hard to make, and it is impossible to make it be nearly ass effective if you plate it together. Ensign Dun’Cha was carefully monitoring the situation on the <I> Pride’s </I> ultra-fine scanning system. The young Kourn’Nou’Kath female had recently been assigned to this position after the ship was launched early, and was eager to impress the stern Aegean commander. She looked of at Revan Vynn, “The Desert Wind�, the commanding officer of the super-massive Aegean flagship. She nodded to him, but he paid her no deed. Damn she thought. He thinks I’m just another flunky. She spoke up in her synthesized Aegean voice.
“Sir? The new contacts are approaching our mass shadow, should we warn them not to approach?�
She grimaced at addressing a man of so much power and emotion directly. He looked at her, his eyes piercing, like that of an earth falcon. He nodded to her silently. She motioned to the comms officer to patch her through to the approaching ships. A little red light blinked on her consol, and she spoke into the computer’s microphone.
“Unidentified craft please remain at current distance for your own safety. Do not approach, or your craft may be destroyed by inherent defenses. Thank you for your cooperation�
She grimaced. That sounded like something a military guardsmen would say to a suspect. She hopped she hadn’t sounded to harsh, after all, no one like a harsh bridge bit…
“We read you unidentified ship, we are reading a huge mass shadow, are you hiding behind an asteroid?�
She grimaced. Greaaaat. A race that couldn’t comprehend super-huge ships. Hopefully they wouldn’t start worshiping people as gods or something. There came a tap on her shoulder.
“Next time, just speak in native, we all understand you, and those translators can be a bit off�
She swiveled her chair, and looked dead into the face of Revan. He gave a slight smile, and walked back to his command podium. She looked a little stunned if Kourn’Nou’Kath could look stunned. Had she just been reprimanded? Was Revan really not such a hard ass like she’d always heard? She grimaced again. Great start for a career, oh yeah.


About 4,000 Km away, the fighter is still banging away with active sensors. He grinned. His little probe friend was back. He grinned. Lets see what the probe makes of my probe. He pressed a few buttons and spoke to the computer.
"Launchy spikey, lets see what they make of him"
A small hatch opened, and a Capitarus skull probe floated out. the probe floated over to the other probe, and started probing it.


Back on <i>The Pride </i>, Dun'Cha yelled out a status report.
"Sir! a Feazanthian cruiser just dropped out of..."
She looked at her moniter for the name of the Feazanthian drive
"...Slipspace. Their powering weapons and heading for the alien ship."
Revan looked at the comms officer.
"Open a channel"
a few beepin noises anounced a live video and audio feed.
"Feazanthian vessel. This is <i> The Pride of Keltoi </i>, the unknowns yoou have targeted there are not hostile, this is their 1st contact, and we dont want anything to go bad, let jsut play a little diplomacy, shal we?"

[Crystal Palais]

The probe sat a short distance above the scrap and the Aegean fighter, scanning. Especially scanning the other probe, now. And they'll probably just keep on going like this for a while, completely unheeding of the implied threats of the weapons' powering up, due to being unmanned.

The mining ship itself, granted, was a good distance away. But it was close enough to be in weapons' range, which was enough to make the commander -- no, captain, now -- nervous. But she had no reason to worry about her response - the Avatar responded via open channel, ordering the ambassador craft to advance toward the new ships that had arrived - but to stop before reaching the debris field.

"Marvelous! Two separate alien species in one of our systems, judging from the differing designs of your ships. I wish to greet you both on behalf of the dominion of Crystal Palais, currently enjoying stewardship over seven separate star systems. You are in what we would call the Exi system, and I am called Avatar, a representative of Deity." Naturally, the Avatar did not take into account how that particular phrase might be interpreted. A representative of a god. Fortunately, however, he could easily clarify later; Crystal Palais was a technocracy, not a theocracy. "The debris here was not created by our intervention, as we have no combat-capable ships currently in the system and our mining ship only has point defense weapons designed to deal with rogue meteorites. Is there perhaps something we can do for you, however?"

---

The two scouts near the Pride of Keltoi came to a halt. Their instruments continued their usual scans, as the ship was easily within scanner range, and their instruments were high enough resolution to get some rather impressive readings. At least, to them, anyway.

The information was relayed to the Avatar and Captain Baggett, whose response was somewhere along the lines of, "Whoa... we may be in over our head here. But why would someone want to create something so big? It seems pointless."

[Feazanthia]

"Pride of Keltoi, this is FSS Indomitable. We recently lost contact with one of our science vessels in the area, and we suspect these primitives are to blame. We will, however, not open fire until our suspicions are verified."
The channel was switched to a wide-band so that the strange alien ship could hear it as well.
"Attention 'Avatar', this is FSS Indomitable of the Galactic Empire of Feazanthia, leading Task Force Alpha Two-Nine. We have lost one of our science vessels in this area. Perhaps you have seen it?"
Albertson clicked off the channel momentarily and sent a priority one signal throughout the ship.
"This is your captain speaking. This is a first contact scenario. However, all marines prepare for possible boarding action. We're going to find out what happened to the Inquisition, one way or another."

[Crystal Palais]

The oblong corvette halted as the Avatar responded. "No, I am afraid we have had no contact with any other species' ships until the last hour, nor have we located any other debris throughout this system. Are you certain they may not have simply had some sort of communication failure or had gone to coordinates other than what you expected? We have been occupying this system for some time now, they likely would not have gone unnoticed."

Ceasing his transmission, the Avatar's ship switched to a tightbeam transmission to the mining ship, so he could give her orders directly without the possibility of interception. "Captain Baggett, I suggest you order your scouts to return to the ship and dock. I also suggest you launch sentinels and prepare for violence. We have virtually no weaponry, so prepare to retreat. If this situation turns violent, the sentinels may be able to buy you time to withdraw, and the latest newcomers are most certainly warships."

"Hearing and obedience, Avatar," the captain responded. The order went out throughout the small fleet for the scouts to return, and they all aborted their patrols to begin docking sequences. From the docking bay a dozen quite small ships launched, resembling spheres more than anything else, moving to take up a spherical formation around the mining command ship. But those, too, lacked any sort of weapon systems.

[Feazanthia]

"Captain," said Alsomee. "I'm not reading any energy emissions other than the engines, sensors, and life support systems. I don't think they have anything resembling weapons as we know them. Certainly nothing that would get past even the interference caused by our shields."
Albertson stroked his goatee again.
"Open another channel."
"Aye, captain. Channel open."
"Avatar, I request permission for my command staff and myself to come aboard, so that we may compare star charts and sensor readings. We are not terribly familiar with this sector, and you would most likely know much more about our ship's fate than we." He manually shut down the channel and rose. "Alsomee, Dyson, Arginoba, Ter'pa, Keel'shek; you're with me. Assemble a trio of Sonne as well. Meet me in fighter bay two."

[Crystal Palais]

Bloody hell, thought Captain Baggett as she issued the command to activate the sentinels. Briefly, a thick blue beam of light shot between them all before forming a grid, encasing the ship in an energy shield. While primitive so far as shielding went, it would take a few hits before a section buckled, and power could be shifted to compensate. The mining ship began to move toward the hyperspace gate that linked Exi with Tria as the last of the scouts came in and docked.

The Avatar's ship, however, remained perfectly still where it was. "I'm afraid that I cannot allow that, and if you choose to perform such an action I will be forced to view it as an act of hostility. I would respectfully request that you not perform such an action," he stated in a calm, even tone. He searched through all the topics he could, trying to stall for time while the mining ship withdrew.

"We have no information on your species' atmosphere, which presents the possibility that it may be toxic to your species. In addition, it may be of a higher or lower pressure, which would have a number of unpleasant effects on your physiology. Nor would we want to be responsible for the inadvertant infection of one of your species with an illness of some type that has never before been seen by you. Perhaps you would reconsider?"

[Feazanthia]

Albertson held a personal comm device as he stood on the grav lift, which was heading down towards bay two. When he spoke, his voice was soothing; the voice one would use with a frightened child.
"Mr. Avatar, with all due respect, we shall be using a diplomatic craft. Such a ship only carries a few phasers for point defense, surely not enough to pose a threat. And besides, my vessel alone has a dozen heavy magnetic accelerator cannons aimed at your bridge. So we shall see you shortly."
The six crewmembers arrived at the fighter bay and boarded a Sovereign-class yacht, which departed the Indomitable. The heavy cruiser began powering down its shields and weaponry as a gesture of good will.

[Crystal Palais]

The Avatar shrugged to himself, lapsing into radio silence. What kind of race would threaten them with destruction if they failed to comply? This did not bode well for them.

He opened a tightbeam transmission to the mining ship. "Launch a fighter immediately. Send it toward the gate and advise our situation, have at minimum the 17th expeditionary guarding the other end of the gate in the event that they are somehow able to activate it. Begin full burn toward the gate, no time for subtlety." The captain acknowledged, and he cut the link. Under thirty seconds later, a scout was sent out of the ship and speeding toward the gate.

The Avatar again activated his link as he began typing commands into his computer, preparing to wipe all information from its systems. It wouldn't do to allow an alien race to gain information on the dominion's systems or technology so as to speed their eradication. "Very well," he stated. "My ship will remain here if you insist upon boarding one of our vessels, though as I am not docked with any other ship I fear I will not be able to assist your boarding process. I expect, with your ostensibly superior technology, you will be able to compensate for this. The mining ship is withdrawing, as it has only civilians who have been in this system for less than the last six hours."

[Feazanthia]

Albertson noticed the mining ship heading towards some sort of gate at full speed - which was not very fast compared to the Yacht.
"Head for the corvette, all weapons disengaged. Alright people, this is first contact. We need environment suits until we can successfully test the atmosphere."

The six crewmembers donned full body suits of a material that would be unknown to the aliens. The three Sonne, however, did not need such things as they really had no breathing apparatus of any sort. They just floated there, their appendages twitching in eagerness. Keel'shek, the Pexlaar, had a particularly tough time donning his suit as it was designed for a far smaller Pexlaar and he had too many arms, so he simply removed some. They would regrow later. Ter'pa's thick tail swished irritably. He was a Teropta, and they were bread for battle. Not diplomatic missions. Still, captain's orders.

"Prepare for docking. They dont seem to have any sort of compatible clamp, so we'll be cutting our way through if that's alright with you, captain."
"Vent our atmosphere, the Sonne will repair the hole we make. I wish their first contact didn't have to be like this, but we have a mission to complete. Let's just hope we dont leave too bad an impression."

The arc welders cut through the hull of the corvette with surprising ease, and the six crew and three Sonne stepped (or floated) through. The three floating engineers began putting the fallen bulkhead back into place and reattatching it with their odd, microscopic cilia.

"What now?"
"We wait."

[Crystal Palais]

Most of the corvette was the drive system - the entire rear half, in fact. Granted, as Crystal Palais' corvette class sized in at around fifty to a hundred meters at best, and this was a smaller-than-usual craft, the forward space ended up measuring about eight meters wide, fifteen meters long and four meters high. As this was a diplomatic craft, however, it was almost all open, with a piloting chair and a larger one set toward the rear for the Avatar. The surrounding space was shown via a hologram that normally nearly filled the entire cockpit, but at the moment was reduced to hover above the pilot's console.

The pilot looked toward the Avatar nervously as the boarding party could be heard preparing to enter. "Avatar, I... I am frightened. Do they truly intend harm upon us?" he asked.

"I do not know," the Avatar replied. "I know only that they lost a ship and from all appearances think we had something to do with it. But fear not, child. Even if they do prove to be hostile, our sacrifice will save the lives of a hundred others - and possibly more."

The pilot could only nod and turn back to his console, though the Avatar's words relieved him further. As the half-dozen boarded the craft, the Avatar rose from his chair and bowed, in the traditional greeting that one normally gave to an equal. The bridge likely looked particularly alien, a sickly orange light providing the illumination in the nitrogen-rich atmosphere, and lending a darker tint to the bright blue skin of both the pilot and the Avatar.

The Avatar and the pilot were both similar in appearance, though the Avatar had a sort of regal air about him somehow. Standing nearly three meters in height, they looked largely humanoid aside from the fact that they had a second set of arms set below the first, both looking to be equally strong. Both the pilot and Avatar wore a similar uniform, black in color and somewhat loose. It was unlikely, unless the aliens' vision extended far into the infrared, to see the various insignias upon the uniform. Oddly, as some mannerisms seem to be common to many races, the Avatar smiled disarmingly.

"I will provide you with any information I am able. How may I assist?" he asked.

---

Near the wreckage, the probes continued to scan each other. If they were actually capable of thought, they might say that they were having fun entertaining each other.

---

Further toward the hyperspace gate, the first ship cape up to the small pylons and came to a halt - a gate was generated around it and enveloped it in short order. Not long after, the mining ship arrived, and the sentinels all deactivated the shielding and docked as the gate was activated to envelop the capital ship too.