An open invitation to the nations that inhabit the galaxy

The councilman developed a massive grin on his face when he heard the news. He shook the monarchs hand with both hands and spoke.

"We are very grateful for your decision. We want you to note that we do not get into pointless conflicts and we do not force our friends into petty wars. The Christanans are good to their allies and we will heed your call when you are in need as long as you do the same for us."

"I suppose we should formalize the treaty and make an announcement." He sighs, clearly a bit bored with the proceedings.

"Yes I agree, I am tired of all this, let us make a formal pact. I do however suggest we open up this alliance to anyone who would like to join, of course they need our approval though." Johnton said wanting as many allies as possible considering the current one sided nature of the contemporary situation.

*Insert treaty here saying we'll back each other up only if attacked. Otherwise, we have no obligation to help. Too lazy to actually write it out.*

Any patrolling vessels properly equipped with relativity-displacement sensors would be able to pick up a growing, inbound mass of materiel surrounded by a sheath of gas slipping around a curved surface. Given a sufficiently crisp resolution and proper filters, an optical telescope would be able to discern a black pinpoint of mass coming in from a bright strip of stars parallel with the galactic plane: Subtle fuzz- proboscises jutting out which serve to increase the surface area of this organic object- and minuscule bulges galore.

The bubbly vessel's actual size, triangulated from a reasonable distance, would approximate that of an Old Terran stadium- but its occupants were far from human. This was an Aurelian sleeper biovessel, and its gaseous contents drifted along at extreme velocities as it pummeled towards the developed system.

He suddenly taps his comm device. "We've got an incoming vessel and it doesn't look like it's going to stop." He starts dashing around attempting an evacuation of all his people onto their shuttle while calling for backup from the CSR fleet. A Star Destroyer would be on its way soon.

Jonton laughed at the man's panic. "Relax, we have one star system and a navy that can take the other powers head on. We are safe."

---
"Unidentified Vessel, you are to identify yourself on orders of the Christanan government and military." The fleet that had now surrounded the UFO announced.

He's not panicking. He's a speedster. (Think of the Flash but slower. That is why he is bored out of his skull by this meeting. Everybody else is moving in slow motion to his perspective.) By the time Jonton got to "one," he's already gotten everybody in his party on board the shuttle, ready to depart. "Yeah, they're probably not going to stop. I recognize this from Centauri files. This is an Aurelian vessel. It can't be good." He starts tapping away at a table carelessly, completely oblivious to the grooves he's already wearing into its surface.

As the behemoth colony ship drew closer to the system's periphery, the central nervous nexus's proboscises began to pick up strong electromagnetic signals which came from... All around the vessel? In a matter of seconds' worth of biochemical calculations, the fibrous, warty core of a biological computer began to issue pulses of energy through its nerves connecting to the bioship's nervous column.

---

Hissssss!

The nerve signals arrived at C'rizli B'kart's chemohibernation vacuole minutes before the rest of the ship received the order to "wake up" from a millennia-long nap. Yawning whilst under the influence of the sedative, B'kart stirred for another moment before her golden, shimmering eyes opened and glared through the gelatinous preservation medium.

What now? Something tells me we are not in the right location...

B'kart's dorm cell shivered before the tendon-lined wall adjacent to C'rizli's berth began to disintegrate at the vacuole site, giving the vicious Aurelian female plenty of room to punch through the amniotic membrane in order to move freely about. A sickening, murky black pool of preservation fluid collected at the central recess and footstep indentations as C'rizli stormed out of the chemoberth and into the bridge corridor, where she stopped short from colliding with a passing Xu'thari troop as she hugged the slimy portal.

"Watch it- Wait, tell me what is going on!"

Garbed in his chitinous, rigid EVA armor which menaced with rubescent hooks at the epaulettes, the nameless Xu'tharin looked at C'rizli, who in turn responded with seized muscles throughout her body- and shook his head.

"I have no idea, Uli'khuunari C'rizli! Nexus seems to suggest that we have contacts-"

"Get to the Bridge!" C'rizlis' sickly yellow eyes flashed with frustration before the agile, slender Uli'khuunari brushed past the fibrous portal. The soldier's fingers ran along a sheathed knife to his leather-clothed waist as he trailed behind.

---

Given no manual access to its controls, the neural core initiated a second round of orders as nerves lining the bridge-borne comms array lit up in shades of pernicious violet, amber and crimson which shimmered off the living walls. Calcified by ancient Aurelian carbon weavers, a parabolic radio scoop mounted starboard of the bridge began to contract its external muscular tissue as the eerie collector dish began to broadcast a series of binary signals into the direction of one Christanan vessel. If equipped with a signal imaging unit, crews onboard any immediate vessel would be able to discern crude lines beneath clusters of pebbles corresponding to the base-ten numeral system, with a blank space above one line signifying the "zero" value. If given another several minutes, the signal would return with an array of geometric forms and corresponding derivatives concerning their growth rates along with a long string of characters-in the Aurelian alphabet, of course- sending the following message:

"This is the J'rad Starskiff on behalf of the Aurelian peoples. We advise that all vessels in the trajectory of this vessel readjust accordingly such that relative velocities equal zero, to avoid collisions."

Up close, the J'rad Starskiff appeared rather unarmed, save for the carbonaceous proboscises which could puncture a poorly-engineered hull- and fragile, with endless shards of chitinous ebony scales layered one after another on the bulbous surface. A hideous, possibly fearsome living vessel was probably an adequate description prior Aurelian contacts thought of when similar vessels were encountered; no telling how this bunch of contacts would react.

"You are to dock at the nearest station and wait for an escort. Refusal to comply shall be responded to with force."

At that point, a lone Star Destroyer appears in the system, though it defers to the Christanans, due to it being their home turf. It does, however, lock its heavy turbolasers onto the Aurelian vessel just in case.

A Burninite Leviathan, entirely white, drops out of the Warp, identifies, and asks if a diplomat may be allowed to meet the Christanans.

The Burn Diplomat is allowed into the meeting

Twelve more Aurelian Tihn'tharin joined C'rizli and her escort in the corridors as throngs of partially-inebriated soldiers weaved around one another trying to get to their battle stations.

"We've got more contacts-"

"I know, I know, I know!"

C'rizli felt lightheaded as she led the detachment of soldiers into the bridge opening. Muscular projections bulged inward from the transparent bioscreen that gave a 120-degree view of the starline, and joining the viewing screen were crude markings of measurements which overlaid with angular graduations. Center to the aft sat the central neural nexus in all its capacity, left unused by the lack of an operator as C'rizli stepped forward into the bridge before the familiar soldier brushed past her towards the operating console. Indignant, C'rizli shook her head but said nothing more of the infraction once the Xu'tharin lad was situated within the workings of the terminal.

---

It would take three silent minutes for a response to emanate from the looming Aurelian vessel stretched like a zeppelin: The craft's nervous system appeared alert with erect proboscises sticking out from the hull at tangent-perpendicular angles, serving to sense variations in the interstellar medium such as elevated gas concentrations from accelerating vessels or debris ejected by naval waste disposal units. When the response finally returned, display consoles would be able to receive the following message:

"Negative, for our inertia is too great as to retrofire our thrusters at sufficient acceleration. We have no intent to be in this system, but are rather passing through to another."

"Then get out of here in the next 5 minutes or dock, is that understood?"

A Burninite is beamed into coordinates provided. It happens to be Teresa Trimbalt, probably second or third best known Burninite, after Jenova and Dr. Thorgood.

"Good afternoon," she says, "I have a few statements from Burnination, and a few proposals, if you'll hear them."

C'rizli and the soldier looked at each other.

"What do they expect this is? We are flying something massive which cannot maneuver so quickly; at best, we are three hours away from crossing the chord vector."

The Tihn'tharin shook his head. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Get the Xu'tharin ready and call up any Tihn'tharin in the berths. If they try to approach the endocytosis bays, we will kill the vessels' occupants."

Some time after C'rizli said this, nearly all deckhands were present at their compact battlestations as garbled cursing, hissing, screeching and other manifestations deafened the bridge into chaos. Five minutes was nowhere near enough to accelerate the vessel to the desired velocities necessary to cut through the sliver of Christanan space. Only someone found the courage to resubmit the transmission of denial:

"We are at an insufficient velocity to cross the chord in five 'minutes,' nor are our gas ejectors powerful enough to approach the desired velocity in three hours."

"We might be able to assist. Tell them if they would provide the coordinates to their destination, our Star Destroyer will tow them there."

"If you provide coordinates to 6555793 delta, they can tow you to your destination."

---

"Please do tell, I always have loved the intellect of Burnite diplomats."

Teresa seems surprised by the random compliment, especially considering Burnination's generally warm relations with Christana's enemies. Well, if you know how to read a Burninite. They're very skilled with emotional control, given their unique evolutionary disadvantages.

"The people of Burnination have, by consensus, decided that your social modes are among the more admirable in the galaxy. And yet yours is a race with which we have little contact. Burnination wishes to formalize relations with your people by extending an explicit invitation for an ambassador to join us to serve as a conduit of information flow between our peoples."

The councilman smiled. "Nothing would please me more, we offer the same for your diplomats. We are people of peace, unless threatened."

"We too are a people of peace, especially when threatened," Teresa responds to this. "We do not, as of right now, have any diplomats based in other nations. We have ambassadors living in Burnination. It simply seems easier, to us, for your life forms to adapt to life with us than for one of our life forms to adapt to life in one of your cities. We would be willing to try, though, should you desire it."

Tow? What?

C'rizli listened through the commotion in the bridge as she struggled to comprehend what she thought she heard through the riffled biological-speaker grille: With what? Tethering would be impossible to achieve due to the lengthy proboscises capable of putting more than a dent in an unwary vessel's hull, and tractoring such a monstrosity would risk tearing apart the collagen fibers if these strangers accidentally used the wrong settings.

By now, nearly every Xu'tharin-Tihn'tharin battalion had their members resurrected from hibernation cradles, most of whom were made alert by the flurry of pheromone signals emitted from beneath flesh panels. Infrared sensors powerful enough to image larger population clusters would be able to take note of an elevated patch of organic mass congregating to the smooth side of the endocytosis-membrane.

---

As for the response, one more signal would come from the Aurelian bioship: "We cannot comply; we will proceed through our chord within several more hours."

"Fine, keep on route, we will have an escort for you, if you move out of route you will be fired upon."

---

"All sounds fairly good however I must bring up an important issue that I believe your people could defuse." The councilman cleared his throat. "Praos is a major concern, neither side is willing to move and considers the other side a great threat if they take the planet. We would ask if you could defuse your allies, Praos would even our odds against Hera and their allies. Taking this planet would greatly lessen the threat of war."

"I detect hesitation. Tell them we will need to send a crew to attach a temporary hyperdrive to their hull. If we enter hyperspace with them in tow without one for them, their displeasure would be very momentary. There will be no need for any physical tethering. We have ten tractor beams projectors on that ships, more than enough to carry out the operation."