The Voyages of The Seed of Truth: Contact!

Captain James Fujiwara of the illuminator class cruiser Seed of Truth looked at the three dimensional display of his bridge strategium. The elaborate circular device showed the bridge officers thorough and up to date information on their ships systems and status.

At the moment, the captain, his first officer, and his tactical officer were looking at five scout frigates criss crossing around a one another's hyperwakes in an elaborate pattern that was meant to obscure the damaged hearthship that was likely serving as the base for what looked like a Knavar splinter-pack. Most ships would have had their Scrydar obscured by the complex maneuver and see a single ship large enough to be a battlestar, but The Seed was not most ships. The illuminator class cruisers were built to showcase humanity's most cutting edge technology to those xenos that dwelt in the uncharted regions. They were ships designed to hunt down the alien and show them who dominates in this galaxy. "Only five ships to guard their home base? Either they are on their way to rendezvous with their attack fleet or. Tactical, give me a hard look on their drive signatures. Tell me if you can detect any signs of sputtering." James commanded

BGT1T5 smiled at her owner. "The primary's drive wake is showing a resonance fluctuation and two of the frigates are displaying clear signs of battle damage in their drive wakes as well as their hull integrity. We can run them down with no issue. What are your orders?" The Mekanii tactical officer asked.

"Redirect course, increase our speed to one hundred twenty kilo-lights. Set condition two and tight band them the standard Knavar IFF challenge." James said. "If the dogs are willing to roll over and show us their belly, then we can offer them a few treats for being good."

Commander Sydney Myers chuckled at James's remark. "Talking to xenos before we attack them? You are not going Sympathist on us are you, captain?" the first officer asked in a tone dripping with sarcasm. James Fujiwara was many things, high on the list was 'devout Retributor'. Though James took righteous satisfaction in seeking out alien life to dominate and domesticate, he was a pragmatist.

"Knavar are simple enough creatures to deal with, millennia on the run have honed their survival skills." James said as the IFF challenge screamed its way across the void.

***

Dozens of light-years away, Chief Chtk'th'Prah of Pack Fresh-Snow-Zero-Tracks;clan-23g heard the warning klaxons blaring. The chief of clan-leader had been reading through repair status reports and updated casualty lists when his very bad day suddenly got much worse. Chtk'th'Prah looked at the report that jumped to the front of his tablet that showed a warship came rocketing towards his people at over a hundred thousand times the speed of light leaving a hyper wake for all to see. The ship bristled with enough firepower to devastate a thousand worlds and was protected by a shield matrix that could take a supernova to the face.

The monster ship was transmitting some kind of message, but with his ship operating on tertiary computer systems, translation protocols had to be networked through multiple ships which required customized data transfer codes to compensate for the irregularities in their hyperwake. All while that predator of a star cruiser came screaming towards him and his family.

"I got it." Lt.-Pack-Sister Szthrahc said as she came into the chief's office. "I had a hunch about the translation key so I checked it against the hard archives." The young Knavar woman said as she ported the data file over to Chtk'th'Prah with a few gestures. "Daddy, it's the humans. The Alpherion ones." She said looking nervously at her father.

Chtk'th'Prah read his daughter's translation of the alien's message "This is the Alpherion Federation Privateer Seed of Truth to Knavar vessels. Do you want to fight? We see you and we are coming for you. If you wish to avoid conflict, then you will drop into sub-light, lower your shields, and prepare tribute. Failure to respond to this transmission will be seen as an act of defiance that shall be met with discipline."

Part of Chtk'th'Prah was relieved. The pack master had been really worried that the cruiser was from the Alliance. For a Knavar, there are few fates more terrible than being taken alive by the Alliance navy to be given over to the Phaaz’n. Chtk'th'Prah had never met an Alpherion-human before, though he had heard all the stories. To Chtk'th'Prah's reckoning, the horror stories of the quantum geneforges and life as a mindless drudge seemed quaint compared to the propaganda vids that Phaaz’n put out to show wild dogs who ran away once the old masters got their hands on them. Still, Chtk'th'Prah knew that he had led his people to their doom. That they would become slaves to one of the more merciful and beneficent races in the galaxy was of little comfort to him in that moment as his youngest daughter looked at him with those big, innocent eyes.

"Daddy. What are we going to do?" Szthrahc asked.

Chtk'th'Prah closed his eyes and thought about the nine thousand souls under his command and felt the weight of their lives on his shoulders. "We will survive." The Knavar clan-chief said before drafting a response that would seal the fate of the people he had sworn to protect.

"Alpherion Federation Privateer Seed of Truth, this is clan-chief Chtk'th'Prah. We shall comply. We acknowledge your power. I repeat. We will comply with your demands and place ourselves within your power. May The Master Race find our tribute pleasing. All glory to The Federation of Man."