[Planet Governor Destra Sind]

"I'd like to start off by apologizing for hurting your secretary. I intended to catch her during her fall, I wasn't aware of the difference in strength."

It would have been an understandable excuse had it not been for the clear murderous intent that Milli had described to me. I had honestly expected for the demon to lunge at me as soon as I had entered the room. I had a couple security agents ready to defend me but I didn't expect much of them considering the speed at which this thing approached Milli when she tripped.

Being in the same room as this thing made it impossible to stay calm. It sat on the chair that had been prepared for it last second, but it wasn't in a relaxed posture. It leaned forward and relied more on its own legs than the chair to support its weight like it was getting ready to jump at the first thing that approached it. I found it increasingly difficult to approach the table and sit still.

"How about we start from the beginning? Once again, my name is Dominique Reynolds, I am a pioneer and acting ambassador for the Sol System Republic of Humanity."

Thinking back, I'd never actually introduced myself during the call. If this thing wanted to play a game of political charades, I would gladly accept it as an opportunity to buy time.

"Destra Sind, Planet Governor. Secretary Milli's injuries are unfortunate but you are forgiven since it was an... honest mistake. Forgive me if this comes off as rude, but did you come here alone?"

"Thank you for your forgiveness, and yes, I am here alone."

This demon, Dominique, was surprisingly easy to talk to compared to what I had imagined. This didn't mean that I was any less stressed and I had no way of verifying if he spoke the truth, but maybe I could prod more information out of him.

"You mentioned the trip here being harsh? We didn't pick up any warp traces, how long were you traveling in common-space?"

I saw the red in Dominique's face slowly disappearing. He brought one of his hands up to his face and partially covered it like he was trying to hide his face in shame. To me, such a gesture would be called a facepalm and it would be done to show shock or disbelief, but it must have had a different meaning to him for him to use it here...

"I uh... We don't, like, know how to warp..? That is, we have warping systems but they aren't safe for long-distance spaceship travel."

It was such a strange thing to lie about. All the common-space around my system that could be reasonably explored through conventional means had already been mapped out, so unless Dominique had spent months or years burning through space, it was literally impossible to reach us without long distance warping technology. He wouldn't have even been able to contact his home system during all that time since his ship would be traveling faster than any signals sent from his home.

"In that case, why did you come here? I don't see a reason for someone to take such a harrowing trip like that before they unlocked ship warping technology."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"My race is dealing with an overpopulation problem. We never figured out how to warp but needed a solution quickly, so we sent out pioneer vanguards, like me, to pave the way for massive colony ships. I have a civilian cruiser behind me and I want to discuss possible land distribution that we could both stand to benefit from."

It almost made sense. It would have been so easy to ignore the gaps in logic and take Dominique's word for it, but as the leader of the planet I just couldn't take a risk like that. Us Meldren apparently had a pretty early start in time compared to other alien races and we didn't even have the need to move offworld. Granted, we were much more comfortable living in tight spaces and had lower population growths comparatively, but unless Dominique's home system only had one planet, making such an endeavor was against all logic.

"How would... lending land to your people be beneficial for us? We aren't in need of extra manpower, most of our manufacturing has been either automated by machinery or made extremely easy to operate."

"Allow me to elaborate; We don't necessarily need land on this planet, I am asking for things like moons and gas giants. From what I understand, you are not fully equipped to deal with threats in space. I can attest to my people's defensive capabilities, we have quite the history of space combat and even have a rule book for how war should be conducted. I'm able to provide some defense on my own given that a deal is signed."

We don't have planetary defense because we never needed it. The Meldren homeworld sits at the very edge of most offworlder activity. Only a couple races actually bothered making relations with us and we ended up benefitting more than they did anyway. If we did develop planetary defenses, it would be to fend off you!

I am a bit surprised that Dominique is only asking for things like moons and gas giants. The vast majority of Meldren would never give up their cushy lifestyle to go live on a cold rock in an airtight box, but maybe those humans put less emphasis on comfort? Or maybe they just didn't have a choice. If we actually did need defensive measures, this deal would actually be pretty nice. If everything up until now has been truthful, I could see a future where humans owe us greatly because of our gifts and technology.

Though I can't help but feel like I'm forgetting something?

________________

[Captain Indrix Jaen, Grahtonian Emergency Force]

Pretty much everyone was shocked upon receiving a distress call from the Meldren. Those lanky murids were an easy target, sure, but their location was anything but strategic and they really didn't have any noteworthy resources to speak of, especially considering how far away they were from everything. The call mentioned a terrifying new alien race, both number and firepower unknown. It was almost as if a new alien race had shown up, taken control of the Meldren homeworld and was now sending false distress to pick off any enemies. It had been briefly considered by my superiors but it wasn't like we could act on wild suspicions.

I was currently in charge of a war frigate flanked by two corvettes that had been set aside for emergency situations like this, so I was honestly a bit glad to finally get some action despite it being at the expense of the Meldren. We had just exited hyper-space flight which would put us just a couple hours away from the Meldren homeworld via conventional means. The Meldren had been given an overestimation on how long it would take for help to arrive just so we could have them be in our debt a bit more. I'm personally not a fan of causing allies to panic for personal gain but I'm not the one in charge of what we send them so it's a bit pointless to express my discontent.

By the time we had entered the scanner’s range, our sensors immediately picked up foreign traces. There seemed to be heavy signal jamming that the scanner system was working through, so we were blind for the time being. At least, I thought we were, but by some miracle we were pretty close to the enemy and had even managed to gain a visual on the... one ship?