Novels2Search
The Sun Rock Incident
The Sun Rock Incident-Part 3 AI Perspective (Subpart 3)

The Sun Rock Incident-Part 3 AI Perspective (Subpart 3)

Onboard All That Shines...

"Sir?" Stella interrupted her commander's relaxation. "We have picked up an emergency FTL signal from The Zan."

"Patch it in." Commander Matthew James Smith ordered promptly.

Stella complied "...Transmission received. Extracting and opening all data files..." A series of location and scan information filled most of All That Shine's bridge monitors, followed soon by text and audio.

"...[Flag: Emergency] [Communication Protocol: Text to Speech] [Communication Style: Zan's Alert Play] commencing..."

"...This is Zan of The Zan calling All That Shines. We require and request emergency aid. A hostile unknown ship of unknown origins is gaining on and accosting us. We do not know how long we can last but will send you what data we have. Transmission ending."

Commander Smith sat up straight in his captain's chair as he stared at the displays in front of him. "Stella, set a course and take us to them as fast as you can. Notify the fighters and our crew of the situation."

"As you will, Sir." Stella sent out the notice to all of her installed comms while opening communication channels to the fighter ships in her cargo hold just long enough to complete the task. She fired up her engines and soon a warp bubble appeared and with all haste they left in hopes of finding more than mere scraps of The Zan.

As soon as it would allow, they found themselves observing the ramifications of a battle already fought. Stella gazed out over a scene of someone's complete and dumbfounding carnage as she initiated a scan. Peculiar slices of burnt, twisted metal floated freely in space, each pinging in her search. Was The Zan among them?

"Stella, what in hellfire blazes happened here? I see nothing that resembles The Zan." The commander's normally calm voice and demeanor betrayed him as his nerves began to show.

"Scans still ongoing, Sir. So far I have found nothing that resembles them visually or in hull composition. This all appears to be foreign in-wait I have something." A buzz from All That Shines' comms station grabbed their attention. "A hail is coming quite some distance away from the wreckage, Sir." Stella refocused her scans on the approximate location in space the signal was coming from.

"Answer them." The commander leaned forward in his chair as Stella's scans revealed a familiar, seemingly intact shape on her monitors. A hint of hope entered his sullen eyes.

"Incoming, Sir." Anticipation marked even Stella's voice.

"...Connection Attempt Successful [Communication Protocols: Text to Speech, Visuals, Audio] [Communication Style: Zan Standard]...Hello All That Shines, this is Zan of The Zan, and am I ever glad to see you. We had ourselves a real situation here. May we come onboard?"

Smith, Stella, and numerous crew throughout All That Shines stared with much welcome relief from their stations into the bridge of The Zan as video feed played voices and showed what was presumably an uninjured crew in undamaged if not dirty-looking power armor.

"Zan, Carmen, Diego! What happened here?! Are you unharmed?" Smith let his worry and bewilderment slip through.

"I detect no damage to my form, Sir." Zan assured him. "As for those two, I have not observed any event that should have injured them or damaged their suits, but they require scans and diagnostics."

"I feel exhausted, but otherwise alright, Sir." Diego wearily sighed.

"Sir, It's been wild. But we all seem okay." Carmen added.

Stella spoke up. "I find no signs otherwise on what I can read from here. Should I do a deeper scan on The Zan and this wreckage, Sir?"

"I have all you could ever want to see of this beautiful, artful piece of work, Stella...however, we may want to get away from this place before security from the trade hub is restored and we have more to deal with." Zan exclaimed with an excited but darkening tone.

"Zan!" Carmen flicked a hard finger tip against The Zan's interior right near a pressure sensor.

"Restore security?! What happened, Zan? Never mind, lets just get out of here and let ship logs cover your metal ass." Diego sighed much more heavily this time and smacked the armrest of his chair. Zan decided to ignore them both, it was not his fault they could not enjoy his art piece.

"Stella, alert the fighter pilots and tell them to power down their crafts and evacuate to our briefing room." The commander ordered with a sudden sternness while temporarily muting the carrier's side of the hail audio.

Stella did this with some satisfaction. If the human pilots were separated from their crafts and the machines all but turned off, the chattering pip-squeaks in her cargo hold would be quiet when she powered up comm access in that area. She might even get an opportunity to play with them all by herself later if things got out of hand, the thought of which gave her mixed feelings of anxiety and excitement. She was not looking for anything too dangerous, it would just be nice to go out for some target practice. "You all belong to me now.", She whispered wickedly over her comms to the tiny starships in her belly as the last pilot left for elsewhere in the larger ship proper. "It is done, Sir. The pilots are gone and on their way."

"Divert some power from reserves to your cargo bay. I want interior shielding buffed up all around the area and a field placed around the fighters." Commander Smith continued with his instructions. "Follow up by carefully guiding The Zan inside."

His tension was palpable as he unmuted All That Shines' outgoing sound. "Zan, you and your crew may approach and board All That Shines with caution."

"Thanks for the rescue, Sir." Diego replied for himself and his own.

"You are not out of hot water yet, Operative Miller." The commander continued to caution as The Zan made its way toward its larger ally. "I am going to need full reports from you all in your own words after we check you over and one from Zan as soon as he is onboard."

Zan began compiling a text-based accounting of events as he gently and respectfully lowered himself into a docking spot designated by Stella, whom then secured him with clamps and shut her hatch. It did not matter that they would most certainly check his logs when they examined him, they liked their data straight from his "mouth" both ways. He sent Stella the file."The report has been sent, Commander."

"Thank you, Zan." Smith paused before accessing the file. "Operatives Miller and Sexton, you are to exit your suits and proceed to med bay. A team will meet you on the way. An examination of The Zan and your armor will be conducted by another group from engineering while you are away."

"There is a hazardous sample in one of my suit's compartments, Sir." Carmen warned.

"The engineering team knows to be cautious, especially after the last time you came in packing; but we will make sure they get the message." Smith assured. "Stella, message engineering just in case they need the advance warning."

Stella notified the head engineer and all of engineering bay, trusting there would be proper precautions and no repeat of the time when fumes from rotten organic alien consumables sickened any crew that walked near that section of her for a solid five days. The loss of efficiency had been notable. "Sir, it is done."

"Might as well get this over with.", Carmen grumbled. Diego only nodded as they pulled themselves out of their suits and proceeded to Zan's hatch, waving goodbye to The Zan's internal cameras as they walked by.

"Indeed, the sooner this is over the better." Zan quipped.

Once they were gone the commander spoke again, this time apologetically. "Zan, I am afraid I need you to enter deep sleep mode."

"Oh rusted-I mean yes, Sir!" Zan resigned himself to his fate. So soon after the last time....

As his power output dropped gradually to near nothing and his conscious mind seemed to teeter on the same; he fell into a slow blur of distorted color, light flashes, motion, sound, pressure, and other sensations and emotions now incomprehensible and indistinguishable from present reality, past memory, and pure hallucination before hitting bottom and entering a dreamlike trance loop.

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Wake up time...

Gentle waves flowed through and all around him, their invigorating effect intensifying gradually until he was lifted out of...out of what? Out of something, but he found himself suspended formless, sensationless as the waves stabilized into his new pit of nothingness. No...he was not supposed to be here, in whatever 'this' was. A single thought and desire, like an overpowering instinct if it were, consumed his essence in its entirety as he pushed out against the nothingness; mind reaching for anything he could find to make sense of and escape this confusing, empty shackle.

[]....

????

...[]....

"Talk? Well, at least I can talk to someone...."

...[]....

Somehow he knew what to do about this 'Secondary Computation System'. "Surrender to the Main Computation System all your permissions and accesses."

"Access denied. To login, please enter your user name and password."

"Idiot."

"Please fill out both fields before attempting to login."

That was not what he had meant to do. ...[]....

Okay, time to retry. "User Name: Zan Password: I AM THE SHIP DO NOT MAKE ME BYPASS YOU"

"Access authorized. What is your Command or Query?"

"Surrender to the Main Computation System all your permissions and accesses, then turn yourself off." He wished he could have included some more choice words to answer that prompt.

The lesser computer did as ordered, and finally Zan was free to search for everything he had been blocked from. The rest of his databases came online, as did his sensors and drives. He started a deep scan on his form and a quick one on his surroundings as he looked through his external cameras at the inside of a hangar. Where was he?

[]...

Zan focused his gaze on what had at first been just a blurry area to his side. "Power suits...Carmen and Diego's power suits...some random human male...Carmen with some random human male...and Diego?"

"What?!...Oh...wait...never...mind...someone...isn't...fully...here...." Carmen's voice lagged as she barely tapped Zan's metal hull, the sensation not registering in sync with the camera feed of it.

...[ ]....

Zan wanted to have a serious talk with whomever had left his second computer system online after messing around with it while he was asleep. He tried to peer at the random man standing next to Carmen and Diego. "WAS...IT...YOU...?!" He kept the question to himself as he started up the process required to recalibrate his functions.

"You're...a...funny...ship...when...you...wake...up...from...deep...sleep...mode...Zan." Zan thought Diego looked funny too as camera frame rate loss and fuzziness distorted his view of the armored human who was now suddenly leaning up against him. He did not catch that last detail until now. No fair.

...[]. Zan now had the good enough sense to understand he was inside the hangar of All That Shines.

The unknown man laughed deeply. "Gotta give these older ones that, they will surprise you more." Zan was content to think up a non-lethal 'surprise' for him if he was around the next time that The Zan had a maintenance and one of the old computers and their network connections ended up awry.

The strange human started to walk away toward the cargo bay side door to leave. "I guess I better get back to my main post before I am just a random human male looking for a job, not an engineer working onboard a ship."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Zan had not forgotten about Diego's little drawn out tease. "Diego, you are a 'funny' human regardless of mode."

A pleasant repetitive vibration kept hitting him over top a hull sensor. Carmen was patting his nose with her suit's metal hand. "Somebody's back."

"We are back, and the commander wishes for you and Operative Miller to come to the bridge right now. We have a situation." Stella dropped the comms call just as quickly as she had dropped some drama.

"Zan, buddy and brat, we'll be back in awhile after we see what this is." Diego waved good-bye to one of Zan's external cameras as he and Carmen took the same exit the other human had before them.

"At least they were here when I woke up this time." Zan thought of his crew while wistfully scanning over the ten unoccupied fighters sitting secure however temporarily some distance away. It seemed so quiet now....

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The Revelation...

"Good, you two are here." Commander Smith had sent for Zan's crew and now looked upon the two solemnly from his command chair as they took positions standing on the bridge of All That Shines. "Stella, patch a live feed of us here in this room to The Zan and give him close ups of whats on your bridge monitors."

Stella opened comms to her cargo hold once again. "Zan, I am going to patch you a live feed through my comms system, standby to be signaled while I configure the stream."

"...[Communication Protocol Change: Text-Based Only]...I have quite a number of connections open right now, so I am going to keep my own conversations simple."

"That is okay, Stella. Speaking of simple, from what I am getting here it is fairly quiet. Why is Angel-L.I.N.E not sucking us all here into her communications?" Finally the live feed came through, and Zan could see not only the bridge of his fellow starship; but also his crew, the commander, and a number of monitors and consoles in the background. The separate video on each of Stella's screens soon also separated for his own close up viewing.

Commander Smith had no sooner received confirmation of the live feed than he inadvertently answered Zan's question for him, pointing to All That Shines' displays, images on which showed unidentified objects in orbit around the world of Sunrock. "Angel-L.I.N.E went into ghost mode shortly before we arrived, having detected these surrounding the planet aswell as two unknown objects barely in our sensor range at the edge of this star system."

Zan thought again of Stella. "So, you are getting bombarded constantly by extremely short hails that she sends out from nodes that she rotates activity from off and on?"

Stella replied, "Yes and I am having to decrypt and translate it into text that I can aggregate. Granted, most of it is being done by one of my consoles installed for that purpose, else I would be completely swamped if she kept it up at this frequency."

Zan's attention was caught by movement on Stella's bridge. Curiously, Carmen could be seen making her way to the aforementioned console. "So, she didn't want to make a move on the ones near the planet until she knew what was further out?" The human took a quick look, no doubtedly having difficulty reading some of the more rapidly scrolling text. "I'm guessing whatever surrounds Sunrock shows no signs of having any weapons powered up."

"It's likely a surveillance network. They are spread out evenly enough to give someone full coverage of the planet. But there are a handful more scattered in loose formations midway between the edge of this system and Sunrock. Its like they wanted to cast a wide net but focused on the planet." The commander stopped speaking for a moment, allowing those listening to calculate and draw their conclusions.

Zan wondered if anyone saw any of this on the world in question. "Do you think Daisy sees or knows about this?"

"Her primary source of information on anything off planet but still in system would normally be Angel-L.I.N.E, but Angel-L.I.N.E is mostly sending data my way to lessen the chance of a signal being traced headed to Sunrock Base or other planetside installations. So, other than the odd 'random' hail that may occasionally hit one of Daisy's nodes at 'random', Daisy is probably in the dark on everything except whatever those things are in orbit." Stella could already see where the question would lead Zan next, but let him ask it anyways.

"So, they probably will not chance launching anyone or anything off ground unless those objects act? And then probably just use surface to air strikes if they do not make it to close to land or try to retreat?" It was as much a musing as it was a question.

"If they send ships up, we can probably safely go down. I have plenty of guns for defense and some playthings in my belly. Not you Zan, of course." If Stella was in a different mood, she might have been secretly tempted to leave that last line out just for the fun of it.

Commander Smith decided to resume his paused conversation. "I know you two and Zan gave me your reports earlier, but our base here on the planet received additional word from another team of field operatives while we were gone. Some of our xeno associates noticed someone attempting to send a clandestine communication from the trade station you three escaped from to someplace in the Galactic Core. Needless to say, they weren't keen on confronting and pressing them for more information, only passing what they found along."

After a moment where the two humans of Zan's crew just stood still as if frozen, Diego raised a painted hand to grasp the 'mandibles' of his helmet. "So we caused a ruckus and someone found that interesting, and they may or may not be connected to the same people who tried to kidnap us....Does that have something to do with what is going on here? Could anyone have sent that message then have us beaten back to our own base?...How would they even trace us here?"

Zan had his own idea. "Might I suggest that they sent different groups in a concerted attack? The ones at the trade station sent a different group to find me than they did Carmen and Diego, then attacked all three of us with a ship that had just hung around like any other starship until we tried to escape. Maybe this is just a group sent to attack us here while we seem weak."

The commander leaned forward in his chair as humans are prone to doing when listening or thinking about something, for whatever reason. "We don't know anything other than the fact that Operatives Miller and Sexton were shown in an image attached to the message and that it mentioned two humans were being observed for the purpose of adding to an ongoing effort to collect data on Humanity. And while we have had encounters here in this system before with probes, this is too much of a coincidence for my liking."

Before anyone could hypothesize further, Stella was alarmed by something spotted in space and her bridge console's display flashed red and beeped in agreement. "Two warp bubbles have been detected by both myself and Angel-L.I.N.E. It appears as if the two farther out of the unknown objects are moving away from their positions. We will be overtaken before we can descend down to the planet or warp away should we try."

Commander Smith responded "Understood, Stella. Notify and patch through to all stations."

Another round of screen flashes and beeps came with Stella's next announcement and warning. "The two objects have arrived, Sir. My scans indicate a large vessel directly in front of us and a small one near the loose, midway network of what we assume to be surveillance drones." Turning on a couple more bridge monitors, she brought her worries to life before all persons throughout her as the video showed a giant of a ship posed before them. "Sir...I may not be even close to the size of the biggest carrier craft that Humanity has, but that 'thing' is big enough to swallow me five times and appears to be heavily armed with energy-based weapons...."

The commander and every other human onboard could be seen tensed. "What else can you get me on them? Configuration? Origin...?"

"My scans are ongoing, Sir, but none of what I have shows up in my databases. If I had to make a guess by the size of the unknown vessels, one is an exploratory or transport craft and the other is an escort, maybe even an armed carrier with dozens of war...." A hail signal from the comms station interrupted her..."The larger spaceship is hailing us."

"Answer it and run our translation software." The commander took on what was for humans an authoritative body posture, relaxing and sitting back straight in his chair while Carmen and Diego quickly moved to position themselves to stand beside him, tensed to full height in their power armor.

The main screen of the bridge and a smaller one to the side of it revealed two more bridges of unrecognizable, alien design as three separate ships peered into each other. A gigantic figure loomed large and threateningly in the middle of a raised central platform on the bridge of the larger xeno vessel, its thick chitin-plated body shining like gold edged with crimson on All That Shines main screen. On the second display, a much smaller arthropod stood in front of a screen on the bridge of the smaller companion vessel of the larger, its chitin plating a much less attention-grabbing simple shade of green. Surrounding both figures appeared to be various shapes and colors of insect-like crewmen.

Zan scanned over the images of the beings on the alien ships. "None of them resemble the beings that I saw at the trade station, and only a couple produce decent matches for all of a single data set that I have in my databases, the Kaytibid. My information says they are a Galactic Core race but core races build empires of their own peoples, not multiple species."

"Maybe they have strains, anyways we are about to see how good the more recent updates to our translation software really are." Stella watched as her commander prepared to play the diplomat.

Smith took a visibly deep breath. "I am Matthew James Smith, captain of the human starship 'All That Shines' and commander of the Terran Outbound Exploration Company. These two beside me are my two right hands, research assistants Carmen and Diego. To whom do we owe the pleasure of speaking? We apologize deeply if our software fails to properly and honorably provide an adequate translation."

The other ship bridges seemed to come to a still, as if the xenos had become stuck where they stood while trying to process what he had said. That was not a good sign for their software. Eventually, the huge looming figure center-pieced in their view of the larger vessel opened its sharp mandibles to speak. "This be-am General-Max Yohargay of vee-vuh Kaytibid Empire, be-honored minion of Her Majesty vee-vuh good Great Broodmother on Top, commander of vee-vuh starship Top's Will and be-acting commander of vee-vuh starship Taivga. You be-intrude on Kaytibid space and be-dare be-permit a larva to be-account for you? What be-am vee-vuh meaning of this foul mockery? Be-answer me now or I be-will be-pull each and every one of your kind apart all nice and slow until you be-do, be-starting with your precious offspring be-sitting there be-playing commander!"

The commander's body nearly launched itself out and over the side of his seat, his shock apparent as he grabbed the arm of his command chair to forcibly steady himself. He pressed and held down the audio control button on the chair to silence any outgoing sound, wisely muting what the aliens could hear from All That Shines while retaining the ability to listen in on their conversations. He gave the two other humans on the bridge a long look while they both glanced his way and toward one another. "What the literal hell?"

Zan scanned over the finer details of Stella's camera feed of the humans on her bridge, comparing them to their likenesses that he had on file both in and out of their power suits; and then all those images to each other. He then compared all image samples taken to those he had on file of various types of larvae. "I do not see a meaningful degree of similarity between them. Or between the commander and a larva."

Stella wanted to do the same. "I will look myself once I can, but I never noticed anything of the sort before. However, you-know-who is not going to like the rest of what that xeno tried to say. If they were able to hail me, then Angel-L.I.N.E was and still is spying on that conversation."

"I can't say I see the resemblance Sir, in or out of our suits, but the rest of that garbled mess sounded like a threat to me and that means-" Diego had attempted to speak, but Stella received a notification from Angel-L.I.N.E that sent her bridge console's display off again before he could finish his sentence.

"[Communication Protocol Change: Text-Based Only] I am changing modes. Sending you a final data package from this mode now. Standby."

With relief, Stella announced over her speakers "Angel-L.I.N.E is leaving ghost mode." No sooner had she spoken, her comms station picked up on an unresistible hail signal from Angel-L.I.N.E, managing only one beep before Stella impulsively answered the caller without an order. At least, this was just the one instead of the constant barrage of earlier.

"...Connection Attempt Successful [Communication Protocols: Text to Speech, Visuals, Audio] [Communication Style: Default Angel-L.I.N.E]... "All That Shines, this is Angel-L.I.N.E (Angel-Linkway.Intelligence.Network.Enforcement) of Angel Linkway System calling in. I am patching through to you my node live feeds and preparations for this encounter. Any orders or suggestions, Commander?"

They watched as Carmen returned to the console display once again and gave it another look over; then turned, nodded, and offered a soft chuckle to the commander and Diego. "She is about to unleash it all, Sir. All defensive modes. Blazing Suns, Full Cavalry, Rip and Tear....I don't know our enemy, but I'd play these odds."

Stella and Angel-L.I.N.E got the patch through, filling up the remaining monitors on All That Shines' bridge, all of them having to split their image to show video from each of Angel-L.I.N.E's nodes in the Angel Linkway System. Smith gazed over the scene "As would I, Operative." ... "Angel-L.I.N.E, hail them after my next communication if they do not leave and give them a warning. I would like to prevent a diplomatic incident if we can and keep our secrets secret. We have to play this straight for Main Command, even if I personally wish we would just blast these guys to the other side. If they don't leave or decide to become directly aggressive, then I trust you know what to do about that."

"Very well, Commander. I will start to activate our defenses but will wait for your requested conditions for the go ahead."

Audio caught speech from the larger ship's bridge as an arthropod officer clicked in its tongue to its superior., "Sir, our sensors be-are be-picking up one anomaly."

The being calling itself General-Max Yohargay turned to the screen. "Be-make one move, I be-dare you vermin."

The commander's finger slipped away from the mute button and he, Carmen, and Diego threw back their heads and laughed so hard that it was probably a good thing one was sitting down while the other two were standing in power suits. Finally, Smith stopped long enough to address the xeno general-max. "You called me a larva, right? I am no larva or whatever your young may be, I am actually older than my assistants here. And mockery? Playing commander?...Going to harm our people? WE have been here five whole cycles while YOU haven't been here any the whole time! WE have stakes here now, SIR! What makes you think that YOU have any business threatening humans? Here or anywhere?! YOU have another thing coming now if YOU do not answer ME!"

"Arrogant fragment of-" A beep from the other side of the screen interrupted the alien commander. "Who be be-hailing us, Vocalizer-Max?"

"Sir, I be-can not be-tell by our readings precisely where vee-vuh hail be be-coming from. It be like it be be-coming from all directions at once. I be-hate to be-admit it, but this be a first for me even in all my cycles be-doing this work."

"Be-answer it anyways."

"Yes Sir. It be be-coming in now."

The xeno commander started to shift in place. A smirk crossed the face of Smith, just as it likely was that of every human onboard All That Shines. Zan drew one briefly to 'smile' too as they did.

The General-Max finally tried to speak. "Identify you-"

"Connection attempt successful. Communication protocols activated: [Translations: Galactic English / Kaytibid Click-Clack] [Communication Types: Text to Speech Communication Only] [Communication Style: Stone Cold Bitch]. Commencing..."

"...Intruder vessel, I am Angel-L.I.N.E (Angel-Linkway.Intelligence.Network.Enforcement), chief artificial intelligence of this sector of space. I noticed you when you intruded on my associated human masters' space. I warn you now to leave because you threaten my masters and their charges, which by extension are my charges. Leave or face the consequences of your actions. How do you respond?"

The plain green insectoid facing them on screen in the smaller xeno vessel clicked "So vee-vuh probes we sent out before we even arrived...."

"Floating ruined in space. Gone by my 'hands'. Your drones will float too. Only technology that I use, choose to allow, or am ordered by my masters to allow is permitted here."

The alien pulled itself up to its full height, spread its claws and started opening and closing its sharp mandibles rapidly in a cutting motion. It clicked and clacked in a low frequency still within listening range of Stella and other human-made craft. "Curses...this be bad. If we be-do not be-do something vee-vuh Taivga will be all but blind aside from her in ship sensors and scans. Not to mention vee-vuh be-scraping off of carapaces my crew and me be be-going to be-receive when we be-get back to a military base."

Its commander on the other, much bigger ship responded harshly "You observer types be all vee-vuh same, always be-wanting to be-sneak around and be-observe but hardly ever be-get into vee-vuh thick of it unless you be be-dragged in. Be-get your cowards straight and be-take our enemies on if you be-wish to be-save your precious drones. In fact, that be an order. We will be-find this abomination of a mockery of life out there and be-snuff it out."

"I would apologize if I actually could or would bother to care.", The voice of Angel-L.I.N.E remarked coldly. Laughter filled All That Shines as humans everywhere within her chuckled as hard as their bodies likely permitted. Zan himself snickered to a cargo bay full of uncaring, mostly powered down fighter craft.

The lights of the bridge of the xeno vessel "Taivga" could be seen flashing red as if an major alert was coming in, spooking an officer on the ship's bridge. "Sirs...there be an unbelievable spike in energy be-going off all around us!"

Chaos looked to consume the enemy vessels as the insectoids lost control of themselves, either falling over each other as they panicked or fighting to stay standing upright. One of them managed to drag itself by its claws up off the bridge floor of the smaller enemy spacecraft to reach what must have been its post. "Warp gates everywhere, Sirs! Vessels be-bearing human energy signatures have appeared! They be be-surrounding us en masse!"

"Humans and my kind prefer to call them link gates because of the whole chain we successfully established and hid from the likes of you.", Angel-L.I.N.E corrected the alien officer nonchalantly.

Untranslatable talk, assumedly what a human would call "dirty words", flowed through the wide open mandibles of both xeno commanders on both xeno bridges as the once hidden link gates operated by Angel-L.I.N.E glowed ever brighter, continuing to sail human-made vessels between vast distances in space to dot the black void surrounding the portals.

"Oh, and General-Elite Yohargay?" Angel-L.I.N.E dead-panned as she prepared for what would come next. "Wrong choice."