NationStates Jolt Archive

In the depths of Space a planet exploded. For anyone who bothered to check, the planet had been torn apart by a series of anti-matter warheads placed at intervals around the crust and set off simultaneously to crack it like an egg.

Millions of creatures died in that instant. Millions of lives wiped out in an instance. And when the day's work was done, the perpetrators returned home, jubilant and certain that they had destroyed every last trace of the creatures that had inhabited that planet... They were wrong.

As the dust settled, the man who had called himself Emperor sat up, coughing. Around him all that had survived of his people, all those who had managed to slip through the wormhole with him, a scant 500 looked to him for guidance. He had no idea where he was... or when he was. But he had survived, survived to fight another day...

Seven hundred later

The HMSS Reptile slipped through the inky blackness of space. Dyelli Beybi was not a Nation long in Space. Even so, in that short time they had managed to create a fairly respectable fleet through the fires of Dyellian industry. It was mostly military, the Dyellians were paranoid about invasion from space (you needed to know where the invasion was coming from, right?), yet there were also a respectable amount of exploration vessels, and the Reptile was one such vessel. Commander Hamilton and seven crew, on a mission to explore the galaxy and report back on what they found.

What they found in the depths of space was a sudden high energy beam directed at the rear of the ship. The beam was potent, tearing through the shield rapidly.

"Commander!" Banks the Navigator called, "We're under attack, shields are at 30%."

Devlin Hamilton was a quick thinker, anything with a beam weapon that could knock them down to 30% had to be big, really big, and have some kind of stealth system not to be noticed, either way, it wasn't something they could face, "Gate us back to Waypoint 6."

"It will take me a few minutes." Banks was already working. She was a smart girl, recent University grad, trained in all the tech stuff that Hamilton did not understand.

"Sir!" Phil Jones was the Chief of the team of four engineers onboard, "Sir, we're losing shields fast."

"I'm aware of that P.O. Jones." Hamilton replied, folding his hands behind his back, make yourself useful and see if you can bring up an image from one of the cameras on on the big screen. I want to see what is firing at us.

"Very well Sir." Jones saluted smartly, stepping up to another bank of computers. There was silence.

"Well Jones?" Hamilton demanded.

"Shields are down Sir!" Banks called.

The Petty Officer shook his head, then flicked a button bringing the ship into stark relief on screen, "That isn't possible." Hamilton grunted, his eyes wild, "Midshipman Banks?"

There was a sudden shudder from the ship, "Banks?" Hamilton demanded, "What is our status?"

"The gate core is damaged Sir. Main engines are down."

Hamilton pointed to the screen, "I'm sorry. We're all dead."

A few moments later the power went down plunging the interior of the craft into pitch darkness. Hamilton had thought this was the end, yet for some reason the enely had refrained from taking the shot that would have torn the Scout vessel open. Blindly he stumbled about, bumping into Banks who gasped in alarm before he introduced himself in the darkness.

Outside there was a strange clanking noise.

"Sir." it was Jones, sounding more than a little alarmed, "Sir, I think they're taking us into their ship."

"Arm yourselves!" Hamilton called out.

Blindly he stumbled from the bridge towards the armoury. Jones was there first. Hamilton could hear the rending of metal from outside, they were coming in...

He fumbled blindly for the night vision kits he knew lived on the top shelf. His hands found one, quickly he scrambled to pull it over his face. Suddenly the darkness wasn't so dark. He could see Jones, already kitted, handing an NV kit to the medical officer. Hamilton grabbed a rifle, tossing another to the medic. Outside a terrible roar sounded, screaming. A command was being yelled in a smooth flowing tongue.

Jones hurried forward followed by the medic. Banks, still blind in the darkness was in the coridoor just ahead. She was roughly grabbed by the shoulder and propelled her into the armoury. She yelped, stumbled, "Here." Hamilton caught the young woman before she could fall flat on her face, handing her an IR kit.

Outside Jones was firing madly, the muzzle flash blinding through the goggles. Then he was down, blood bursting from him as he twitched in a hail of bullets, "Can't we surrender." Banks hissed.

"Not to them. Take a gun." the woman didn't comply, staring blankly at the doorway where the feet of Petty Officer Jones were visible in a growing pool of blood, "Seriously, Jane, take a bloody gun."

Then they were there, humanoid in shape, their bodies covered in red and black light ceramic armour. One rolled, coming up to fire in a split second. Hamilton aimed, shot, watching as the bullet punched into the knee of the creature, his rifle kicking like a mule. There was a second, he tried to pull the rifle to aim but it was too late. Racked with pain, his body twitching madly, he collapsed forward.

Hamilton hit the ground hard, he blinked, looking up, there was something else in the doorway now. Huge, bulky, like a huge defored orangutan. It growled, baring sharp teeth, then sprung, bounding forward to grab a struggling Banks. She screamed, a scream that was abruptly cut off as the beast bit into her neck, showering Commander Hamilton with blood.

Everyone was dead but him. Instinctively he knew there was a reason for that. Maybe he could grab his rifle and fight his way out... it was then that Hamilton realised he couldn't move. The unwounded armoured creature moved to stand above him, it was well over 6 foot, barely short of 7, "The Commander said to keep one of you alive." it sneered in heavily accented English.

There was a horrible tearing sound from behind Hamilton's left shoulder. The beast was eating Banks. He wanted to be sick...

"You're going to go home Djel." the creature snickered, "Well maybe not quite home."

The malice in its voice filled Hamilton with dread.

__________

Some hours later an escape pod was fired into the emptiness of space, a distress beacon flaring. It was there for anyone to find who might stumble across it. Scanners would show one major lifeform on board.

"That mayday signal's coming out pretty strong," the Centurion commented, standing a little behind and to the side of his commanding officer.

The Trierarch twisted her lips, unconvinced. "I still don't like it. What's something that small doing all the way out here? We wouldn't be out this deep if we weren't playing mother hen for the Lumena. It looks too much like bait."

The Centurion had nothing to say to that, so he kept quiet and waited for the Trierarch to make the right decision.

The Trierarch sighed. "Scramble three mormyrs and pick it up. Have them hail as they approach. One is to grab it, two are to cover."

The Centurion saluted and turned to make it happen.

Minutes later, three mormyr craft were ejected from their cradles inside the NMR Cynocephalus' hull and streaked towards the escape pod. They approached cautiously, matching velocities 10 kilometers from the pod as the lead craft hailed it.

This is Mormyr Delta-1 answering distress signal, please respond.

The beacon happened to attract another craft as well, it wasn't a full explorer, but instead a simple scout ship. Holding a crew of twelve, the small, cloaked vessel made its way towards the beacon's location. Looked like someone else was already there. First contact wasn't really a scouts priority but hell, why not give it a shot just this once? With that the scout ship moved forward until it was a few kilometers away and dropped its cloak, a sign to show it wasn't hiding anything. Just in case, however, it had PSR generators on full, hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

Dropping cloak within mere kilometers of a lone Neo-Roman capital ship was not high up on the list of smart things the scout ship could have done. Electrical signatures from the Cynocephalus surged as the warship's automated defenses locked on the craft, scanned it every which way, and brought almost the entirety of the capital ship's starboard railcannon batteries to bear on the tiny ship. The Greywatch crew was lucky that the Cynocephalus was not on active combat alert; if it had been, it would have fired without asking questions.

Needless to say, once the hubbub on the bridge died down, the Trierarch was not happy, although she kept it locked behind her native Neo-Roman impassivity. The Centurion found some humor in the nature of the coincidence, given his commander's previous concerns about the escape pod, but remained on edge. Neo-Romans were not a paranoid people by nature, just cautious, and they did not appreciate being crept up on.

NMR Cynocephalus to de-cloaked vessel, please identify yourself and do not approach further. Be advised that jumping out at capital ship without warning is an excellent way to get yourself reflexively fired upon.

The beacon flared on and off on the 3-D HoloHUD, around which a number of marines typed into the circular keypad around it. After a few moments of frantic typing, the holodisplay changed color, from green to blue.
"Commander, distress beacon is sighted."
"Do we have any particular orders?"
"No sir. Naval Command just has a standard First Contact order in effect."
"Very well. Warp to the co-ordinates, weapons powered down."
---
With a vermillion flash, the scout frigate (http://www.flatrock.org.nz/wolf/images/X2_Pix/D_Darkship2.jpg) fell out of Hyperspace. Seeing the capital ship, they quickly broadcast a binary coded on breach broadcast, sounding on every nearby frequency.
All ships, we are not hostile. We are the VTN Globe, an explorer vessel gathering research for the Grand Library. Please do not fire. We came to answer the distress call.

Greywatch Scouter, we're here investigating this signal we picked up a few moments ago. Sorry if the cloaking scared you but we just got here.

The message was put out on all frequencies and left unencrypted.

The utter silence and darkness of space was broken by a sudden cluster of energetic crackling portals that opened up, bolts of energy arced forth reaching out in to the silence of the void like tendrils of a sentient creature, multiple mid sized Hyperion class destroyers flew from the center of the energetic vortex, their hulls retaining for a split second a slight glow of energy, they were escorted by unmanned assault frigates, the group of ships slowed to a crawl as the portals collapsed behind them in a massive show of light. The lead ship was the UTS Hyperion her self a 450 meter destroyer equipped with the latest weapon systems shielding , sensor packets , engines , reactor technology and various other technical goodies the Terrans could manage to think up, even one indeed would be a force to be reckoned with.

The commander of the Hyperion was Commander Richard Ramsey , a 25 year veteran of the Terran Federation star navy and a valedictorian graduate of the TFNA on Tyrian. The commander looked around the mid sized bridge, sitting upon a hovering command chair in the middle of a holograpicly diverse and crowded bridge. The ship was big even for just 450 meters he was only one of 25 people On the entire ship. While some things did need care and manual effort the rest of the ship was largely automated and left for the avatars to run. He leaned forward placing a gloved hand on his chin, his brown eyes peering out of the holographic view port towards the planet and several ships that seemed to be clustered around some thing. He looked over to his executive officer who was tending to some reports and asked him.

“Rico...?”

The Executive looked back to him with a raised eyebrow his brown skin made pale by the utilitarian lights of the command center. “Yes Commander?”

The commander responded raising his hand and placing it upon the armrest of the chair.

“What do you think of this situation should we continue with our previous relay and scout mission along our border or stay here and find out whats going on?”

Rico looked up to Ramsey and said leaning back on his chair “Well sir, it would be interesting to know what was going on, and what happened here, our EW Sensors are picking up quite a bit of chatter , as well as unknown contacts in the system..“

The commander scoffed a bit and said with a sigh crossing one leg over the other. “All right then explore it is..” He looked up to the tactical avatar waving his hand, the holographic female shimmered in to existence several feet shy of the chair and stood waiting orders, her blond hair to her shoulders, her white wavy dress loose upon her body.

The commander said in a commanding tone leaning back on his chair. “All right, set a course for the center of that ship cluster full speed, lets find out whats going on here...”

The ships inside began to rumble gravatic hybrid engines powered up, the blue hued flames of highly compressed gravitons streamed from the back of the engines in a long comment tail like fashion , they began approaching the ships at high speed. The commander sat back watching as the vessels on the screen inched closer and closer he looked up to the avatar again who was standing over him now. He said in a soft commanding voice to her.

“Send a message to those ships modified standard greeting..”

The avatar nodded , signals began broadcasting on various low tech middle tech and high tech Frequencies.

This is , the United Terran ship Hyperion representing the United Terran Federation, we come on peaceful terms and wish to know what events have transpired here.

the commander looked up to Rico and sighed starting idle conversation..

“You know I cant believe they send us packages any more though the ID trans pad.. its sad..”

Rico responded with a slight tone of empathy ...

“Yeah I know how it feels, I couldn't send my daughter a present because they didn't allow long range Transfers , I cant believe they want us to send it via QE Tellportation.”

The commander shrugged crossing his arms around him self..”guess they don't want to waste The energy.. or paper work if it gets lost during transport.. QE is so much slower though it takes days to materialize entire items like presents or books or holo cube clusters light years away.. ID Transpading can do it in seconds..”

Rico shrugged a bit “ehh its not so bad I guess we'll have to get used to it”

The commander nodded, as his ship continued to move towards the cluster of other vassals.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d110/USFU/TyphoonUnmannedattackfirigate.png (Unmanned assault frigate)

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d110/USFU/TheUTSOhioSSDL.png (Destroyers )

The captain of the scouter rose from his chair and looked to the holomap in the center of the bridge. The tactical officer looked up at him, "Sir, we apparently have some new contacts." The captain looked to the hologram, "Yes... I see them. What information can you give me about them?" The tactical officer looked down at his console for a minute before looking back up, "Looks like there are multiple ships... armed ships at that. Approaching the ship cluster we're currently apart of." The comms officer tapped a button on her console to play the message that was sent. The captain waited for a moment, "Well, we can't answer their questions, unfortunantly. I assume our kind but slightly paranoid hosts will tell them.... Keep us on low profile please." The two officers nodded and went back to their business as the captain took his seat.

The escape pod remained silent, so the pilot of Mormyr Delta-1 signaled his group to close.

"And the party begins..." murmured the Trierarch. "I will speak with the Terrans. Let the commtechs handle the others." The Centurion bowed his head and relayed the order.

Hyperion, this is NMR Cynocephalus of Neo-Roma. We are currently on a recon/surveying mission, and we picked up the distress signal from this escape pod. Our craft are preparing to bring it in for examination, as it has not answered any of our hails.

The commtechs established connections with the vessels from Greywatch and the Void, relaying the same basic information to them.

OOC: Lol everyone replies after I go to sleep...

There seemed to be a vast number of ships in the area of the pod, but it still remained silent. Waiting for someone to pick it up...

Onboard Commander Hamilton was strapped into a chair. He would have liked to have moved, to replied to any one of the number of ships in the area, but he physically couldn't. All the bones in his arms and legs had been broken in numerous places, as had his jaw. He would recover in time, his species had remarkable regenerative properties, but for now he was just going to sit here, struggling to remain conscious.

The Gornatians, that was what they called themselves now... He had been dragged into the prescense of their commander. The creature was tall, long slender features and ice blue eyes set in a cold, mocking face. One could almost have thought him human. He smiled haughtily, "I am not the kind of person who likes to gloat." he announced gloatingly.

"But you have fallen straight into our trap. Your crew fought with pointless bravery, but they are dead all the same. Now, how big is the fleet of the Djels and her allies?"

Hamilton had spat at the Commander then, which wasn't, in retrospect, his smartest move. It was that that had got his jaw broken, "After all." the Commander had sneered, "You can write it down."

And eventually, after two broken legs, he had written it down. Not that that had spared him anything, they broke his arms just because they could then strapped him into the escape pod and cut him loose before returning to wherever it was they had come from. He was being used as a message to the whole world. Like a giant advert for the coming slaughter.

He had maintained one piece of information though. He hadn't given away the location of Outremere, the Dyellian world. The enemy knew where the Djel Valley was, but they would not destroy that planet, too much collateral, too many other races would get angry, but Outremere was fair game, and held two thirds of the population, the economic base... If Outremere was gone, the Djel Valley would collapse economically and politically and then the 'Gornatians' could land, and the hollocaust of the Dyellian people would be complete.

<The object is still not responding, domine> Delta-1's pilot reported. <There is a heat signature inside that appears to be organic, but we cannot say for sure.>

The Trierarch nodded, and decided. "Grab it and bring it in," she said. "We will evacuate your cradle bay and open it there."

<Oppido. Commencing grapple>

The mormyr craft accelerated and maneuvered within meters of the escape pod before extending its magnetic grapplers and clamping onto the hull of the pod. The pilot fired the reverse attitude thrusters, slowing the two craft down and bringing the mormyr around in a wide turn before jetting back towards the Cynocephalus.

The Trierarch, meanwhile, had hosting business to attend to. She keyed an open broadcast to the foreign vessels in the area, while her Centurion handled the preparation of the mormyrs' launch bay.

VTN Globe, UTS Hyperion, Greywatch scouter: since you have all responded to the distress beacon, I, Trierarch Livia Messelene, invite representatives from each of you aboard my ship. Docking facilities will be provided for each of you, and we will escort your representatives to the cradle bay in which we will be holding the escape pod.

Ave atque vale.

The pod could have held a good dozen people. Instead it only held one, and one who had obviously been in no condition to put himself into the pod. On the outside the small craft was stamped with the round from the Dyelli Beybian flag, although it was unlikely it would be recognised.

http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/dyelli_beybi.jpg

Underneath the logo were the words H.M.S.S. Reptile.

The man within was short and relatively dark skinned for a caucasian with thick black hair and dark eyes... he was for all intents and purposes human, unless you decided to run a DNA test, at which point he would be revealed to be very slightly different... Either way he was in no particular state to talk at the moment.

__________

Half way across the galaxy, the disappearance of H.M.S.S. Reptile had not gone unnoticed. A pair of destroyers Royal Rose and Ferdinand were ordered into the area of Reptile's last broadcast with orders to locate the ship and find out what had gone wrong. As the pair split up to comb space, the respective Captains privately agreed the mission was a total waste of time. Space was a big place and anything could have happened...

The captain of the scouter looked over the message, short and sweet, the way any scout liked. He looked to comms, "Send a message to Greywatch, only the basics. We've responded to a distress call and have made contact with multiple aliens." The comms officer nodded as the SCN was brought online and a simple communication, which would be completely undetectable to everyone else, was sent to Prime. It was then that the captain thought for a moment, this was a small ship. It didn't even possess any shuttles but instead a collection of two man pods which possessed some lovely blinking capabilities and not much more in the likes of travel. Chances were that the scouter itself could dock within the capital ship.

We're certainly willing to bring a representative but our vessel, as you can probably see, is very small. We do not possess any shuttles, nor a hanger for that matter, and as such it would probably be best if we could simply dock our scout itself within your hanger. I'm sorry if this is an incovinience and await your response.

~Captain Marlow.

As I said previously, docking facilities will be provided for your vessel.

A beacon began to blink on the Cynocephalus' hull, indicating the docking bay that would fit both the Greywatch and the Void ships, as well as whatever shuttlecraft the Terrans decided to use. At just over a kilometer in length, the Cynocephalus had plenty of room, but Neo-Romans were economical people.

The three mormyrs slid expertly into their berths, Delta-1 setting its burden down gently as the outer bulkheads sealed and atmosphere flooded into the space. Two squads of Neo-Roman Marines entered, followed by Trierarch Messelene and a number of scientists. Plasma torches were brought in case the pod needed to be cut open.

With that the Greywatch vessel moved in for whatever docking procedures were to follow. Slow and steady, just like everyone wanted. The captain planned to serve as the rep, even though in any other case there would be a designated 'diplomat' of sorts. Unfortunantly, most scout ships didn't come with that sort of thing, and so the captain would just have to hope that his idle chatter skills were good enough to not get him (and/or his crew) killed.

Upon his docking with the Cynocephalus and his exit into the corridor, Captain Marlow was met and saluted by three sleekly armored legionaries and escorted to the mormyr bay. Trierarch Messelene turned from making small talk with a xenobiologist and offered her hand.

"Trierarch Livia Messelene, Captain," she said with a respectful nod. The Trierarch was tall like most Neo-Romans, proud and impressive in her powered armor and black navy cloak. "We are waiting for the other two parties, and once they arrive we will crack this egg open."

Ramsey raised an eyebrow at the response, he sat back on his chair looking over to the lined holographic interfaces his crew was working on. He started to speak to the avatar that was standing next to him and said.

“I want you to send them a message requesting that a Terran Avatar be sent to observe what ever is going on”

The avatar nodded, she quickly sent the message with a split second of command inputs.

To Future Rome:
The UTS Hyperion requests that we be able to send a diplomatic avatar to your vessel in order to observe what you have going on there if you would allow us to.

the destroyers and unmanned frigates came to a stop, their bodies emphasized by the light on the star in the system, the loomed over any thing smaller than them.

While waiting for the message Ramsey looked over to Rico and said with a soft voice.

“Well now we see whats going on.. hey how is our combat readiness status?”

Rico looked up and said resting his hands on his lap


“our combat reediness has been reported at 90%... quite high for a crew of only 25 plus 30 flight crew people... whats on your mind?”

Ramsey ran his hand over to his chin and scratched it a bit, responding as he placed his hand on his lap.

“Well I just don't like this, it seems to.. quite... “

Rico nodded turning around back to his holographic workstation taping on a few panels and responding with a distracted voice.

“Yeah I know, some thing dose not seem right here .. our sensors have reported nothing though” he shrugged a bit leaning back and crossing his arms.

The ships continued to loom, the destroyers carried over thirty people that were not part of the main command crew these thirty were fighter pilots and crew for fighter maintenance. The destroyers carried sixteen S/A40C and E Fighters and multiple Valkyrie unmanned fighters ..

Had it not been a scouter, the captain would've brought a Drone just in case. But unfortunantly he only had one of those on the ship and it was apart of Greywatch code that there always be at least one Drone onboard an active craft of any kind. He exitted the craft, dressed in his gray and brown uniform. He immediately saluted back to the legionaries and was quick to follow them. He shook the hand of Trierarch Messelene with a smile, "Thankyou for having me aboard." He said respectfully, he felt a little awkward standing amoung the tall, armored woman but quickly brushed it off. "I see, I imagine whatever's inside will yield something interesting."

UTS Hyperion, permission granted. Once aboard, your avatar will be escorted to the Trierarch.

----------

"I hope so," Messelene said somewhat sardonically. "If there's one thing a woman hates, it's an anticlimax."

The small pod would be something of a disappointment. It was more or less empty apart from its now unconscious, maimed occupant. The rows of seats spoke of just how many people from Reptile hadn't escaped whatever had happened. The mystery would remain how someone in such bad condition had managed to strap himself into the seat in the first place if all the other crew were dead.

There were no messages of any kind on the inside, no clues as to what had happened, although a quick examination would reveal that the craft belonged to 'Dyelli Beybi', or at least to the 'Dyelli Beybian Armed Space Service', whose logo was displayed on the control screens...

Logs would indicate that the pod had recently been repaired following exceeding damage to the electronics and that it had been fired off from very close to here.

Curiosity finally became too great. Messelene flicked her fingers impatiently at the engineers carrying plasma torches to cut through the hull. The men quickly carved a human-sized hole in the pod in showers of sparks and droplets of molten metal, then dropped back as six armored legionaries took their place, rifles raised; the soldiers scanned the interior of the pod with the powerful optics and sensors built into their armor, then signaled the all-clear. Two entered the pod while the other four continued to cover them.

"Summon a medic!" came a shout from inside. "There's an injured man in here!"

The medical team descended on the man, and in seconds had him unstrapped and laid on a gurney. Messelene and company got a good look at him as the medicos rushed him past to the sick bay.

Several minutes after that, the technicians swarming the pod were able to unravel the logs. Messelene quirked an eyebrow at the report in classically deadpan Neo-Roman fashion, quickly piecing the scenario together in her mind.

"Bring us to full combat alert," she said with no further change in expression. "Relay this information to the Terrans. There may be unfriendly company nearby."

"That's certainly a sight..." Said Marlow without any real concern, "I do hope he'll be alright. I'd very much like to find out what happened..." He spoke like any scout would, more into gathering information than fighting. He nodded at Messelene's order, A fight... I do hope there are no hostiles in the area...

It was about then that the HMSS Ferdinand, popped through, appearing in space suddenly, like an unexpected guest at a party. It was about 800 metres in length, shaped like a cylinder, with the front portion crammed with weapons and the rear half seemingly one enormous engine complex.

The scout ship's sensors went off and a message was put through to the captain on his personal comunicator. He moved to the side as the voice spoke in his ear, "Sir, another ship has just appeared. We can't get too many details since we're docked but it's definately there." The captain waited a moment before whispering into the communicator, "Understood." he walked over to Messelene, "My scouter just picked up another ship in the area. I'm sure you've seen it too..."

<Company, Trierarch> The Centurion notified Messelene via neuralink within seconds of the warship's arrival. The Trierarch dipped into her ship's sensor datastream and skimmed the relevant data, bringing herself up to speed.

"I have," she replied to the captain from Greywatch. "If you have anything further you would like to do concerning the pod, my crew will assist you. Please excuse me." She turned and swept out of the mormyr bay, sending one missive to the Centurion on her way to the lift to the bridge: <Hail them>

The Cynocephalus' powerful instruments swept the Ferdinand across the light-seconds of distance, pouring data into the targeting systems and readying for the contingency of combat. Some might call it paranoia, but the Neo-Romans knew well that the universe was not the friendliest of places, and preferred to air on the side of caution.

Hail newcomer: Do not approach until further communication. We have reason to believe that there may be hostiles in the vicinity and are on full combat alert. Any perceived threats will be fired upon without warning.

And with a truly Dyellian knack for diplomacy, the Ferdinand replied...

Alien Warmonger,
This is the HMSS Ferdinand of the Blessed Kingdom of Dyelli Beybi. We do not come to harm your species but rather to conduct a long range scan for objects that are the property of the Blessed Kingdom. We will be leaving shortly.