The Club-Tail Saga: Prolouge: The Invitation

[droctagonapus]

It was another day like any in Kabalu's capital, Nirulimuka, named for the third king of Kabalu and the city's founder. The current king, Irbilika Falthus IV, was reading over reports from the front lines of the battle. Nirbalu forces were surrounding his troops at 3 different locations. Just then, one of his advisers, Nimur Ipkus, burst into the throne room.
"SIRE!" shouted Nimur. "THE LONG-RANGE FTL DRIVE! IT WORKED! THE XENOBIOLOGY CREW IS ON THEIR WAY OUT AS WE SPEAK!"
Irbilika had heard enough to facilitate his response.
"Send the message. I suspect we'll be meeting a lot of new faces soon."
"But, sire," said Nimur, "are you sure we can trust any of them?"
"I have full faith in them," said Irbilika, "especially those purple bipeds with the strange robots."
"Right away, your majesty!"
"Oh, and remember to mention the party!"
"I mean to do so!"
With that, Nimur headed to the broadcasting room, as much scared to meet these strangers as excited to be recieving a task this large. When he got to the room, he pressed a series of buttons on the main task panel, using the long-range broadcasters that normally sent messages to xenobiology crews. This time, however, the signal would be on an open channel. The message read:
"Beings of the galaxy! Our king, Irilika Falthus IV, has invited your leaders to a grand feast seeking your acquaintance, and hopefully alliance! There will be food, sport, and a demonstration of our latest technologies! We ask you to please bring with you some of your finest weaponry, and to educate us about your homeworlds. We assure you, you will not regret coming!"
With that, Nimur breathed a sigh of relief, hoping the message got through.

[DarthGrievi]

"We've got another one."
"Does it fit a pattern?"
"Nope. Another unknown. Sending it to you."
"Great. Call me back when it beeps, I'm going out for a meal."
"Fine..."

Ke pushed himself off his seat, hopping jerkily towards the exit and passing several of his colleagues who weren't so lucky as to babysit the translation module. If it wasn't doing anything, you could take a break. If it was doing something, you could still take a break as it chugged through its algorithms. All you had to do was start it up and find a way to kill a few hours while you waited for either it to make it though or cry to you for help when it hits a snag. Easy job, boring job, but also one of the most important, and Ke had worked hard to make sure his name had been selected when the last translator up and quit.

Later that day, he returned to find the computer still working, but close to forming something intelligible out of the foreign transmission. Though the translation was still crude, and some words were still unknown, Ke was relatively certain he could determine its meaning at this point.

Leaders? Leaders!? he thought, That's simply clayshot! We'd have to send the whole Council! That's easily a full ship's worth right there!

Still, he forwarded the completed message to the Council, then alerted the Central Transmissions Node that they'd have to send a reply to the original message's coordinates, using the translation key the computer had just developed...

---

Riots erupted in the council chamber, as they usually did whenever the various factions of Quroche were called together. It was a rare day that the seats were occupied and the halls not filled with the deep rumble of thousands of Quroche in heated argument.

The vote was called; should they respond to the message? The non-xenophobic factions had the floor in this day and age, and the motion passed without much resistance. A second vote; should they accept the invitation or reject it? Less support for this, as the isolationists pulled out, but still the majority. A third vote; should they actually bring weapons? The option of bringing standard weaponry, but not the most advanced, squeaked by with a bare majority. The final vote; who should be sent as the representative? As per usual, the leader of each non-isolationist faction voted for himself, and the decision was only made once the remaining factions cast their votes, usually for those they felt would make the foreigners loose interest as quickly as possible.

It was finally called that Tek, of the 301st Initiative, and Phe, of the Scientists for the Preservation of Life, would be their representatives, and would be sent with some standard concussion rifles for inspection.

---

//The Quroche accept your invitation Our representatives will arrive soon.//

[droctagonapus]

"SIRE!" Nimur shouted. "THERE"S A RESPONSE!"
"What's that?" the king replied. "Who is it from?"
"A race calling themselves the Quroche."
"Aha, excellent! I knew someone would be interested."
"Your highness, there's more news."
"Indeed? From where?"
"The Baluvar soldiers are bombarding the fortress at Niva Makur! Our soldiers can't hold out much longer!"
"Hmm... troubling. Send the Galaphrenes troops after they've finished their patrol. They can handle this. Also, get them to lure the Nirbalu troops to the fight. Our greatest comfort in this war is knowing that our enemies are at war with each other!"
"Yes, your majesty!"

Meanwhile, in Nirbalu's capital, Nirvurun, the High Priest of the Flame analyzed the transmission they had intercepted.
"I suspected as much. They are seeking help. Well, they are fools, and they will find nothing there. Beyond this world, only the Great Flame reigns. Do they honestly believe they can win when divine power is on our side?"

[DarthGrievi]

Within days, a single, lone spacecraft drifted its way into the Kuuruk, transmitting a single word, "Quroche," repeatedly for several long hours at any receiver pointed skywards. The ship was painted a stark white, and was organically flowing, yet utilitarian in its form, vaguely resembling one of any number of aquatic creatures the galaxy collectively termed "fish." It was small, though, and barely had room for a crew of 50, plus the diplomats and their cargo.

The craft remained in orbit around Kuuruk, waiting for a response.

[droctagonapus]

The battle plan had worked, and several squads were on their way home. Irbilika recieved an update from Nimur.
"Your majesty! They've arrived! The Quroche are here!"
"Amazing! Send the welcome signal at once! It's time to begin! Although, I was expecting more to show up..."
The transmitter beamed the message to the ship.
"Welcome to Kuuruk! Please land on the southwest tip of the larger landmass you see, our universal port and capital are there. Also, make sure not to go swimming unprotected. There are... things in the water you don't want to meet. Again, welcome to Kuuruk, and enjoy your stay!"

[DarthGrievi]

Moments later, the reply returned.

//Problem: Gravity is too high. Can not safely leave ship. Will a robot be acceptable?//

The craft still descended towards the designated area, though, gliding smoothly and slowly down towards the surface. When it was within sight of the landing area, three landing struts protruded from the ship's underside, breaking up the otherwise smooth surface. The ship landed without incident, and waited for the decision to be made.

[droctagonapus]

The message was recieved and replied to quickly.
//No. However, we can send a suit of armor that may do the trick. After all, we don't think robots can eat.//
But Nirbalu was making its move.
"Chosen People of the Great Flame!" the High Priest shouted. "Today, we move en masse against our godless enemies, the inhabitants of Kabalu! Convert as many as you can when we invade, but do not waste your energies on their soldiers! They are doomed to Urukval. We have also recieved news that they harbor among them demons! Let us destroy these demons and save our planet!"
The mighty cheers were the signal. A full-scale invasion of Kabalu was underway.

[thatweirdguy]

When the Galdeen Coalition received the transmission and the universal translators managed to hammer it out into something understandable, the entire Council of Elders decided to send a ambassador. The Colonial High Command assigned the Mark 1 Type 6 survey ship G.C.S. Voyager was the transport the ambassador and the Mark 1 Type 4 missile destroyer G.C.S. Lance Held High as escort and were now going at full warp toward Kuuruk.

When they arrived in-system, they preformed a system-wide scan for any threats and proceeded to do a in-system warp jump toward their world. When they arrived there, they began broadcasting to any comm towers.

/This is Ambassador Geeni of the Galdeen Coalition. We have accepted your invitation to your world, please transmit docking coordinates now/

[DarthGrievi]

//Accepted. If suit is not functional,// the Quroche replied to the Pentekonterus, //offer is acceptable for you to consume food within Quroche ship.//

Meanwhile, the Quroche ship's sensors picked up on the signature of the new arrival. There was a groan of frustration when they realized that they would have to develop yet another translation algorithm for these new beings, but they decided to cross that bridge when they came to it.

[thatweirdguy]

While the Voyager's powerful sensor arrays scanned the planet, they detected the Quroche ship. Ambassador Geeni ordered the communications officer to contact them using the local's language and sent this:

/I assume your here for the same reason we are./

[DarthGrievi]

It took abnormally long for the Quroche to respond to the Gladeen message, almost making them wonder if they had simply been ignored. However, the transmission finally came through:

//We have received an invitation. We decided that responding was most beneficial. We are thankful for your use of this language. Translation is difficult.//

[thatweirdguy]

/When isn't translating hard? Besides, we had two standard weeks to do it while getting here./

Ambassador Geeni turned back to the Comm Officer.

"Have we received the landing coordinates yet?"

"I'm recalibrating our subspace communication array to receive their transmissions, Ambassador. Once I'm done, we should get it," The officer replied.

Geeni nodded and walked to the front of the bridge, toward the observation area where a few of the bridge crew taking a break watched the planet below. Toward the night side, if one looked closely enough, one might see tiny short lived lights that indicated explosions.

"Looks like their still going through their global wars here," One crewman muttered.

"Yeah, wonder if they going to get luckly and not bomb themselves to hell," Another said.

This wasn't the first time the Galdeen saw this, Geeni thought. Most just bombed themselves into oblivion with nuclear fire or ravaged their world with genetically-engineered viruses. If they were lucky, a significant event such a landing on another planetary body or a great new technology invented would unite them. We can hope they might be one of the latter, Geeni thought as he turned back toward the CIC area.

[droctagonapus]

The small delegation arrived with a suit of gravity armor prepared using some data on the Quroche that had been gathered before their arrival. It was modified from armor designed to help xenobiologists on high-gravity planets, where a Pentekonterus' almost 2-ton weight is an extreme problem. The suits were delivered as quickly as possible, as the suits had to go through a battlefield on their way from the factory. The landing coordinates were transmitted to the Gladeen ship at around the same time.

Biruf Balif, the leader of the delivery team, said "We are sorry for the delay, and we thank you very much for coming." He did not know how the Quroche diplomats would respond.

[thatweirdguy]

Once the coordinates were received, the Voyager began atmospheric entry while the Lance Held High stayed in orbit to make sure no hostiles tried attacking. The Voyager started leveling out around one hundred thirty-five kilometers away from the landing area, over one of the planet's many war-zones.

Every soldier stopped fighting as they watched the 350 meter starship fly over. Several primitive fighter craft started attempted to match speed with the Voyager, but fell behind as ship accelerated to supersonic speeds. Once it was five kilometers away, it started slowing down and stopped a quarter-of-a-mile above. A shuttle launched, carrying Ambassador Geeni, his assistant, and three Galdeen troopers as escort. The shuttle landed next to the Quroche ship and local greeting party and the group exited the shuttle in full-body suits, with the escorts coming out first.

[DarthGrievi]

A small, lone, bipedal robot was present at the Quroche airlock to receive the promised suit. It was built out of some silvery metal, and possessed a long tail at one end, with a rounded snout at the other, dotted with sensors. All in all, it looked like a mechanical Quroche, if the data the Pentekonterus had received had been accurate. It jerkily motioned to the open hatch with its single, tentacle-like appendage, indicating that the suits were to be placed inside. After the crew had done so, a response finally came to their apology.

//We perceived no delay. A mistake was not made.//

The robot then proceed to re-enter the craft, and the airlock door snapped shut behind it, leaving the ship's surface featureless once more.

There was a long pause, in which some may have assumed that the Quroche inside were purposefully ignoring the delegation out of spite over the lateness of the delivery. Eventually, though, after the Galdeen had made their introductions, the two Quroche diplomats stepped out of their craft, clad in the gravity armor.