Ch 20

On the front of the black alien ship, a platform had been build and a couple of the marines sat waiting with their girls for the inner door to open so they could try to communicate with the aliens inside. Kaede and White told of creatures that looked kind of like squid, and seemed to use colors of light emitted from their bodies to communicate.

How to reconcile that to understand what was being said was going to be a gargantuan task, especially since the aliens were not showing themselves. To get an attempt started, multi-colored light boxes were made. The marines on the platform got one. Kaede had found what appeared to be a hatch mid-ship, so one was set up there also. Noting what looked like a camera lens, another light box was set up in front of it.

Dr. Matalla and Dr. Virlain, a linguist also came down to join the crowd around the ship. Dr. Virlain spent most of his time talking to Kaede and White, trying to decipher what colors the aliens were emitting to determine at least a basic attempt at communicating.

Looking at his notes so far, he asked Kaede, "These colors, were they equal intensity?"

Kaede thought hard and shook her head. "No, they were flashing so quickly, I didn't get any patterns but some were brighter than others. The hues were many. I did note there was many red, orange and yellow flashes from most of them."

"Can these boxes of ours duplicate those hues?" he asked.

Kaede and White looked at each other. "We can try," Kaede offered.

.

The First Mate came back to the Research room and flashed, "They are still watching inside the control room. It's not safe to go in there."

After three suns of being trapped inside their ship, on the ground and fully exposed, the Captain flashed his question. "If they are hostile, why haven't they broken into our ship. By the force needed to stop us and bring us to the ground, it would be easy for them to rip though the hull. Not that they need to."

A mechanic asked, "Are they really Kraken?"

"They have the very long, pale tentacles Kraken are said to have," the Captain flashed to him. "They can send them right through the hull. As to what they are, I don't know. I've never seen anything like them before."

The Medic flashed her colors saying, "If they were the Kraken of the ancient stories, we should all be dead by now."

"What are they doing out there?" the sensor operator asked. Pointing to the sight she was looking at with a tentacle, she said, "They have boxes that emmit light they are messing with."

The Captain went over to look, as did the Medic and the First Mate. Outside, one with long pink fur that basically screamed 'mother' and a white furred one that stated her calmness were watching a non-horned one flash random colors with the box.

"That makes no sense," the First Mate noted. "It's gibberish."

"They are trying to speak," the Medic flashed. "They saw us and are trying to repeat us. They are attempting to communicate."

"They are," the Captain agreed. "I have yet to see one of them change the slightest in color."

"It may be possible they communicate some other way," the medic said. She blinked and asked, "When you first saw them, what did they do?"

The pilot flashed, "They got up on the front of the ship and waved an appendage. Next, the calm one sent in that Kraken tentacle at us."

"Maybe that is what they use to communicate," the Medic said. "They weren't trying to hurt anyone, they were trying to communicate with us."

"Willing to bet your life on that?" the Pilot asked.

"Captain, let me go out," The Medic said.

The Captain blinked. That would be a very brave act, and not one their only Medic should take.

.

Standing in the air lock, the Captain braced himself, made sure the inner door was shut and locked, then raised a tentacle to push the open button for the outer door. Upon the door sliding open, all the heads of every creature out there turned their attention to him. He gathered the nerve to step outside. He wanted to go farther, but his support tentacles refused to move. All his tentacles went stiff in fear. horned and no horns, there were many creatures out here.

The creature's small mouths moved. The Mother raised her two upper appendages and they all stopped. A pale tentacle came out from her and grabbed the light box. She walked towards him, clear of the others and stopped. She set the box down in front of her. Pointing to the box with an upper appendage, she shook her head. The one pale tentacle stayed behind the box. Another came out and moved partway between them, the short five tentacles at the end splayed open.

Well, at least she wasn't trying to kill him. Not knowing what her gestures meant, he reached out a tentacle towards her like she was doing. With an appendage, she pointed to her tentacle, then her head, then him. OK, that meant something. He curled the end of his tentacle to motion her on.

The mother didn't move, but her pale tentacle slowly moved towards him. He felt a spark of fear again, and the Kraken tentacle stopped to hover where it was. The mother shook her head and looked at the box. The box emitted a white light.

The color of calm. Was she trying to calm him down? He curled his tentacle again, bracing himself. Her pale tentacle moved closer slowly as she kept pointing to the white light. When it was closing to touch him, he had all he could do not to run back into the air lock and slam the door shut. He resisted the urge to flee and the pale tentacle touched him between the eyes.

'peace, calm, no hurt'

The Captain blinked. He thought these things, but it wasn't him thinking them. It was mother thinking to him through her tentacle! He then got a vision. It was from the Mother's perspective. It was dark, she was outside with Calm, looking up at the sky, looking for a ship in trouble. Calm pointed and spoke in air reverberations. He saw the small craft and his ship coming down. It was wobbling. Fear from Mother they were going to crash. She shot across the lake with Calm, and grabbed their ship to keep it from crashing, then set it down.

He blinked again. They hadn't been trying to capture him and his crew, they had hurried to save them! The effort was misplaced, but Mother's understanding was if it the hit the water, it would be very bad for them. In fast thoughts, he thanked her for her concern then they shared a brief moment of humor that they were trying to hit the water to hide. Mother assured him they did not have to hide, she would help and protect them. They thought about the research expedition, Mother was happy that they came in peace to study what was here.

Once it was clear they had experienced a huge misunderstanding, the Captain relaxed. In a short time, he knew her kind communicated with sound waves and electromagnetic waves for long distance. Ones like Mother and Calm that had the small horns were also able to communicate mind to mind with their pale tentacles. Mother's pale tentacles were also very Kraken-like, in that they were able to deal out massive damage if the need arose. Mother did not do that with peaceful beings, only to those who tried, or did hurt others.

The next thing they thought about was effective means to communicate. the Captain knew of sound waves, but could not decipher them as Mother and her people could not decipher light emissions. They worked out a possible solution, the light box had dial inputs. If a member of his crew could assist one of the men Mother called 'linguist', they would be able to make a box that had the ability to turn sound waves into light, and light into sound waves. The Captain agreed on this.

Kaede retracted her vector and walked up to shake the Captain's tentacle. She held his tentacle, he wrapped the tip around her wrist. It was going to be work, but they had a way to communicate, and his crew were able to leave the ship freely. Hand and tentacle gestures were also a very basic, but common ability they shared to communicate. Contact with a truly alien species. This was the monumental meeting of a lifetime for both of them.

.

A work group of Quid, Colonials, Dicloni and Cylon were formed to work out cooperation in a few areas. Communications was a big one. So was traffic control. It had been a long time since colonial space craft had used visual marker lights. With Dradis, visual marking wasn't needed. The Quid had also stopped using visual markers, to keep from being discovered. Seeing they had no Dradis, nor could be picked up by it, there was a risk of banging ships together, so navigation and ID lights where to be used in-system.

Now that the Quid weren't terrified a Kraken was going to eat them, they came out to see these strange creatures on this planet. the pilot began exploring with Sun and her marine around the lake shore. Sun showed him the frogs and lizards. Her little dragon took to watching the pilot from the back of her neck and tucked up under her hair. Peeking out around from under her ear lobe he stayed quiet, only letting out a very soft 'kreep' now and then. Curious about the new species, a centurion also joined their little exploration group.

One of the ones going nuts with appendage signals was the Medic as she did her best to converse with a Marine Corpsman. Sitting with one eye facing him as he faced her, they worked hard at making and understanding hand signals. Using medic packs to help in the translations they did their best to understand the basics of how each other worked.

.

Lee came down to see the Quid, as Kaede named them. Many people wanted to see these aliens, including the press. Kaede demanded, and Lee agreed that the press were restricted to the far shoes of the lake by Lakeville. Cameras lined the shore. Lee swore if the reporters could, they'd swim across the lake to get closer shots of the very alien looking Quid.

The Quid did swim. A dive into the water, and folding all their tentacles behind them, they shot off underwater 'head' first like torpedoes. A few Quid were in the water at any one time. Lee swore they brought up every kind of fish in the lake, many their own researchers hadn't seen yet. The catalog of species in the lake grew, as did the number of animals around the lake from bugs to finding five types of lizards, and three different species of frog.

Sun's little dragon didn't seem to like the Quid one bit. Either behind Sun's neck, under her hair, or down in Sun's cleavage, he hide whenever they were around. Sun had to take him someplace where none were in sight to feed him.

He was growing too. Now a foot long and thicker, his 'safe places' were getting too small for him. Taking a walk with her marine, Sun sat on a rocky hillside and coaxed the dragon out to sit on her lap. He looked around , and once he decided it was safe, he came out and stretched.

"He's getting big," the Marine noted. For the first time, the dragon stretched out his wings. The long, thin appendages were a little longer than his body. The dragon flapped them briefly and let out a "KREEEP!"

"His voice is louder too," Sun said with a wince. "I didn't even know he had such a long tail," she added when he swished his six inch tail that had a triangular shape on the end.

"It stabilizes him in fight. Are you going to name hm?"

Sun looked at her marine. Right, people had to have names. That was still new to her. Her Marine was Bill, she was Sun. "I can't think of one," she told him.

He frowned briefly, then said, "We used to have myths about creatures like him. There was one Virgon tale about a great dragon named Pyro. How about Pyro?"

"Pyro," Sun said in a mussing tone. "Pyro he is."

Pyro was looking at them as they talked. Sitting close, almost leg to leg, Pyro crawled over onto Bil's lap and looked up at him. "Kreeep"

"I think he likes it," Bill said.

Sun reached out with a vector to her side and felt in a crevasse in the rock. Feeling a bug, she pulled out the two inch long bug as it's little legs tried to scramble away. Pyro locked on it as soon as it was in view. With a leap he dove for it. Sun just had time to let go before Pyro grabbed it in his mouth. Landing on Sun's right leg, Pyro used his claws to hold the ends as he bit it in half then crunched it down on his meal. Once he finished the bug, he moved to Sun's knee and looked down to study the ground.

"He's hunting," Bill said. "We should let him practice before we feed him."

Sun smiled at Bill. "He's growing up."

Putting an arm around Sun, Bill nodded, then frowned a bit and asked, "I wonder how big he's going to get."

"We'll find out," Sun said in a mussing tone. "What I'm still trying to figure out is, where did he come from? I haven't seen any others like him around. At least his mother should be around somewhere."

"We found him not long after we came. It's possible the others of his kind fled when they saw us coming," Bill told her. "The only thing we know about Pyro, is from what he does. He does like to hide when a Quid is around. Maybe the rest of his kind are scared of us."

.

On the shore of the lake across from the Quid ship, Lee gave a press conference to all the eager reporters holding microphones up at him.

"I know you have many questions, I'll answer them the best I can. First let me tell you what we know. These aliens we are calling 'Quid', are not hostile. The ones who crashed here are researches. They came to find out about this planet. I'm sure you've seen them out and around. To us they are very alien in appearance. Even their method of communicating is different. They are bio-luminescent, the colors they emit are how they talk to each other. They know of sound waves, but having no ears like we do, they cannot communicate in that manner. We are working with them to design a device to translate sound into light, and light to sound so we are able to understand each other. They are very curious about us, as we are curious about them. They have space travel and advanced tech like we do, but it operates very differently. We don't know how differently yet, due to the communication barrier between us. We are slowly learning. From everything we've learned so far, this is a peaceful race. At the moment, they are doing their planetary research in cooperation with our researchers. Right now, this is all we know."

"Mr. President!" the FNN reporter asked eagerly, "With such a vast difference between us, how did any communication get started?"

"Hand signals," he said, the grinned and added, "Or appendage signals to be more accurate. They do not have arms and hands as we do, but they do have tentacles. Simple motions right now are the main communication method. Kaede and her clan can also talk to then directly mind to mind, as Kaede's clan can do with each other. That is helping our efforts tremendously."

"Mr. President, have Kaede's people from Earth come to help develop this planet? And is there a reason they all have marine guards?"

Lee paused then said, "The ones who came here, are all that is left of Kaede's people. On Earth, they were fighting to stay alive, and slowly loosing. There are only 31 of them left alive. They were brought here to help prevent their extinction. The marines with them are volunteers not to guard them, but to be husbands as well as assisting them. There were only two men left in their clan. To let them go extinct, I believe, would be a tragedy. Saving them from a radioactive death is the only right thing to do."

"Mr. President, you are saying they are they are the last surviving people on Earth?"

"They are not. The are the last surviving members of Kaede's race. There is a race of pure humans on Earth that live under ground. We and the cylons have people on the ground on Earth, working with the Earth humans. From what we have found, when the nuclear war there happened, they were more prepared for it, and live deep underground, though they have lost their tech and most of their history. Our people there are researching how to get rid of, or at least minimize the radiation so they can return to the surface. If we are successful on reducing, and hopefully eliminating the radiation on Earth, then we can do the same thing to every planet in the Colonies. Do not count on it happening yet, this is a very hard task and we may not see any results for years to come."

"Mr. President!" Sally Yates called, "You mentioned marines volunteered to be husbands to the women of Kaede's clan. How are these women accepting them?"

With a smirk, Lee replied, "Very well. Let's say we can anticipate many babies."

"Is it possible to interview these couples?"

"Ask them," Lee told her. "Be aware, their answers may not be suitable for children. They seem to be ... very happy."

"Mr. President, we have made peace with the cylons, do you anticipate peace and cooperation with the aliens?"

"That is my fondest hope, and for the moment, it is looking very good. Time will tell how it works out." Lee told him.

"Mr. President, how did the aliens find this planet?"

Lee shrugged and said, "They are explorers, that is what explorers do, look for new things and places."

.

The Captain of the probe ship looked out the sight at the planet far below. The operator was correct, the ships orbiting the planet where the research ship crashed were numerous, and a couple were huge, city sized ships. Whoever had arrived, had done so in force. They would not succeed getting to the surface without being seen. He told the pilot, "Place us between the planet and the probe. Before we risk going down there, I want to know if anyone on the research ship is still alive. Sensor, look closely for any comms."

As his orders were carried out, the Captain puzzled out how to get down there. Most of the ships in orbit were in Geo-sycronous orbits around the equator. A few satellites orbited closer on polar orbits. A few other small ships were going in and out of orbit to the rest of the system. If he could find where the research ship was, he might be able to plan a polar entry and slip down under clouds to mask his presence and go get them. That was, if any were left alive.

After a while of the Captain sweating out just how to do that, the sensor operator announced, "Captain, picking up long range light com! Reading ... so far, four intelligent species discovered. All are variations of the same form ... basic form is a head with two small eyes on top, two appendages underneath on top of trunk, appendages are bone structure with joints at the body, mid appendage and near the end, with small jointed tentacles, also with bone. At the other end of the body the two appendages are longer and thicker, again with the same joints. the lower ones are the support appendages. Basic form deviations follow. Smooth head topped with fir. Second, same description, but has different makeup. Head with bone protrusions topped with fur, Kraken-like abilities and very long, very pale tentacles and can make direct mind contact. Very large mechanical form with smooth heads. These beings use reverberations in the air and direct mind contact to communicate, long range communication is through electromagnetic waves. Working at a light to air reverberation translator to communicate freely with these beings. The leader of the varied species appears to be the pink-furred one with the protrusions on her head. We call her 'mother' for her color. Through mind contact with the Captain, we learned her given name is air currents of death. This is illogical from our point of view, for she did her best to save us from crashing and has been very cooperative with helping us and working with us. Fifteen animal species discovered, details following..."

The Captain blinked. They were peaceful? With a leader who has death in her very name? That was illogical! The description of these beings was illogical, how could one do anything with just four appendages, stiffened with bones that limit movements? How could they see very much at all with small eyes? It was hard to believe these beings could even develop the skills to build ships to go into space! He told the sensor operator, "As soon as they stop transmitting, send a message. We are here, what assistance do you need."

"Yes Captain."

.

The Quid Captain and his science Officer was working with the Colonial linguist and Cheryl Eight on the light to air waves translation box. They hadn't gotten far, but simple words like move, sit, drop, pick up, had been successfully translated. It was a start. White was there when mind to mind communication was needed to help decipher more complex meaning words. A crew member came up and excitedly informed the Quid Captain of contact with a Quid ship in orbit.

On Colonial One, Kaede and Lee were informed of the ship. The Quid Captain wanted to bring the ship down to take samples of animal and plant life back to their home world. Lee contacted the Admiral and he set up a raptor escort that was going to show a bright white light for the Quid to follow. On the back, a flashing light in different colors was programmed to show the Quid equivalent of 'follow me'. Kaede insisted on being on that Raptor.

While the Raptor went out to bring the Quid ship in, a landing pad was hastily being made not far from the Quid research ship. White had Older Pink, Yuka, Yuka's men, and Middle Pink with her man clear the landing area and make it smooth. On the raptor, The two long light sticks that flashed out 'land here', were being tested.

By the time the raptor was leading the quid ship were in sight, all was ready. The raptor came in low. Kaede jumped out onto the landing pad, turned them on and raised them over her head.

"See that!" the pilot flashed as Kaede's form as she lowered herself down on four very pale and long tentacles. "It's the Kraken!"

"She is flashing to land where she is. Do it," The Captain told him.

The pilot slowed to land. "I hope we live through this!" he flashed in worry.

They came low, Kaede reached up with her vectors and helped the ship settle gently in place. When they were down, she turned the hand held lights off. The other quid Captain joined her in meeting the Captain when he came out.

Again, once the new Captain understood he was in no danger, Kaede did a direct mind to mind thought conversation to apologize for scaring him and his crew. Her only motive was to communicate. When she saw that wasn't going to be possible, she'd let them go. Her apology was accepted. The two Captains conversed, Kaede waited patiently for them to greet each other and do their business.

.

"No, Kaede, you can't go," Lee said firmly as they stood in his office. With a sigh, he added, "Yes, to send a few people to see their home planet and greet them is the correct thing to do. Volunteers are being picked, but you are my Vice President!" Clasping her shoulders, he said in a softer tone, "Not to mention I would miss you and worry about you the entire time you were gone. You'd come back to find I have a serious case of ulcers."

"I don't think they will harm me," Kaede replied with a smirk.

Lee nodded. "I'm sure they won't," he agreed. "You have responsibilities here. Kaede, please, let someone else go. You don't have to see to everything yourself. Trust our people to do the right thing."

Kaede hugged Lee. "It's not just that. I want to protect everyone. We are building something grand, Lee. I want it to go as well as possible."

Returning her hug, Lee petted her back. "I know, my love, but sometimes you have to trust others. You are doing your very best to help everyone." He kissed her and pulled back enough to look at her and say, "Yes, there is a risk. I talked with the Admiral, the ship leaving with the quid ship has two heavy Raiders on board and a pair of Vipers, as well as the raptor. They are all armed, and we have yet to see the Quid have any weapons. Everything we know is that they are peaceful. We have atmosphere monitors and every piece of safety gear you can think of. Once it is verified save and we have good communications, I am sure we will meet with the Quid leaders. Until them, let someone else take on this task. OK?" he all but pleaded.

Kaede grew a crooked grin. "As long as you kiss me again," she said.

"Deal," Lee said, mirroring her grin. They kissed for quite a while before moving on to more intimate activities.

.

The Dicloni were also eager to volunteer. Kaede chose White because she was one of the few older and stronger ones, plus she had retained one of the last Dicloni men as her mate. She was also very familiar with the Quid. Kaede thought about sending Sun, but her marine mate wasn't thrilled about it, and her little dragon didn't like the Quid at all. He was also getting big enough to bite, and that would not be a good thing if he took a chunk out of one of the Quid. She decided on Yuka, who had two marines who were willing to go and take their guns with them.

Lee was sending the Quorum member from the Rising Star, Allie Matlan, and from the Colonial Quorum, the assistant Quorum member from Caprica, Roger Novene.

Caprica Six was sending Conoy Leoben, Erica Six, and a pair of centurions who had been working with and around the Quid.

With all their different species represented, Kaede informed the Research Captain though the now working translation box, of who was going to make the trip to their world. Going with them also were duplicate translation boxes, one for each of their representatives, and ten extra boxes for the Quid. The Captain was very pleased.

Before they all boarded the freighter to depart, Kaede gathered their representatives together for a briefing in the freighter's hanger bay. Looking over them, she said, "This is a mission of peace, acquiring knowledge and cooperation. Many of you have weapons and of course ships for self defense. The Viper and Heavy Raider crews stay on board the freighter unless they are needed. Any violence by you will not be tolerated unless there is no other way to handle the situation to protect yourselves or the quid as long as the Quid are not attempting to hurt you. If it does come to that with whatever or whoever is attacking you, don't hold back. ONLY if you can't stop them with every other lesser means available, then you go for the kill. We want to be peaceful and cooperative. If the need comes up, show them we have teeth and are not afraid to use them! Now, I know you quorum members will insist no violence whatsoever. That is the politically correct action to take. However, do not allow yourselves to be in grave danger. If needed, White will make the determination on the use of violence. Let us hope there will be no need. White, if you find yourselves in trouble, send the Raptor back for assistance."

"Why White?" Roger Novene asked. "She isn't even a Colonial!"

"Nor is Leoben, Erica, the centurions or any of the Dicloni," Kaede replied. "This is a multi species delegation of all our races, and to be honest, White is the only one here I trust implicitly. White is the Commander. Anyone who doesn't like it, walk away. We'll find someone to replace you."

Roger shuffled in place not looking happy, but kept quiet.

White clasped Kaede's hand and said, "I will assure our mission will go as smoothly and peacefully as possible."

"I know you will," Kaede replied with a smile. "Best of luck to you all."

.

As the freighter had a laser signal to sound translator, the Quid probe ship had a radio frequency to light translator installed so the ships were able to communicate during transit. Kaede watched both ships rise up into the atmosphere until they were lost from sight. The Quid looked very strange, but from everything Kaede knew of them so far, they were a good, honest people. Sending a delegation to the Quid home world, they would find out for sure.

.

In Admiral Adama's ready room, he and Lee sat down to a bottle of the green Algae wine. Sipping away, Lee frowned as he looked at his glass and said, "This isn't all that bad. It's not Ambrosia, but drinkable."

"Saul likes it, and it saves on the Ambrosia we have left," the Admiral agreed. Glancing at his son, he asked, "Laura's been in jail now a year and a half. Any sign of a reduced sentence for being a model prisoner?"

Lee shrugged. "With all the other stuff going on, I haven't had time to even think about it," he said honestly. "I'm more worried about sending armed Dicloni and cylons, as well as fighter craft on our expedition to the Quid world."

"A precaution," the elder Adama stated. "We do want peace, but Kaede's right, we need to back it up with force if the need arises. We have to protect our people."

"As least I convinced Kaede to stay here," Lee said in a mussing tone. "She can do violence with a capital 'V'. The last thing we need is a new war."

"Agreed," the Admiral said and drained his glass. He poured another and held the bottle up to Lee. "Another?"

"Can't, I have to speak to the Quorum committee on land use in another hour," Lee replied. Scrubbing his head, he added, "Then discuss currency exchange with Mr. Boring. It' going to be hard enough to stay awake during that meeting."

Admiral Adama laughed.

"I will talk to the prison Director about Laura Roslyn also," Lee told him. "If he can show she has been a model prisoner and I can convince Kaede she should be let out early, I'll sign a reprieve, not a pardon. That way, she won't be able to run for a Colonial Office again. That should satisfy everyone involved."

"I'm sure that will be agreeable," the Admiral replied."Let me now how it works out."

"As soon as I know," Lee agreed. Eyeing the half full bottle of green liquid, he let out a sigh. "Too bad I can't help you finish it."

"I'm sure Saul will when he gets off duty."

.

The Quid ship was showing a white light to the rear as they entered the Quid system so the Colonial freighter was able to track them. Closing to a million miles from the planet, the centurion co-pilot announced, "Unknown ship detected by dradis. Bearing and distance on screen."

Right on top of that, they got a radio call as the light on the Quid ship went out. "Hostile coming! Turn lights out, hide!"

Erica Eight, who was on duty as the OOD, hit the ships' intercom. "Attention! Possible hostile inbound, it's not a Quid. heavy Raider and Viper crews to your ships and prepare to launch! Raptor crew, assemble, make all weapons ready!"

As people and centurions scrambled, White rushed into the control room and asked, "What's happening?"

Erica pointed to the screen, "We have inbound, the Quid said they were hostile. The inbound changed course and are headed towards us on an intercept course."

White replied, "Try hailing them, radio and light beams. Are our fighters ready to respond if needed?"

"They are manning their ships now,"Erica told her. "This ship only has anti-missile defenses, one flak gun and ten interceptor missiles."

"Let's hope we don't have to use them," White said, watching the Dradis display.

As the contact drew closer, Erica said, "Unknown is not responding to hails. Receiving increased energy emissions from the unknown."

White replied, "Inform them we will fire if fired upon."

"We don't know if they will understand."

"Tell them anyway, we will give fair warning," White stated. She also extended all six of her feelers out in front of the ship.

Another frantic radio call came from the Quid ship. "Avoid, avoid, run away!"

"Message sent to unknown," the co-pilot announced.

"Energy release from unknown, projectile inbound!" Erica announced.

"Turn into it," White replied. She sensed the large projectile and focused on it.

"What do I tell the Quid?" Erica asked.

White punched out at the projectile as it closed. It exploded, the blast blew back away from them. Thinking of the best way to tell the Quid a fight was now in progress, she said, "Kraken unleashed, leave the area immediately! Pilot, full thrust, charge down on that ship, send our fighters out. we are looking to disable that ship," she commanded.