10: Dawning Alliance
by Chaoseternus
When Enerina is sent to investigate why every gate in an area of space will not establish a wormhole, she finds something totally unexpected...
FourDelenn frowned as she glanced over the shuttle that was slowly approaching. It looked crude, cumbersome to her eyes, all sharp edges and triangles but yet it came from a ship powerful enough that its sensors alone appeared to be enough to disable the Minbari flagship.
Even worse, they had found a match in the historical records for the ship, or at least the design and technology it appeared to be based on.
The ship was derived from Shadow technology.
It bore none of the markings associated with the shadows themselves, which was somewhat of a blessing but it begged so many questions. How had they gotten shadow technology, shadow designs? When had they gained them? What did they know of the shadows?
Were they friendly, or did they serve the shadows?
Delenn shivered, as most junior member of the grey council she had been chosen to stay aboard, greet the newcomers and try to determine their allegiance, their purpose, their race, while the rest of the Grey Council decamped to a support ship, ready to leave at a moments notice should they prove hostile.
Delenn smothered a chuckle; it had been… illuminating to see certain members of the council literally manhandled off the ship in order to get them to safety. That was an image she would treasure for quite a few years.
The airlock to her side opened with a sigh, and Delenn turned.
Before her stood five people, only one appeared to be female. They lacked headridges, instead the head was covered by fur. Their bodies were clothed, a relief to her since the last first contact she had been at, and at least one of the team was coloured black, and not the familiar pink she saw even amongst her own people. Delenn guessed in an instant that these could pass for Minbari, with only minor prosthetics to add the headridge.
Parallel evolution perhaps she thought to herself, and then she stopped her mental ruminations and concentrated on the women's words;
"Greetings, I am Doctor Elizabeth Weir of StarGate Command of the Tau'ri" she paused, but Delenn barely noticed, Tau'ri, where had she heard that term before?, "We are explorers and hope to form peaceful relations with you and your people"
Delenn frowned, Tau'ri was flickering at the edge of her consciousness, it was a word she had heard before but the rest was gibberish to her and apparently to the ships translation matrixes too.
The women spoke again, and Delenn shivered as she recognized the language if not the words themselves. She spoke the language of the Shadows, the dark ones, the debased ascendants and their ilk.
This time the translation matrix kicked in, and Delenn heard every word.
She smiled slightly, her instincts telling her that this women and her associates were trustworthy, "I am Delenn of the Grey Council of the Minbari, welcome aboard"
"Grey Council? Is that like your leading council, your rulers?"
Delenn frowned, but answered, "Yes"
The gentleman looked faintly impressed, "nice, I'm Major John Sheppard; this is Doctor Rodney McKay, Lieutenant Aiden Ford and our medical doctor, Carson Beckett"
"I am honoured, if you could please follow me" Delenn stepped back then slowly lead the way across the ship to the main conference room.
It seemed she had come across friends or at least not enemies which was good enough. She would make peace, find out what they knew, if anything, of the shadows and send them on their way.
Then they could begin again their search for evidence of the upcoming shadow war.
Enerina sighed, relaxing as the report flashed across her screen.
First contact, a peaceful first contact with an alien race which wasn't either overwhelmingly advanced, or overwhelmingly primitive. That was something of a first, the only other time they had come close was with the Colonials but they had been refugees. This group did not act or feel like refugees, they seemed from the report and the teams observations to be a proud, if a bit arrogant and self centred race.
But there was an issue, they had gotten glimpses of slight fear and heard snatches of something that made them think the Minbari were preparing for a war against a great enemy.
Enerina smirked slightly, a hint of the Goa'uld in her coming through. That they could use, it was a wedge into an alliance with the Minbari and the Tau'ri, one which both could benefit from. Better technology for the Minbari and the assistance of an advanced civilisation for the Tau'ri, hell just arranging a trade agreement with a space faring civilisation, one that had hyper would be a hell of a boast to the Tau'ri.
Enerina rolled her eyes as a thought struck her, after this she was going to have to wear sunglasses all the time, otherwise the light flashing off all the medals the Tau'ri would be handing out like confetti might blind her.
