"These other two dirtballs, what are we thinking, more for Bone to export food for all these mouths or what?" Femur asked in his usual boisterous manner, Sternum smirking and nodding, scratching his chiseled jaw idly in thought. They had taken several hours to go over the information that they had been provided.
"That was my initial suggestion, but the further world is much too cold, and may not have an atmosphere at all." Tekla explained, looking to Pyrus, who seemed fixated on the large volcanically active world. The others remained quiet, watching him for a moment before Zera finally said what the rest were thinking, and afraid to mention.
"That world, we hope, will be suitable for the people of Planet Fire." she chimed merrily, smiling at Pyrus, who did not react at first. She frowned, then suddenly realized she was being a bit insensitive, quickly correcting herself, "That is, if it's safe and that your people want to move, that is." She looked to Jade, tilting her head slightly in Pyrus' direction, eyes pleading for her assistance in receiving acknowledgement from the young Prince.
"The people of planet Fire will always be welcome to live and remain on the battle moons, I will make certain of this." She stated, raising a brow. Silence crept through the room again, all eyes on Pyrus, all concerned. At length he sighed, nodding.
"I know Jade, Thank you. It's just... Something doesn't feel right. I mean it looks great, but... I don't... I don't want to get anyone's hopes up." He explained haltingly, referring to himself more than his people. The rest smiled lightly, understanding his apprehension and reluctance to place his trust in something that no one could guarantee. For a youngster, he had shown and continued to show an immense maturity in the face of such sudden change, and kept his people from falling into despair and poverty. Graveheart reached over and reassuringly squeezed his shoulder.
"We'll check it out together," He smiled as Pyrus visibly relaxed, his flame dancing about a bit more wildly and less constrained than a moment before. "Have the upgrades to the Aurora been completed yet Cryos?" Graveheart turned his attention to the Icean king, his daughter looking to him expectantly. The imposing figure of Cryos, who had decided to stand next to Zera instead of sitting, nodded, a smile appearing for a moment.
"Yes, I will say I was expecting it to look a bit... Garish, with what was proposed, however she is magnificent." He beamed, motioning to Tekla to turn off the hologram, to which she shook her head and instead, the hologram changed, to a series of flat images of a strange hourglass shaped craft, taken from different angles.
"Before we disperse to make preparations, I wished to bring something to the attention of all leaders. I've been seeing these on long–range images infrequently, since shortly after the Beast Planet was teleported away. They do not show on scanners, I believed at first that they were simply debris caught in our gravitational field. Until this," She tapped her datapad, and showed a recorded series of images of the strange craft at a much higher resolution, following a transport between Ice and Bone, images of the fleet visible behind it. "I do not believe them to be manned, they are simply too small, but they are fast and have some form of propulsion and shielding that is far advanced beyond any amongst the alliance."
"Someone has been watching us?" Asked Pyrus, who frowned slightly. Jade nodded to him with a frown of her own, the others watching, nodding and waiting for an explanation.
"It would appear so, perhaps the makers or another sentient race attempting to figure out our intentions? I am uncertain. Whenever I see these ships, they seem to realize they've been detected and promptly disappear. As though blinking causes them to become invisible." Tekla sighed, a bit disappointed in herself that she had no answers for her friends. Graveheart was frowning a bit, but sighed, he still felt like the warrior pushed to leadership instead of the friend and confidant the Monarchs around him saw him to be.
"As much as we may be concerned, if they aren't hostile, let them watch." Sternum said at length. "Perhaps they watched from afar while the Beast planet was on our heels, and are curious how we got rid of it."
"Or afraid of us because of that same reason." Cryos retorted, Tekla turning off the image and the lighting of the room slowly returning to full illumination. "Regardless, let them choose their time to introduce themselves, we have a solar system to investigate." He smiled, gently squeezing Zeras shoulder as the others moved to depart the room. Pyrus took a moment to rise and follow, Zuma pausing and stopping him with her strangely taloned hand on one shoulder lightly. Her calm voice sounded in his mind, soothing and empathetic.
**You are concerned, do not be. Your future is not set in stone.** She said to him privately using her thought speech. He raised a brow quizzically at her, his small and underdeveloped ear-spines lowering slightly. She almost seemed to smile, **All things in time. While not family, we-** she paused and motioned to the group with one of her strangely clawed hands, and then herself, **are here, and will do what we can to help, as we always have.** Pyrus smiled and nodded, wordlessly thanking her before they joined the others.
"You should've seen this thing, it was longer than my tail!" Femur exclaimed, describing to the others a massive Wild Canoli–worm that had been caught and taken to the breeding pits.
"I bet it was thinner too." Jade smirked, Femur and Sternum grinning.
"Wouldn't you like to know toots." Femur retorted facetiously, Jade groaning and rolling her eyes as the rest laughed lightly as they, as a group of friends, headed toward the hangar and their personal craft.
Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to the leaders of the alliance, Frost held his own little meeting with several of the heads of other families, and members of his own, who shared in his views that the alliance should not be so welcome on Ice and instead, should be showing their superiority as they had been the first and most loyal of the entire alliance.
"They are having a meeting now, likely about the system that Tekla had taken interest in. Once they leave, as they are likely to, we will make our move." Frost grinned, stroking the ice-like beard protrusion from his chin as his antennae curled upward.
"We have the rotations worked out, we can easily slip into the long-range scanner control room and usurp the loyalist guards there without gaining notice. Once inside, we can easily disable the automatic updating and send the false signal. They wont see our allies coming until it's too late." Grinned one of the younger family heads, Rysint, who had leapt at the chance to take the headship of his family when his uncle had died protecting Lady Zera some months before the end of the War with the Beast. Frost liked this youngling, who hated the way their King continued to play host and supporter to the rest of the alliance, thinking that their Princess learning close-combat training from two others of their alliance Elite to be acts of treason.
Within the Icean capital many families had views that aligned with their King, but there were almost as many who thought otherwise. Frost had garnered sympathy from them, despite his previous humiliation for having announced prematurely that Cryos had perished in a cavern collapse many years ago, his close friend and bodyguard Galen with him. When Cryos had appeared just minutes after Frosts announcement, he had almost resigned to his expected exile, sympathising instead with the loss of his bodyguard had earned him a reprieve. That reprieve would soon come to haunt his King, and Frost would revel in every moment of it.