The Kuntrila system.

In the light of the red sun, Several ships of the hive drift. The queen and her hive watches as the first test of the new FTL system approaches.
A single ship floats alone, Watched by an entire species as they go through it's preparations. The bridge of this organic ship is filled with clicking and sounds and chatter as they get closer. One of the pilots look over to an engineer as she double checks the ship's health, she gave the pilot a sign of approval. The air was thick with excitement, literally. The last checks were made, and the ship's commander, one of the queen's assistants, spoke up. "Alright!" The bridge grew silent. "Is the grub secured?" "Yes ma'am!" One of the engineers chirped. "Is everyone strapped in?" Various clicks around the bridge confirmed this. "Status of the ship?" "Exo-skeleton has been reinforced, internal systems shielded, and the ship has been purged of impurities. All ready to go." Another engineer stated. "Alright, course is set. Make the queen proud." Some inputs were pressed, and a loud whine came from the strange creature as the ship began to shake and move. There was a flash, and the ship rocketed off, The entire crew sat silent as the ship sped through the galaxy.

Triani System – Stargate

Most of Triani VI's planetary fleet had assembled that day. The ships floated without formation, their various thrusters firing once and a while to stabilize the ship. There had been an information leak on the Gyraci Independence Movement's end, and information of a planned raid on Yagan II had reached the Commonwealth's ears. Yagan II was one of the two planets in the Commonwealth that lacked a planetary fleet of their, Yagan II itself being little more than a large trading outpost. Such a raid was dishonorable at best, and if it was allowed to be carried out without a fight, it would appear as though the Commonwealth was weak and unable to defend its own.

Sensors went haywire as a massive object suddenly hurled into the system, tearing through the stargate before slowing down sufficiently. Every ship with shield capabilities activated them, the red gel oozing from various pores to cover the ships. The barrels of mass drivers extended through the ooze, repelling it from the turret. In a matter of moments, the entire fleet had brought its arms to bear and formed up around the object, now revealed to be a vessel.

And they waited.

For a moment, There was a stunned silence. The entire crew stared at strange ships around them.
"What are those things?" A navigator broke the silence.
"I've never seen chitin like that." An engineer clicked.
"They don't look friendly." "Ready the weapons!" Clicked two gunners, One shortly after the other.
"No!" Interrupted the commander. "You'll get us all killed! Look at how many there are! We need reinforcements. Can we get a message back to the hive?" She looked over at a trilistian working communications. "We're cut off. We can't bounce a message that far."
"Then can we jump back?" She turned to an engineer. "The grub isn't responding to anything we give it."
The brain bug was quite for a moment, looking out at the ships. "We have to talk to them. Can you patch us in?" "I'l try." Said the communications trilistian again. The engineers helped the girl try and bounce a single to the fleet, and an eye like device opened and stared at the commander. "Transmitting to...something."
The commander tried to calm her nerves, and clicked out in her native tongue.
"Greetings. I am Kiltria, assistant to queen Krytial. I request to speak to your queen, or one of her assistants, if possible."

"Damnit, comms, I told you to play me the signal, not deafen the bridge crew!" Admiral Goas pressed a hand against his ear holes as the communications officer lowered the volume. He waited for the ringing to leave his ears before motioning for comms to replay the signal. The bridge was filled with strange clicking sounds, and the Admiral waved for comms to shut it off before he was halfway through.

"Useless. We can't respond to this. Send them... yellow. Just yellow. And get my commanders on the comms, we need to have a discussion."

The communications officer sent out the reply, and opened a comm link with the commanders in the region. The admiral listened as they deliberated, watching the alien vessel on the main screen.

"Enough," he said over them, silencing the chatter instantly. "The Movement is moving on Yagan II, our stargate is destroyed, and we have an alien vessel in our space. We have no way to stop the Movement at Yagan II, no way to send a message to the other states, and no way to effectively communicate with the alien vessel. I will send one of my frigates back to Triani VI to inform them of the situation."

With the comm link closed, Goas hailed a nearby frigate, and no sooner than it received the message did it turn the ship around and begin accelerating towards Triani VI, a voyage that would take roughly six hours round trip from their current position.

"Send the alien vessel yellow once more."

The ship sat silent. Waiting for a response. "We've got a signal." "Play it." There was a flash of yellow.
"What was that?" The commander clicked, looking over to communications.
"I don't know."
The commander watched as a ship flew off. There was another flash.
"We can't work with this. Wake up the grub and try to get communications reestablished with the hive."
The crew dispersed and began working to try and get their systems working. The commander picked up a round ball of honey and placed it in her mouth, gently biting down on the thin, almost invisible membrane around the honey and relished the sweet flavor. "In the meantime, check the systems over. We have to make sure how safe this method of travel really is."

In the chaos following the arrival of the Trisilistain ship, several dozen asteroids break free from the belt and set course for Triani VI. Their engines flare for mere moments, micro-fission charges detonating, scattering debris and rocks in a confusing and haphazard manner.

One of these asteroids is hollow, and hidden within is a Hekaton mobile foundry. Its emissions are low, but not quite non-existent, and the secrecy of its approach depends partially upon the two organic species being too preoccupied with first contact to conduct thorough analysis of asteroid movements.

(nothing doing)

(OOC: Hope you guys don't mind if I fast-forward a few hours. Nothing can really happen until my frigate returns, and I imagine the asteroids would still take some time to get to Triani VI. Let me know if this isn't the case.)

The frigate returned about seven hours later, bearing important cargo for the Admiral. When it was shown to him in the corridor outside the bridge, he smiled.

"This is as close to a translator as we're going to get, is it? I'm Admiral Goas, pleasure to meet you."

"And I you. I'm Professor Llaga, and this is my student, Oret." The professor had the burnt orange skin of a Triani VI native, but his student was more pale, evidence of a Gyraci who spent little time in sunlight, perhaps in the crowded quarters of a space station or terrestrial lab. "Nice to meet you, Admiral."

"Come, you're needed on the bridge. The alien vessel has been here for more than seven hours, and we're all getting restless."

On the bridge, the Admiral ordered the message to be replayed several times for the newly arrived xeno-linguists. Oret seemed impatient, while the Professor studied the recording intently.

"So, Oret, what can you make of this?"

The student obediently responded, wiping any sense of impatience from his tone. "The only logical answer is that the first segment, before that pause, is some form of greeting. If they had any intent to attack us, they would not have wasted time to send a greeting, nor waited this long. The rest I can't make out with any sense of accuracy, due to it being a bunch of clicking, but one could assume they want to see a qualified representative."

"Very good. Considering their physiology, we can determine that they will never be able to speak our language, nor can we speak theirs fluently. We'll have to make translators, in due time. Admiral, have you sent anything back to them?"

"I sent yellow."

"Hm. No reply to that? Very well. Our--"

"Best chance of communication is through pictures."

"Yes, Oret. Avoid interrupting me when we communicate with them. Admiral, what do you have in your media database?"

"Well, for First Contact purposes, we could use images from the crew manifest."

"Excellent. Send those, with the picture changing every few seconds, and an audio overlay saying 'Gyraci'. They may not be able to speak our language, or us theirs, but we should be able to get some basic communication and identification going."

---

[Approximately three and a half hours earlier; Near Triani VI]

"All right, we've got the xeno-linguists on board. Permissions to disconnect from the station and continue voyage?"

"Negative, we've got some loose asteroids inbound. Give us a bit of time to change their trajectory."

"Roger."

The few cruisers and frigates left behind began to form up and open their weapon ports to extend the mass driver barrels. The commander was no doubt streaming firing solutions and orders to the rest of his "fleet", checking and re-checking the velocity and trajectory of the asteroids. The ships fired as one, and everyone waited as the projectiles flew across the vacuum.

Most asteroids break apart on impact, as expected, but one of the larger ones proves particularly resilient, withstanding tremendous fire without fracturing. Shards of rock and metal shake loose in the impacts, but its core must be remarkably strong.

The mass driver hits do deflect the asteroid's path, however--altering its trajectory so that instead of impacting near the equator, it should crash near the south pole.

"Leave it, it won't do much."
"All right, clearing the frigate for departure."

[See previous post, part one]

"We're getting another signal. This one isn't compatible with our systems, we need a little time to convert it."
The commander sat patiently for a few minutes, watching the few trilistians work on the signal. "There," One of them pressed an input and a screen attached to the front of the bridge changed, the pigmentation on the skin like screen shifting to show images, changing every so often. Some gibberish was played over it, which the commander assumed was what they were called. She tried saying it a few times, but all that came out was a silly noise that didn't sound anything like it. "Strange looking creatures. Take a few images of the crew around the ship, send it to them." One of the communication workers walked over to a good position in the bridge, and lifted up one of her limbs. What looked like an eye opened and discolored for a second before closing again, taking a picture of the bridge crew, from the brain bug's larger head and streamlined body, to the mufti-limbed pilots. She walked off into the ship, taking pictures of the engineering crew maintaining an engine, to the soldier's target practice, and several other scenes around the ship before returning to the bridge and connecting to a communications console through a different limb, and transmitting the images to the other ship, along with an audio sample of the clicks and noises that makes up the name of the hive. Another worker approached the commander. "We think we can bounce a signal off of the device we..smashed into on entry. It's a bit of a long shot, but it might work." The worker could feel the commander was pleased. "Good. Try to send this message..."

The kuntrila system
The queen stared out into space, lightly snacking on a bit of honey. She was contemplating sending another ship when a servant approached her, carrying a device and on either side of her stood soldiers. "My queen," The servant spoke, "We have retrieved a message from the ship that tested the grub." He held the device up. "Play it." The queen clicked. The servant clicked an input on the device. A broken, static-y message was played. "Mission completed...We have....Alien lifeforms... Damage, crew.... Hostile, But ships....Weapons are....Odd signals....No way back, grub is....Do not...." The message stopped. "Dismissed." The servant was escorted away. She looked back out to empty space. "Mark the ship as destroyed." The queen told one of her guards, who walked off.

"Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating," Llaga said as the video played in front of the xenolinguists and the admiral.

"Purely organic technology?"

"I can't say it's purely organic, but it definitely makes up most of it, from what we can see. Don't start concerning yourself with their weapons right now, Admiral. We don't need your paranoia ruining our communication."

"If they have organic technology, how did they get here? How do they go so fast?"

"That's what I was wondering, Oret. Llaga?"

"I can't say. Oret, can you make anything of their clicking?"

"Nothing."

"Well, we'll just have to invite them for a discussion. Admiral, have a shuttle prepared."

"I... What?"

"A shuttle." Llaga was already on the other side of the bridge, standing behind the communications officer. A few words were exchanged, and an image was beamed over.

A Gyraci and a brain bug were spliced into the same image. A shuttle was in the background, with a circle drawn around the pair and an arrow drawn from them to the shuttle.

The metal meteor impacts with Triani IV not far from the south pole, striking with two megatons of force. Tidal waves sweep out from the crater, devastating the local ecosystem, but no one cares because it's the antarctic.

Heavily damaged from weapons fire and the impact, but still functional, the Hekaton mobile factory deploys and begins repairing itself.