ZAP
Her hyperspace cocoon collapsed, and the corvette didn't slow, racing out of the pale other-than-space into the darkness of the real thing. Her twin fusion drives gave her a power she didn't look like she could handle, but whoever was controlling her handled her well – with a blinding, explosive burst, she fired her ventral port thrusters and turned ninety degrees relative to her previous position, onto her starboard edge, in what looked like it must have been a brutal roll.
She had a swan-like grace about her. Like a swan, too, she was pure white, but that was where the resemblance ended. Her body was like a curved seed pod. Two fins stabbed straight down from her prow, like saber teeth, and two canted fins rose from her tail. For something designed for space travel, she had impractical grace – her design was steeped in the learned arcana of hundreds of years Up There, the birthright of generations of shipwrights. She was delicate and avian, and even the blood-red leading edges of her forward fins did nothing to dispel that impression.
She was not completely harmless, however. The underside of her prow was perforated with a dozen small holes, obviously missile tubes even to an amateur's eye. In the middle of her back lay three ball turrets, with a bore indicating heavy, probably dumb kinetics. Much smaller spheres were arranged in a pattern across her hull, in the same uniform white except for jet-black apertures that made them look like eyes – laser point defence. She was small, and not a heavy hitter by anyone's standards, but she was clearly tough for her size. Oddly enough, her weapons were emitting an EM signature which would have made it clear that they were powered up and battle-ready. She didn't seem to believe in subtlety.
The jump would have been dangerously close to the planet that now loomed blue and pristine below her. That wasn't something she seemed to care about either. She decelerated only grudgingly as she fell into orbit, with little to no care for any other traffic that might have been sharing the same orbit, or any traffic protocols that might have controlled the airspace. A circular scratch appeared on her smooth belly and folded inward, providing space for a complex, multi-layered hierarchy of devices and dishes to slide out on a short arm. Judging by the way the 'tree' of devices lit up in the EM spectrum, it was related to communications in some way, an impression that would have been confirmed as its many branches whirred, twirled and locked onto the nearest other EM sources.
The communication was simple – an audio message spoken by a neuter, but distinctly human, voice. The language it spoke wasn't English and, in fact, would never have been heard on Earth. It was heavily consonantal, and the words and structure would both have been completely alien to any Earthborn linguist, and completely incomprehensible to anyone else. The tone, however, was cheerful, and the message repeated in a number of other languages and interlingual communication constructs. Whoever they were, they were determined to get the point across.
Roughly translated, it ran: Hello! We are the scout ship Kindavin, emissaries of the Parliament of the Human Empire. In the name of our executor, by the grace of Parliament, we give the warmest greetings of humanity to the residents of this system, human and unhuman alike. We are thirty-six hands. Our head is Marniss – followed quickly by a click consonant.
For our friends we bring the gift of friendship, and – here the translations into many languages would have stuttered, but would eventually have come up with a phrase not too far from 'gold, frankincense and myrrh', something the author would not have been aware of – for those who require a tasting of its benefit. For those who would not be our friends, we offer to pass on. For those who would be our enemies we offer only a swift sword and a long darkness. So speak I, Marniss – click – and await your response.
(OOC: Hi! You are the owner of the planet. Please be gentle to my little scout ship.)
