[h3][b]After Action Luncheon, Kiddik's Ched House, Koros[/b][/h3]

Kiddik's Ched House was a small eatery located on a miserable scrap of soggy 'land' in the middle of nowhere of one of the larger islands on the surface of Koros. The establishment itself was surprisingly upscale for its dreadful locale, and according to Ged'Kronna you couldn't find any better Grund cuisine anywhere else. Considering that it was his brother who filed the after action report of that near disaster, it was his turn to pick location. Dol'iktha walked inside the restaurant and was immediately greeted by a Hruul hanging from bars on the ceiling. The Hruul waved one of its vines towards the back room and hooted and burbled in its native tongue, "Right this way Councilman Iktha, your party has already arrived."

[i]Of course they have,[/i] Dol thought. The dining room laid out for him was done in a traditional Grund style, it was a large pool filled up to just below waist height for a Cephalid with small fish and other river creatures darting around in it and a large stone slab serving as a table. The fish were meant to serve as appetizers of sorts, the Grund never quite took to cooked food as keenly as the Min'Vakai did despite being the race that spent more time on land. For the Cephalid clientele they had installed a grill at the center of the table to cook whatever they caught, or if they found the game of snatching darting critters too challenging they could always just order something else to hold them over. 

The other three members of his little cabal of movers and shakers had already arrived. In classic form Ged'Kronna was busy searing a medley of creatures that he had caught while Zol'Dronta and Ced'Drokva were bickering about something. Plopping a small crab like creature into his mouth, Ged'Kronna waved his  hand at Dol beckoning him into the water. "Come on now Dol, we've got things to discuss, the critters won't bite, in fact you're supposed to bite them!" he hissed and grabbed another creature off the grill to eat.

Pleasantries were exchanged and the Ched, a large arboreal creature native to the region, was phenomenal. As the various members of the Group of Four finished their meals the talk came back to the task at hand and the Reason for Dronta and Drokva's sour moods was apparent.

"You led our people into a trap Iktha!" Zol'Dronta cried, Ced'Drokva nodded in agreement.

"Gentlemen please, I nor any of my associates knew anything about this tradehouse before we set out on our little expedition and were in just as much danger as you were. If anything you should be commending the efforts of Ged'Kronna's staff for ensuring that nobody was killed from our teams and for all the information we got back. Overall I consider the operation to be a surprising success, shame we couldn't set up any contracts but I think that may be coming to an end." Ged nodded at the praise leveled against his house but narrowed his eyes at the last comment.

"What are you saying Dol, the expedition did nothing for us but answer questions we'd hoped to never answer about the black zone," referring to the strange [i]things[/i] that had accosted Dai'Kronna and his crew on their escape from the doomed tradehouse, "We didn't even stay long enough to get much info out of the boss man of that place, let alone anyone else's info." the Kriel and Vex councilmen nodded in agreement to this as well. 

"Indeed Ged the operation was total bust in that regard, it was a bust in every regard but giving us nightmares. If those monsters really are what's gobbling up the Black Zone then I think we need to convince the navy and [i]somebody[/i]," he glared at Ced'Drokva, "that we need to start a new shipbuilding program and strengthen the fleet."

"But no, gentlement, I am no longer speaking of that nightmare. A deep probing squadron from one of our family's Interdiction Fleets was performing a survey operation beyond our charted territory when they discovered this," the holo projector he placed on the table displayed an image of an alien vessel, a world, and a long-eared creature, "my friends I give you the Abh" the name was mangled into just Ahh by the lipless Cephalid. 

"The world our probe squad discovered was highly advanced, surely not as advanced as our own technology but they are no cavemen. They possess FTL drives of some sort, advanced ship building, Counter-grav technology, advanced materials manufacture, and are by all regards a pretty powerful player in the great game. They are nothing to slouch at and certainly not the type to try to directly exploit, however another probe group working in the same stellar neighborhood uncovered something equally interesting." The images were replaced with a planet scrubbed of life by orbiting warships. "It would appear that these Abh folks are at war. Their enemy appears to be a race known as Romans who before withdrawing from the battle you saw there, had unleashed a rather strange weapon which scrubbed a large chunk of the Abh fleet. We managed to pick up enough of their communications to develop a functional language codex and it from what we've been able to glean from it I'm willing to wager that the Abh would probably lose this war if it keeps on for long enough. Therefore I think that it would be highly profitable for all of our houses to... render assistance to them as soon as possible. If they win we secure a powerful ally for when the Black Zone comes knocking on our door and if they lose even with our assistance than surely the Romans will be bloodied enough to not get in our way for quite a while." 

There was silence around the table as the other members of the Group of Four considered the information given to them from Dol'Iktha and the files the holo-projector was programmed to deliver to all of their personal devices. Eventually looking up from his pad Zol'Dronta hissed and met Dol'Iktha's gaze. "Why is it that you are always the one who has the surprises for us Dol?"

"Well its no secret that House Hrok has half again as many hulls as the entire navy, not to mention bigger hulls. But if you want a body to get in the way of the Black Zone then why don't we side with the Romans if they are in fact already winning? Seems like the safer bet from a military perspective." Ged'Kronna ever the pragmatist was the one to point out the glaring flaw in the plan.

Dol'Iktha had an answer for this as well. "Simply put gentlemen, the Abh aren't particularly expansionistic, the literal translation of their nation is 'The Syndicate of Eight Planets' or whatever it comes across in their tongue. The Romans on the other hand are textbook expanders. They're the bigger Empire strictly speaking, they're on even if not greater technological footing to the Abh so not too far gone from us, if they see somebody they can crush they'll do it. An admirable if crude stance, but they're close enough to us that at some point they'll pose a problem to us and the sooner we nip that threat in the bud the lower the chance it will grow up and try to strangle our metaphorical gardens. I don't doubt our ability to defend ourselves against them should the time come, but I do doubt our ability to contain them in the long run without something or someone helping us out."

"So then by backing these Ahh people we solve two problems in an ideal situation and one problem in the worst case. I'll admit Iktha, I still hardly trust you Hrok people but I cannot really argue with your logic. Who knows, this little alliance of ours may just work out in the end. Know that I, and through me House Kriel, is in favor of entering dialogues with these Ahh and render aide in their war against these Ro-uns" Zol'Dronta stood and raised his arm in affirmation. 

"I'm for it also, and I know for a fact that Ced is as well. Though from an Admiral's perspective I think it may be wise to just send a drone ship with out with our message of peace and alliance. No reason to risk our people's lives on a hunch again. It will be pretty easy to get the council behind this if we need extra muscle. If we're all in agreement then I say we pay these fine people for the food and go about drafting our message of first contact." With that Ged'Kronna also stood up out of the water and made his way to leave.


[h3]Later, Tsutā System edge, Abh Space[/h3]

The Drone courier dropped out of hyperspace on the periphery of the Tsutā system and began a 5G burn with its Gravity Drive towards the inner solar system playing a message on all conceivable wavelengths of the EM spectrum in [s]SPACE JAPANESE![/s] the Abh language. The first part of the message instructed any that passed that it was not a threat and had arrived in peace with hopes of opening a dialogue. The second part of the message provided a basic outline as to how to interface with the courier and get the information it was carrying. 

The Courier held basic information about the Syndiarchy(carefully worded to imply they weren't a bunch of crooks), basic biological informatio, a coordinate for a neutral meeting ground, and a short message. The message was a recorded message provided by the Hrok Family-Syndicate Matriarch Jan'Iktha(also translated into Abh). "Greetings and salutations oh great Empire of the Eight Worlds. I am Jan'Iktha [Empress] of the Hrok [Empire Family] and representative of the Min'Vakai [Empire of Empires]. We come in [Non belligerence] with a [Threat] of friendship and [Mutual success]. We understand that you are currently in a rather [expensive] war with another race and we wish to [Threaten] you with talks of assistance and rendering aide to your people. [Buried] in this ship are coordinates to a patch of [Unowned] space where we may [Threaten] with each other without [Betrayal] by either party. We hope our two [Empires] may [Strike a deal]." 

So the language codex wasn't perfect, hopefully it would get the point across.