**Outpost 12, Bridge of the *Molotter* **
Guthan Erebus looked on the svicht holo-display, an ethereal blue swirl of light that coalesced into individual particles, affording exact details of the ships despite the range between the two fleets. One of the attacking ships struck a defender, causing an explosion to ripple along the defender's length. Unwittingly, this resulted in the annihilation of two of the attacking ships and the crippling of another by the debris that had flown out from the wreck. If it weren't for the fact that thousands had just dies in seconds the sight would almost have been amusing. Maybe for another day.

Sensors rang quietly as five more ships warped into the system, matching the profiles of the defending fleet. The vessels spat out antiprotons on the attackers, causing even more casualties. Missiles flew from the attacking ships, dozens impacting on those of the defenders, destroying several of the original defenders. As quickly as they had arrived the battle was over. Beeps rang as some sort of transmissions was received by the sensor arrays on the *Molotter*, the signals being rewritten as neuropsionic coding so as to be accessible by the Sakari I addition to expedite the transfer of information to the rest of the fleet should it be necessary.

An unoccupied svicht table began to shape an image, that of a face slightly similar to that of a Sakari. Basic structure and the ear shape appeared nearly identical, yet that was where the resemblance ended. Colors formed as the svet emitters adjusted, allowing Guthan to make out the blue hair and pale skin of the mysterious alien race. Despite the best efforts at decoding all that came out were garbled words, sounding nothing at all like any languages Task Force Osveti had encountered. Perhaps one of the Altar transports retained a database to ease with communication. Heuristic scans were being run in the meantime to attempt some sort of decoding. Even without understanding the words Guthan assumed they requested some sort of identification, none of which would mean anything to the mysterious civilization. After a brief thought, Guthan responded as best he could.

"We are Task Force Osveti of Expeditionary Fleet Dorgar in the Tenth Emergence Front. Under Independence Protocols of the Standing Emergence Code, I am authorized to act as an official representative of the Sakari people and the Holy Dominion of C'ran. We extend greetings." As he finished, the svicht table compiled the information and reworked it into something resembling the structure of the code received by the sensors and transmitted it back, some of the translation work hopefully finished and implemented.