[@SillyGoy]
[center][u][b]Earth, ambassador's quarters.[/b][/u][/center]

Barrier-2 sighed, apparantly there wasn't a single bed in the entire starport he didn't have some sort of reaction to. He had briefly considered claiming the local swimming pool to sleep in, but decided against it as such shenanigans would make a mockery of his diplomatic character. Yes, he called it a character. In truth, he quite disliked dealing with the other races. A sentiment shared by many of his peers. He wasn't the designated ambassador because he liked dealing with other races. He was such because he was the best there was at hiding this disdain.

“Oh sod it I'll just sleep in the bathtub... Keep the tabloid journalists out and I'll recommend you to your superiors for competence at your job.” The beleaguered orderly responsible for the qulseoc's accomedations let loose a sigh of relief and gestured his staff to stop hauling furniture around. “I'll send for some doormen sir... I am truly sorry about this state of affairs sir, we should have been better prepared for situations such as this.” With that said, the orderly and his squadron of lackeys marched out of the room single-file.

The sudden peace and quiet in the room was quite refreshing. The qulseoc, who had grown yellow of irritation in all the fracas, began to shift colors back to his blueish brown complexion. He wondered what he could do now. The council was still far away, and he had already adressed the unforseen variable of the wo ambassador. Perhaps he could get some sleep, the trip halfway across the galaxy had bbeen quite taxing, and it couldn't hurt to be properly rested and ready.

As if to disagree with this idea, a polite knock on the door announced more work. “Come in” barrier absent-mindedly said. The scribe he had sent off with a message some time ago stood before him again. A letter with an unknown seal in hand. Given the circumstances, he assumed this new seal belonged to the wo. “You have my permission to read opejn this letter and read it to me.” He would do it himself were it not for the fact his dripping wet tentacles would probably render the ltter completely unreadable moments after touching it.

Before this letter, the ambassador had felt quite ambivalent about the wo. He had no frame of reference about them, so he couldn't really make a clear judgement on them. What he heard now quite disappointed him though. It seemed they were under the naive impression the council could ever agree on something. “Messenger, prepare a secure extranet relay. I have a confidential message to send back home.

[hr]
[@Monkeypants]
[center][u][b]Sattelite horve-3 delta. Wo border system Horve.[/b][/u][/center]

Coral-3 sighed in frustrated disappointment. The union's answer had been swift, dismissive and frank. “Of course they'd rather sit in their little bubble of ignorance... the damnable fools would burn in the light of knowledge!” She exclaimed in her anger. Her apprentices and subordinates had swam off elsewhere, they know their overseer wanted to be alone in situations when she was colored as bright red as she was right now. It had been far from the first time some government body had brushed her off as just another crackpot. The fuming overseer drifted around her office, still fuming mad, when she received another message.

“Oh great, just what I need, some union shill clogging the system with adver...” It took her a moment to realize the message wasn't immediately forwarded to the digital file shredder. Either this wasn't a spam ad or coral needed to yell at her IT-assistant to update the filter again. Still somewhat irked after her earlieroutburst, she slowly swam back to her workstation. When she actually started reading the message, her residual anger ebbed away like a river running dry. She pressed the built-in pager on her desk to call an assistant over, and used her other tentacles to quickly write up a new log file. By the time an assistant had gathered the courage to enter her office, she was already emptying cabinets left and right, gathering up all sorts of tools. “Y...yes, overseer?” The young qulseoc asked. Coral turned her head as she continued gathering her things. “Prepare a transport, we're following a lead.” The asisstant frowned in confusion... This was something that hadn't evr happened before. “Really?” he asked. Coral's immediate color-shift to red filled him with regret about his apparantly wrong answer. “Yes really you brain-dead mussel!” Coral shouted across the room.

And so, about an hour or so later. The research station's long-range transport departed. It was quite a pristine ship, having never really seen much use before today, equipped with all sorts of deep space scanning tools and other equipment a research vessel would need.

“Overseer... where are we going?” Another asisstant asked. The question snapped coral out of her giddy excitement. “Ah, we're going to union space... That reminds me, get me hammerhead-1. I need to discuss some cybersecurity measures with him.” The asisstant swam off again. A brief ping sounded through the ship. “Marianas drive engaging” A computerized voice announced. Coral turned a pinkish red with excitement again. For some reason she had always liked the tingly feeling FTL travel gave her in her tentacles.

Edit: second part is for monkeypants.