[b]New Jordun Inner-Territory System[/b]
[i][u]New Jordun High Orbit, Third Fleet Standby Position-- Flagship HMFCV PRIDE'S BREATH[/u][/i]

	Alarms sang their high-pitched, siren scream as an automated message of clicks and snickers pierced the cacophony, demanding that all active crew were to report to their stations. Hundreds of Taybuse across the ship scampered through tight corridors, some scrambling up ladder-like steps set into walls to reach their consoles and stations. Fighter pilots scrambled into their ships in the launch bay, the low hangar ceiling oppressive and dark as they fit themselves into the bullet-like craft, designed to be fired out launch tubes like a mass accelerator. 

	Inside the Ready Room adjacent to Command Information Center, or CIC, more commonly known as the Bridge, stood a Tayb with black and white laurels hanging from his shoulders, a hood of similar plain colors draped over the crest expanding from either side of his skull. A rattling hiss emerged from the Tayb's mouth as he received the first sensor scans-- an entire fleet, at first a ghost and then rapidly dropping from cloak-- or warp?-- some distance from New Jordun's orbit, still in interplanetary space.

	[i]Unacceptable,[/i] hissed his thoughts. [i]Who dares enter Inner-territory without permission? The Vastayans...? All the ships are of unknown design. Not the Vastayans...[/i] 

	Growling in the Tayb's clickity fashion, the Admiral rose from his comfortable seat the same moment a Tayb burst into his Ready Room. Slimmer and more refined, this aristocrat was here for the experience a little else; nonetheless the human equivalent of a midshipman snapped a salute at the sight of the Admiral, quickly hissing his apologies for interrupting, and relaying the XO's request for his presence on the bridge.

	Emerging from his Ready Room at the rear of the CIC, he barked out at the assembled bridge crew. They hissed back, affirming that he was taking command. The XO paused, before repeating what the officers had just said, formally transferring command. The Admiral, not bothering to reply, marched forward to where the XO was hastily stepping away from the holographic map and the Commander's Command Console next to it. It was the commander officer's place to stand in front of the assembled bridge crew, unyielding and without need of creature comforts while in command.

	With another series of commands, the entire fleet began to re-orient itself. One of the Commonwealth's only major fleet carriers was on the front of a possible offensive, and one of the first commands was the launch starfighters, then bombers.

	One Fleet Carrier, a squadron of Heavy and Battle-cruisers, two squadrons of Light Cruisers, and three squadrons of Support Carriers, plus a couple squadrons of Missile Destroyers and multiple Corvette squadrons.

	[i]Only a few dozen ships against over ten times our number. Who are they, and what do they want?![/i]

	Messages were already being sent back to Fleet Command, untraceable and undetectable. Orders were being received at the same time, and real time communications were being set up for highest level of Admirals and politicians to watch the engagement. However, they were not to overstep their bounds and give the commanding Admiral direct orders; such a thing wasn't a problem only a few years ago, but the reveal of instantaneous communications also brought a bill to be passed-- commanding officers could not be removed or overruled unless in the most dire of circumstances, such as treason or somesuch. 

	Which meant all decisions were up to the Admiral, who was listening to a message sent to them from a foreign, unmet race. 

	SAIPri-FCV003-- the name of the Shipboard Artificial Intelligence for Pride's Breath, FCV003-- flickered into being over the holographic display of rapidly updating information. Several patrols around the system began reporting in over the quantum communication link, routed through CentCom, rapidly amounting to another dozen ships out in interplanetary space who could flank the hostile fleet if need be. The floating Tayb head that made the AI's visual studied the display quietly, already following orders given to it to decipher the alien language. It wasn't that the aliens hadn't deciphered their own language- a simple enough process, given that there were thousands of aliens on each of the Free Trade Worlds, where such information could be easily sourced- but rather then phrasing. They put the message into their language, but the syntax was difficult and strange, likely to cause a headache or two in any Tayb that tried to read and understand it as it was written.

	From its four launch tubes, the Fleet Carrier began firing starfighters out, spitting them into seemingly random directions as they exited the ship and dropped under cloak. Little more than a cockpit with all its supplies, a drive core and a reactor, plus weapon mounts, the starfighters were easily the weakest and the fastest ships in the Taybusen arsenal. Twenty minutes after the first sensor readings of the foreign fleet, and they were surrounded- or what constitutes for it in the vastness of space. The three torpedoes each starfighter had was locked onto a variety of ships that were identified and targeted by the carrier's active sensors, letting the fighters remain undetected and passive, under cloak, and still be prepared to fight. Shortly afterwards followed bombers-- carrying thrice the load of torpedoes, and not a single plasma weapon between them, instead opting for compact laser turrets-- and then gunboats-- larger ships that barely fit into the launch tubes and could probably wipe out a few Corvettes on their own.

	The gunboats were, in many ways, the Taybuse's ace-- they had a capital ship reactor and drive core, with a fully modern and capital ship-sized ECM suit, plus a dozen torpedoes and multiple laser and plasma arrays. They were capable of heavy firepower, fast, and difficult to target because of the sheer amount of ECM that the gunboats had access to. 

	Like the bombers and fighters before, they didn't go active; almost all the ships in the fleet remained passive-sensors only. They were powering up, and easier to detect, but undoubtedly much harder to detect than the Fleet Carrier and its Heavy Cruisers, sweeping local and distant space with active sensors. It simultaneously made them far easier to detect, and anything nearby easier to detect as well, but it would pull off accurate targeting and fire on the smaller ships to pile it on the ships that [i]could[/i] take it. 

	Torpedo tubes were opening along the hulls of ships, power cells actively charging laser and plasma weapon capacitors, shields flickering into being around the ships. 

	Some thirty minutes after the Admiral had called battle stations and received the message of non-hostility... from a comparatively massive fleet. If they had a weak defense, and/or underestimated them, they might be able to take them on... but they were aliens. Who knew what tricks they had up their sleeves?

	<<[i]A declaration of non-hostility is recognized, attention. Trespassers in system, turn back. Numerically superior force is refused, Admiral AusUel demands majority of fleet is removed. Non-hostility aliens would threaten new friends with large military force capable of numerical conquer. Majority of Fleet is demanded to be removed; deep interstellar space preferred, warp-away preferred. Compliance leads goodwill, refusal demands hostilities. If non-hostilities genuine, fleet leave, representatives stay.[/i]>> 

	It took a while, but a suitable message was sent in reply. The Admiral, after seeing the foreigner's terrible, terrible syntax and understanding of language, wondered if they'd be able to even [i]understand[/i] proper Lagsu.