In one of the few currently occupied pads in the spaceport sat the Rapid Evening, several tones of metal that were somehow space worthy. Within this ship, in a room originally intended to be a common room for a human crew, was the beating heart of the Apis tribe who called the ship home. Appropriately for a tiny race like them that beat was lightning fast, to ears of equipment capable of hearing it the room thrummed with the rabid endless chatter of the Apis, a wall of sound that pulsed rhythmically at a dizzying pace. The room itself had been converted from its original purpose to something that looked like a senate room, rows upon rows of tiny seats set in a circular pattern around a central space. That space was occupied by the controls of the ship's communication array.
The array was something that would have looked more at home on a military intelligence ship than on a cargo ship, capable of punching through almost any interference and handling an excessive volume of communications. To become separated from the collective was akin to death to the Apis and so to ensure constant communication each one was equipped with a small communicator just above their wings, where it picked up signals from their wings and allowed them to be transmitted beyond the naturally auditory range. All those signals came here, to the heart, and every Apis could hear what was discussed within. From the Liandry pilots currently being paid to construct additional housing, to the small swarm out hunting for supplies, to the diplomatic party who had effectively lived in the Col-Ad since the nomad fleet shut down, to the 4 Apis squads watching each of the other landing pads so they could get a close look at the Scythian’s arrival, they all listened instinctively to the heart as it schemed and pondered as to how to take advantage of the current situation. To ensure the survival of the tribe and the prosperity of the species.
Their primary interest at the moment was the nomad fleet above. It was a treasure trove, an entirely intact nomad ship would have been a prize in and of itself, but an entire fleet? The things that could be learned from dismantling the ships or the possibility of reactivating one of them under their control where tantalizing prospects.
However to get there they needed permission from the colony administration to go there without the risk of taking fire from the planetary defenses. However with the general chaos that had come with the destruction of the primary planet in the system had left the small moon based colony reeling and they were understandably busy with the resulting humanitarian crises to deal with the Apis’s requests for salvage rights of the fleet. The security personnel themselves were seeming deliberately unhelpful, Chief Nero had been adamant in her refusal to even discuss the prospect of letting them leave when they went to her. As a result there was little they could do legally without waiting for the situation to calm down.
It had not gone beyond their attention that the UWG vessel had arrived in the system, a secondary advantage of such a sophisticated array was its ability to detect and attempt to parse non Apis signals like the ones that had gone between the arriving ship and the control tower. There was hope that it would alleviate the current crisis somewhat if supplies had been brought, and let proper discussion about what to do about the nomad fleet to begin. If supplies had not been brought then the Eclipse were currently in the process of drafting a proposal based on the fact that the Nomad used slaves, and those slaves needed food and, depending on the malevolent machine’s pragmatism, medicine. Things the colony was desperately in need of.
Once it was discovered where the ship was landing a swarm was organised and sent out with the Crab lifter and a Liandry to assist with any unloading that might need, mainly to ensure that the eclipse were considered when it came to rationing of those supplies. The large mechanized vehicle clanked its way across the distance to the landing pad with surprising speed, the large 4 armed mecha Knuckle-walking along beside it and a small swarm of Apis hovering above. They joined up with the observation crew, who hovered over and settled down on top of the crab with their tiny binoculars, and then the whole lot of them awkwardly joined the crowd of humans also waiting to see what the ship had brought.
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