Blood and Bone

The alien looking ships were strange but didn't seem to be armed so we tried to communicate with them in every way we could think of and nothing seemed to work and we were getting frustrated honestly did they even have receivers of any kind? It wasn't long before the aliens proved that yes they did have a radio but it transmitted in a frequency more associated with animals than intelligent life and the modulation sounded like whale song. Communication with the aliens seemed like it would be difficult but when they suddenly accelerated at speeds none of my ships could match except possibly my newest class of ship the fighters I knew we were out matched but luckily they seemed to be unarmed atleast with conventional weapons and they were accelerating out system so I ordered the stand down and then we attempted to parse what they were saying.

Our best scientific minds worked on decifering the alien language night and day for weeks and finally they had an idea what the aliens had sent it was a translation of sorts starting from hydrogen to complex mathematics and condensed down to a short 15 seconds long transmission it was a translation matrix and so we spread it to the fleet and we waited for them to return. We waited 8 months for them to come and had nearly quit waiting and then they arrived. The aliens came back but this time they had something that clearly resembled a warship with them turrets and all one thing I did take note of was that the turrets appeared to be entirely beam based and while it had a electronic signature it was closer to a destroyer class ship but in a hull along the lines of a battleship.

I greeted the aliens using our translation software and sent one of our own first essentially the same thing they had sent only in English though I didn't compress it nearly as much as they had theirs I'd even included all of the elements we knew of that apparently they hadn't encountered yet. The alien fleet spent 15 hours crunching through the data and then I sent my main message basically "who are you and why are you here" and then they sent back a freaking novel at this point we were still using text for communication so yeah I was glad I'd learned speed reading when it came in I'll tell you that. Reading through their response I learned that they were the survivors of a battle against a superior race and were here to colonize a planet in the system and were willing to trade with us if they were allowed to do so basically.

After some discussion and hard thought on it I could see no down side to the offer infact they might have a technology I could use so it was decided that we would agree and even assist with their efforts under the condition that this would be on a trial basis for a period of 10 years and would be discussed again at that point to determine if it was a viable plan at that point essentially. The aliens agreed and sent us the information on the planet they wanted to colonize and honestly I was surprised on their choice it was Alpha they wanted to colonize Alpha so I said sure go for it and offered any assistance they might require and they certainly took me up on that offer I did warn them that there was a colony already on the planet and that it would be wise to keep a good distance from it for their safety the colonists were dangerous.

I played up our Alpha colony as a bunch of degenerate people and the aliens bought it and settled the other side of the planet I really didn't want to explain that the so called degenerates were actually slaves in all but name and were strip mining the mountain as penance for the crime of being pirates. The Alien Alpha colony was quickly assembled and they were soon growing their own food and I offered them samples of our basic crops for testing to see if it was edible and apparently onions were entirely edible for them and their exact words after testing and sampling them were "we love this soft fruit can we get more of them" I was a bit flabbergasted honestly but I offered them a crate a month of them which they quickly agreed and soon we were steadily shipping them onions the soft fruit which caused no amount of consternation and humor amoung the human population of the system.

The aliens we found out that they called themselves the Wawenog and we learned allot about their ships when their enemy arrived a fleet of 12 frigate size ships armed with autocannons of approximately 30mm caliber probably enough to slowly chip away at the Wawenog ships armor and then penetrate into the vulnerable interior. The lone Wawenog warship which we learned was a dreadnought and from their relative size this kind of made sense they were all under a meter tall and that size of ship would be massive apparently they had never seen a ship the size of our battle cruisers before either and it was when their foes landed in system that we realized just how outmatched the Wawenog were.

The 12 frigates proceeded to target the Wawenog warship but they were on the edge of the system so I asked the Wawenog ship to stand by and we would handle the issue we sent a translation package and received one in return and then once we had a working translation we messaged them asking "This is Human Empire space please state your purpose here" for all intents and purposes I wanted them to know we claimed this area and would be staying. The enemy replied "We are The AchornvonGi and we demand that you allow us to destroy the Wawenog outpost in your system they are our mortal enemies and you would be well advised not to interfere" my response was short and concise "No they have accepted protectorate status and thus are our charges under empire law an attack on them is a declaration of war on the human Empire" and then deciding on the spur of the moment to send a video file I bared my teeth in what on earth amoung animals was a threat display and said "we welcome you to try" and ended the message then put the fleet on condition Alpha full combat mode the first enemy ship to fire would be obliterated in a hail of fire.

The AchornvonGi fleet opened fire on my battle cruiser but their 30mm guns were no more effective than humanities own and did little to our shields so I ordered the fleet to stand down and had our railgun fire on the lead ship and in a flash it was obliterated into tumbling chunks of alloys and scrap metal after which the AchornvonGi fleet fled at maximum acceleration. We redesignated the AchornvonGi to the AhGi for less word stumbling in the future and continued with our patrol of the system meanwhile the Wawenog were utterly impressed by the fire power our ships possessed and by the impervious defenses we had and I told them simply "we are a warlike species does it really shock you that we have developed weapons of war so unlike your own when we kill each other for resources?".

The Wawenog pondered my words for six months before they messaged us and asked to speak to me and that conversation went something like this "Wawenog ambassador: Oh great and powerful human may we become your servants" my response "no but you may be our allies" this left the Wawenog confused and they asked for clarification so I told them what that meant in humanities terms and this they agreed with except participating in our wars and I agreed and so it was that we had gained a new ally and some new technology while they studded what technology I'd shared with them needless to say I didn't give them the best stuff we had but I didn't skimp out either I gave them shield technology albeit a more primitive version of modern shields and the knowledge required to refine metals which apparently they hadn't developed yet.