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Once the initial fervor of the Jump had died down and all of the ships in her Pack had reported back operational, Shisali allowed herself a musical 'cher' noise of pleased satisfaction. All was well, so far, with no signs - immediately - of anything else alive in the void around them. A crewman in the pit below her relays a message from the scientists elsewhere in the ship, however. The signals that were distant and distorted in Essok space were deliberate and clear, here. Surely, they were vastly closer to -something- with intelligence enough to broadcast.
The Alpha's tails hit the deck with a deliberate 'thump!' to galvanize the rest of the bridge crew as she makes her orders known.
"The cloud at the edge of our sensors. What is it?"
"Ice." Answers a technician with a dip of her head, "A nearby star's outter Oort Cloud."
Shisali clicks her jaws, "Move us amongst the debris. Hunter's Moon and Stormbreak shall remain in the open and perform their duty. We shall come if they call, but it is best we hide our teeth."
The ships move, engines only exerting enough force to get them moving and even then the emmissions are only slightly more impressive then a dead asteroid breaking up. As they approach the glittering icefield, two ships slowly lag until they are left behind entirely as the fleet slips into the cover of the massive crystals. A dangerous, if not suicidal, tactic? Not to the ultra-thick hulls of Essok ships. They nestle close to larger icebergs, and the impact of smaller meandering bodies is shrugged off by the Carrier and Battleship that shelter the four smaller Cruisers. Suspended, they are all but invisible.
Out in the open, one of the Seeker-class battleships and a single Claw cruiser are to be the relay for this next step in the Essok mission, and must remain dangerously exposed to do so. Bolstered by the new data in clearer transmissions, scientists aboard the vessels craft and hone their own neat package of intelligence. They had been listening for years, picking apart and analyzing. What snippets of language floated through the void had primarily come from large, advanced coalitions like the Stellarium, the Maunkee, and The Dominion.. but the Essok did not yet have names for these people, nor a firm grasp of any particular tongue. Still. What they had would have to suffice. And with crooned wishes for good luck, a powerful burst-transmission errupts from the battleship Hunter's Moon, bound for no particular destination.
The data bundle was uniquely alien, given how well other cultures were meshing. The Essok language examples contained within were a chorus of reptilian rumbles and bird-like trills that often crossed generaly accepted ranges of audible. But another layer contained the universal language of Math, hoping to prove sentience, and a third, final layer was a broken example of the few languages they had heared most often.
Essok are here. Essok will learn. Will explore. Wish learn. Wish explore. Wish no blood.
Short, and had the potential to make the Essok seem incredibly primitive. But without a clean grasp of culture, it had been decided that a simple transmission had less of a chance to offend. The transmission was 'loud', signature speaking, and it would not be difficult to trace the origins to the two ships that now hung in cautious silence.
Briefly, Starpack Alpha Shisali wished the cool metal beneath her claws was the safe earth of a home burrow.