The larger Chirr'T'Thar survey ship, Rump Biter, is off exploring a gravity signature that will hopefully be another inhabited solar system for trade. The newly appointed captain, Acacia Lightheels, is thrashing her tail in anticipation, knowing that another trade agreement now would really look good on her record.
Acacia purrs impatiently, "Anthehr, what do your sensors say?"
An older male felitaur winks at Acacia and purrs, "Still a bit odd. We're getting the equivalent readings of at least 4 gas giant masses, but are not able to fix on them yet, almost as if they were too small."
Acacia nods, "Thanks Anthehr. Selene, any sign of communications activity?"
Selene, a female even younger than Acacia, though still fully developed, shakes her head and shifts her taur body on the flight couch, "Nothing in the electromagnetic range. And with the gravity disturbances...Anthehr may be right, it may be very small."
Acacia blinks as her whiskers quiver and she purrs, "Small, but 4 Jovian masses? A collapsed star maybe?"
Anthehr shrugs and looks at Selene who mirrors his action. He purrs, "Too soon to tell captain."
Acacia nods, "Well, just be careful, but stay on course."
The ship approaches the area from "above" the ecliptic.
As the ship rises above the orbital plane, the central object becomes clearer. First it seems to be a ring.. but gradually it becomes clear that it is a tunnel into space itself. The inner walls glow with blue-green Cherenkov light, and there is no telling how far the bore extends.
Anthehr's jaw drops at the sensor readings and he mutters something that sounds like, "Not again."
Acacia frowns and notes this does NOT look good, is most likely NOT a good trading object, and she for one feels having her solar system flushed once is enough. She growls, "Selene! Check for any signs of activity. We need to find out who or what is making this. If it's the Skygazer's again, the council will give me his hide for my bedroom floor."
Selene grins despite her worry, "You'd look great on top of him, captain. ;)"
Acacia almost smiles and gives Selene a light swat, "Keep your mind on your work for now."
Above the plane, the gravitational distortion is negligible, and a scan easily detects four large objects moving outward from the rim of the artifact towards the four dark orbiting masses.
Anthehr's wings are flexing slightly along his back as all four paws worth of claws dig into his flight couch. He shakes his head, "Definitely an artificial construction. Impressive, working with neutronium on that scale is almost unheard of in our galaxy...I mean our old galaxy."
Acacia's ears go back for a moment and then she nods, "ANY sign of ships or activity?"
Anthehr blinks and rechecks his sensors, "Captain, we may have something. I can't tell if they are part of the mechanism or not, but the four objects moving towards the neutronium disks are doing so at a constant velocity."
Acacia licks her nose (a nervous habit) and purrs, "Constant velocity as they move toward a gravity well of mile wide neutronium disks? Any way to get a better look without getting caught in the gravity well ourselves?"
Anthehr hmms, "We're 2 light minutes out captain, and the objects are a few miles long at most."
Selene hmms, "We have the old exterior scopes captain. They work best in a vacuum but we rarely use them any more. They might work."
Acacia nods and motions for Anthehr to power them up as she pads over to Selene and presses a disk to her throat, "Take this subvocalizer and be careful. You promised to help me wear out Anthehr next rest period."
Selene gives Acacia a shy kiss and purrs, "I will captain. I'll be back as soon as I can get a fix on it."
Anthehr purrs, "I've gotten the fore scope online, the back one isn't responding."
Selene nods, "I'll check out that one and see if it can be fixed after I get a look at this...thing."
Selene pads lightly into the airlock, only wearing a belt pouch and some jewelry. Acacia and Anthehr watch her leave appreciatively.
The lock cycles, and the dropping pressure and temperature trigger an extremely rapid transformation in the nubile felitaur's form. Nictating membranes seal over her eyes as her lips, nostrils and other body openings fuse shut. Her skin and fur become tougher and more insulative. By the time the outer door opens, Selene is a living space vehicle, and she leaps out of the hatch and up along the top of the ship.
The eerie glow of the tunnel is barely noticeable to the eye at this distance.
Selene bounces along the top of the ship, giving the impression that her race is more at home in the vacuum of space, and it may be partly right. Her paws adhere to the hull as she moves up the large telescope, roughly 30 feet long and 2 feet in diameter that has been extended from the recesses of the hull. It's an amazing blend of optics and electronics that further amplifies the already impressive eyesight of the Chirr'T'Thar. But as it doesn't work for other races, and they don't enjoy having to suit up to view things, they've fallen into disuse. Selene does a quick check of the scope before putting her face into the viewer and powering up the amplifiers. Commands are sent by patterns of pupil movement under the protective membranes.
Quick eyes and reflexes allow Selene to home in on the nearer object. A moment for the optics to filter out the gravitational distortions, and an image resolves itself.
Selene purrs internally, the vibrations being picked up as motion by the voder at her throat, and converted to sound transmitted into the ship, **Coming into focus now captain.**
A big scaly almost-whale seems to be pushing a big silver sphere. The superimposed scale measures the whale at slightly over two miles long, and the mirror-sphere at about 100 meters across.
The whale 'releases' the sphere to fall into one of the neutronium masses, does a back flip, and zips off back to the wormhole fast enough to show only in infrared.
**By the first mother's wide areolas.**
A buzzing at her throat comes to Selene, **What is it?**
Inside, sensors report all four objects returning to the hole at high speed.
Selene subvocalizes, **Captain...it appears to be a lifeform, nearly 2 miles long, and able to fly through that gravity well like we fly in normal space!**
Anthehr's voice comes across Selene's throat. **Four of them, heading back into that hole in space. Alive? Didn't Regulator Copernicus claim he was inside some gigantic living ships once?**
Already, three of the lifeform have vanished down the hole. The fourth one loiters at the edge, then begins to turn towards the scoutship.
Acacia's voice comes across with a growl, **Next to the scratching post. His black spots on white/tan background will look good over there."
Selene's voice eeps over the voder, **Wait to place his pelt later Captain. One of them is moving our way.**
The alien advances 'relatively' slowly, in that it doesn't overtake its own light image. It pauses a few hundred thousand miles away from the scoutship.
Acacia growls over the throat voder to Selene, **Get that cute behind of yours in the ship pronto. We're getting out of here. Knowing the Skygazer's they'll be hiding the evidence...what do you mean it's already here? Kitty litter! Get inside Selene, NOW!"
The now frightened female taur takes one good look at the "ship" and then whirls, her claws digging into the hull as she races towards the open airlock.
Another four aliens flow out of the hole. If the first ones looked like whales, then these smaller ones would be sharks.. lean and dangerous looking. They take up defensive positions around the rim of the hole, as something REALLY big starts to climb out..
The airlock cycles behind Selene as the warp drives come online on Rump Biter, obviously risking a burn out as the ship prepares to go instantly to warp.
The first alien maintains its distance, while the newest and largest ponderously hauls its eight-mile length into normal space.
Anthehr continues gathering data and pumping it over the tachyon transmitter to Tharhome in the chance the Rump Biter doesn't make it. The rest of the crew is in a frenzy with the emergency warp. In less than a minute from when the first ship closed on the Rump Biter, space around the little survey ship opens up and swallows it as they race home.
Clotho watches the little ship vanish. She is certain the thing that came out of it was a lifeform, and that it operated naked to vacuum. She finds the prospect of further contact intriguing. Certainly more so than pushing blobs of neutronium slag out of the Pit..
The Rump Biter races back to Tharhome, screaming warnings at the top of it's electronic lungs, so that the entire solar system is on full alert a day before they arrive. Pictures of the aliens are passed around, but as luck would have it, the regulator of Chareka, Copernicus Skygazer Talorn, is out somewhere spending time with his alien mate, Melora.