Vrillex~

The ship was deathly silent as the furless being on their screen suddenly shifted from a professional tone to the tone that of a raving lunatic, seemingly at the very sight of his species. Vrillex was somewhat frozen as he considered the possibilities from the creature's reaction to him. The being seemed emotionally unstable in some form or fashion and it was in command of a small capital-class vessel. His heart raced at the implications that this unstable of a being could be a military leader, based on the highly weaponized warship before him. The more he looked at the being's face the worse it got, her forward-facing eyes weren't uncommon, neither were her small pointed teeth. No, what was uncommon was the look of pure bloodlust on the creature. Its face was twisted into a maddened grin, it had a blazing fire in its eyes, and it seemed to tremble with excitement. Likely it was excitement for the hunt.

As Vrillex's mind swam with these potentially disastrous possibilities Rialla reached over his arm and set the autopilot to fly them to Avalon, the home of the High Council. The ship lurched backward as it began to cycle the FTL drive, shaking Vrillex from his ruminations. "Th-they're not chasing? Oh, thank the goddess."

With a look of shock, Vrillex stared at Rialla who had collapsed in relief as she hit the escape. "Why Rialla?! What if they use this to justify a war? Oh goddess what have we done? We have no idea what they are capable of?!" he said as he slammed his fist down onto his console.

By now, everyone on the bridge who wasn't still stunned by the godly display earlier was now staring at the two as they argued. Rialla was breathing heavily as she shakily stared back at Vrillex, "Think about it Vrillex! They claimed to be a cargo freighter! A cargo freighter that could match our Capital ships! They had so many different guns on that ship it looked like a damned Sea Urchin! Their guns were larger than some of our destroyer-class ships. Then, to top it all off, that creature began to scream obscenities at us while nearly frothing at the mouth! It looked at us the same way the Fellis do!" She cracked her tail against the deck of the bridge like a whip to punctuate her point and get her anger across.

Vrillex eyed her cautiously while he slowly shook his head with a saddened look in his eye. "Rialla... You are right that the alien was suspect, however, you might have just doomed us to war with a civilization that has the ability to literally teleport a capital ship." With a heavy sigh, Vrillex took a pause to let his point sink in. "Rialla, I know you were concerned with the lives of everyone aboard this ship... But... We are soldiers. You should not have let your emotions pull you into doing that. I am also somewhat at fault though. Doing nothing can be worse than doing something wrong. Let us hope the Council is merciful to us... And more importantly, let us hope to the goddess that the 'Terran Imperium' is not represented by that being." With that last sentence Vrillex spoke, a chill descended upon those on the bridge.

----------

The three Atteni~

Valthan finally snapped out of his reverie for his new gods when he realized that they were moving away from the object of his worship. He stood up quickly and bolted out of the bridge heading to the emergency life pods. His heart was pounding as he flew through the corridors of the ship. He had found his purpose in life, all he wanted was to study that godlike technology. As he ran through the tight corridors he came upon the intersection leading to the escape pods where he ran into another younger Atteni. The collision of the two knocked both of them to the deck of the ship with some coughing and confusion. After a moment of recovery, Valthan looked towards the one he had just gotten a little too acquainted with. "Valenthi? What are you doing here?"

Valenthi rubbed her forehead and groaned before giving Valthan a look of disdain and saying with all the sarcasm she could muster, "Apparently I'm being a linebacker for sprintball. Goddess, could you have hit me any harder?!"

Valthan looked somewhat embarrassed and was about to offer an apology, but his ears perked up as he heard rhythmic tapping followed by ragged breath coming from another corridor. The two Atteni stared down the corridor in confusion before they saw the weather image of old So'Ran rounding the corner with a cane in hand and a few personal effects stuffed into the pockets of his robe. Valenthi looked at the diminutive old man incredulously before blurting out, "Old man So'Ran!? What are you doing running at your age?! Why here? Did something go wrong?!" she asked as a dark look crossed her features.

So'Ran struggled to catch his breath enough to formulate a reply, but he managed to eke out a "Those... T-Terrans... I need... *cough* to see them... I'm a Xeno...biologist." he took a long breath before continuing, "I am a Xenobiologist, their bodies fascinated me to no end. The creature's exclamation that we were 'only' 2 feet tall insinuates that they are significantly larger, however the largest of the races in the Galactic compact barely reaches 5 feet. I am oh so interested in studying their physiology. They may even be more than 5 feet tall... Can you imagine? A 6-foot tall being... That's two to three times our own height! Goddess, they must tower over most."

Valthan chuckled to himself momentarily before he turned back to Valenthi with a questioning look. She huffed and answered his implied question. "So'Ran and I came to this ship for transportation to the planet Falligoth 3 to collect biosamples and study the native sentient species. Somehow I doubt that's priority one now and that ship we saw used technology so advanced I can't even imagine how literally any of it was made. I'm not passing up this opportunity to study technologies that are so near to the realm of godhood."

With the other two having answered already, they looked back at Valthan expectantly. He shrugged and gave them a small smirk, "Their engineering feats that we just witnessed are impossible according to our current knowledge and that likely only scratched the surface of what they can do. I need to know more. I need to learn the secrets of those who have ascended to the realm of technological godhood. As an engineer, I literally cannot let this opportunity pass."

With a smile, Valenthi hopped up onto her feet and helped Valthan up, "C'mon, we've gotta get out of here before the Captain catches us. The Council wouldn't want to let us two go so he might lock us down." she said as she pulled Valthan and So'Ran with her into one of the nearby Escape pods.

The trio hopped into the escape pod and they all looked at one another to confirm none got cold feet. Once they had all confirmed that they were good to go So'Ran triggered the launch, inputting the coordinates they just left as the pod decoupled. In the bridge, alarms began blaring with a high-pitched klaxon while a message popped up on the main screen reading, "Escape pod A3 launched." The whole bridge erupted into a flurry of activity as they started working to find out what happened. A few seconds later communications officer Zrin yelled over the alarms to the Captain. " Captain, sir! I have a message here coming from the escape pod that launched! I am putting it on the main viewscreen now!" Everyone on the bridge stopped to watch the message from the now castaways.

So'Ran began the message. " I have greatly enjoyed my time aboard your ship captain Vrillex. I will never forget my time with all of you wonderful people, but... I have to learn more. Please, do tell my family I love them if... If I do not make it back alive." A sad smile creased his tired face before he shifted the camera to Valenthi.

Valenthi just looked at the camera gave a small sigh and began her message. "Sorry about this mom, dad... Tell sis that I'll be home before she finishes school... I know that you're calling me a troublemaker right now but... Well..." she chuckled to herself and wiped a tear away before continuing with a voice full of awe. "You just had to have seen it... These people they... Well, it looks like they just bent reality itself to their will. A hole twisted and cracked space one second, and the next a capital ship appeared. There was no FTL... They simply opened space and walked on through... I have to know how they did it. I have to know what compelled them as a species to achieve such heights." with a look that somehow managed to mix 'somber' and 'excited' she passed the camera to Valthan.

He stared at it for a moment before closing his eyes solemnly, "I have no special message. I simply wish to learn from these gods." he slowly opened his eyes and stared at the camera with a resolved look before uttering a single phrase, "Pursuit of knowledge over the fear of death." with that said the camera cut off.

So'Ran leaned back and let out a tired old sigh. "Ah to be young again... I used to be as stoic as you, you know. Alas, age really does creep upon one quite quickly." Valenthi burst out laughing and Valthan gave him a wry grin.

Captain Vrillex stared at the screen in utter shock until the video feed cut out. The room was deathly silent for a moment longer until Vrillex muttered, "Fuck" and dropped his face into his hands. "Those were all high security clearance individuals... The Council is going to kill me. I have potentially made an enemy of a class S warlike civilization, lost a class A Xenobiologist, his class B assistant who majored in cultural studies, and a fucking class A engineer. He has built FTL units without assistance... He can tell them literally everything, willingly or not... Ohhhh we are fucked. Double fucked even." his defeated voice rung through the hearts of those gathered close enough to hear him. Soon enough, everyone had adopted a look of utter defeat.