Hello, I am Zhero, this is my XO Whan, and our assistants Dgu and Trey, may we come aboard? And then they were there, right in front of us in my Stateroom, with a holographic image of Titania in the center of the group. We have seen these before, but never in such great detail.

 To Cat and the Crew of the Leopard and Moria, greetings! There is much to discuss, and many things we can share, we are an explorer race, when we found what you call Titania we were as shocked as you, never in nature does this occur, and we have been searching for the answer ever since.

 

1k years and you don’t know what you are dealing with? Aren’t you like Interstellar travelers? How do you not know? Oh we know what they are, we just don’t know who, or why they would go to such links to protect,…  I have said too much, I need to consult with my Superiors, we will contact you in one Earth cycle,  and then they were gone. 

 

 What in Mars Gates was that? We have almost no info to go on except for the one thing nagging at me. Seamus, what do you think they meant when they said protect? protect who? from what? “I don’t rightly know Cat, but it appears they have almost no defensive capabilities, I estimate 5 minutes tops to blow them from the sky” No Seamus, not yet, we need to do this right, keep your boys ready and those plans of yours at hand, we may need em.

 

Funeral for a traitor

 

“Cat we just had an unplanned egress at airlock 4, one soul out, presumed lost” Get on it Now!

What the hell just happened? I thought as I ran to the airlock, then I saw Seamus, ashen faced, as if he had been spaced. Seamus, what happened? He held up 2 S4 shaped charges, “Cat I know you were smitten by the lass, but she were a spy and saboteur, my boy Calvin found her planting these in the reactor room, Woulda destroyed the ship for certain.” You spaced Angelique? With no evidence that she did this? But I knew better, we have plenty of video and telemetry, and why would Seamus lie about such a thing? Jealousy? hardly, he made the right move, but damned if I wasn’t fooled by the lady, probably CCP,  now I have no Disc partner, they really do hate me.

 

Truth be told

 

 They arrived on time in the stateroom, only Zhero and his XO this time which was fine with me, it gets cramped in here. Time to explain Cat, you see, the Titania are located in the Oort cloud at very specific points, and have a type of variable gravity, which is constantly changing, your own ships have compensated for this according to our data. Great, they are scanning us. We also know that they are not solid Titanium, they merely mimic the element.

 

  As time progressed, we noted a lack of disturbed orbits around each anomaly and realized that they were keeping the Oort objects from crashing into the Solar System. Granted, a few get through every cycle but it appears to be a robust defence, Humans need this Cat, there are abundant riches in the cloud, and we will point them out to you, but under no circumstances are you to attempt to mine the Anomalies, or suffer the penalties, oh no! Not from us, from them.

 

The devil you know

 

 The Tuyani, true to their word, showed us some valuable rocks that Seamus lassoed and sent homeward, so the Boys were happy, then the fun began, if you want to call it that. It seems as though the CCP were headed toward an Anomaly themselves, and the Tuyani had no defences, WTF? Zhero, what are you doing with no defence? We were hoping you could help Cat, the CCP is moving on several Anomalies, with hopes of taking them. They will be sadly mistaken, but this will shake up the Cloud in unknown ways, we need to stop it, now.

To be continued