[snip, cut & paste]

It was four days later almost when the Merrimack and the Alstair ship arrived at the Alstair Prime system. The system was small planet wise only four in total. But it did have a high concentration of moons around all four planets. 24 in total in fact. Scans picked up that the third planet was Class-M and likely was Alstair Prime itself. It was quite a lovely world on scans, lush almost jungle like lands, with carefully cared for cities respectful of nature. There were a sizable amount of large lakes as well salt and fresh type. The other planets and moons were equally mineral rich for trade goods should they decide to do so or just for their own selves making them quite independent. Space traffic was made up of a few sublight system ships which were not much bigger than a small courier ship within the Federation 2-6 man craft at most. They all gave passing scans and attention to the Merrimack as the Alstair ship they had rescued lead the way into the system. A radio broadcast from said ship soon likely set any tensions at ease as the First on the ship explained in brief what had happened. Permission was soon relayed for the Merrimack to enter orbit of the third planet and that the Tri-Council would be alerted to their presence and requests for a meeting and to please stand by.

“Mr Pokorski, take us into standard orbit,” Glen instructed the Navigator.

”..Aye sir! Entering orbit.” Pokorski said.

“Inola, keep all channels open, monitor any hails!” Glen instructed Communications.

“Kord?” Glen asked, “Your first impressions?”

“Standard budding warp society. Confident and curious. They seem to be primarily female and view us males as a curiosity. At least by outward appearances. System wise, they have abundant resources. Quite capable of remaining independent and self sufficient but also a desirable target should they be discovered by the likes of the Ferengi or Orions.” Kord postulated.

“Never heard of them!” replied Glen. “That only being female thing is interesting though. Is there one single male back on Alstair, pampered like a Queen Bee, or do they create offspring in test tubes from laboratories? I’m still curious about this Tri-Council. What is there three of? Three males? Three fertile women? Or just three elders?”

Kord shrugged. “I have refrained from asking taking precautions in case it is a taboo subject.”

“That was probably very wise,” Glen replied.

Inola perked up slightly, overhearing. “Sirs, the Tri-Council is made up of a representative from each of their significant clans.” She was glad she had decided to question the Third on the political system.

“That’s useful to know,” Glen replied, “Thanks!”

“Inola,” Glen asked, ” are you receiving anything other than static and dead air? Try all frequencies.”

“No sir. There’s nothing but an echo.”

The comm systems finally came alight with replies once the Merrimack came into a standard orbit. Translations took a moment for Inola but eventually she got a simple audio message and simiplier text message to accompany it. =/\= USS Merrimack, we the Tri-Council members welcome you to our home. We have received news of your ability to transmit by matter teleportation. You may either use this or a manual extracurricular vehicle to land at the following coordinates to meet with us within 30 local minutes. =/\= It said. The voice on the end was female sounding in the usual sing song like tones.

William only took passing scans so to avoid any hostile appearances. Of course, he’d prefer to take as many deep dive scans as he could as a new civilization being discovered was a Scientists’s dream.

“William,” Glen asked, “have your passive scans detected anything? What do your instruments read? Can you increase range?”

Scans revealed much of what they already were seeing a primitive by their standards barely warp capable race of what seemed an all female based humanoid species. Longer range scans showed the region they were in showed a high volume of rogue asteroids, comets, and a likelihood at time for Ion storms. Though no such storms were in evidence right now.

“Not much unexpected,” William said turning around in his chair to face the Captain “Technology on par with their current interstellar capabilities. The system does have a large number of asteroids and comets floating around” He looked back momentarily “Also the likelihood for Ion Storms in the near future, nothing to be concerned about right now.”

“Plot courses of the major asteroids,” instructed Glen, “See if any pose a thread to their planet, and whether we can do anything about that.”

Glen contacted Sickbay. =/\= Dr. Saark, are you Alstair patients well enough to be transported to planetary hospitals? is this something we should have arranged yet?”

• Glen, CO