The diplomatic barge docked with the galactic council’s station. A new intelligent species had recently appeared before the galactic council of species and requested membership. Intrigued, the council granted them a meeting to see if they would be a suitable candidate for a council seat. After all, the council would try any species once. That, and the council had support from the larger members’ militaries, should anything go wrong.

The doors of the docking ring opened and out of the atmospheric fog came a peculiar series of creatures. They were quadrupeds, small in stature, white fur with black speckles, two ears, a wagging tail, a snout, and a soft but dry leathery nose. As they passed by the security and lower council members, they woofed up at the far larger aliens.

There were fifteen of them in total. Most of them walked on their four legs. A couple were positioned in an unusual sitting position and hopped along. These two members would sometimes trip and fall forward, which elicited excited noises from the other thirteen as they righted their fallen comrade. This immediate helping behavior was treated as normal by the council station crews, though all the aliens there had a brow raised in whatever version their species used in response to all this. Why bring handicapped members? And surely by now if they had faster-than-light travel, they would have long fixed any handicap problems. No matter, though.

One by one the aliens of the galactic council noticed something off. Something off besides the two handicapped creatures. And one by one they grew stressed and horrified. No, they would not let their biology get the best of them! The aliens shifted uncomfortably at their posts as they welcomed the newcomers to the station.

A hovering translator droid proceeded the diplomatic crew of the barge around the station. The creatures followed the council’s delegation as they talked about what the council stood for, which was to be peaceful council for all of the galaxy’s member civilizations and sentient species and to defend them from any external threat, which were mostly lawless pirates and bandits, but nothing the council’s security fleet or assisting member militaries couldn’t handle.

The newcomers followed the delegation with wonders in their eyes. They were not really paying attention to the delegation’s words; they were much more interested in the station itself and all of its rooms and surfaces and curves and angles. And places to sit and sleep on. The station was much larger than their lowly diplomatic barge, which was only a thousand kilometers cubed. This station looked to be a great area to explore, being it was the size of a small planet.

The aliens were not amiss when it came to the figures of the diplomatic barge, though. It was a pyramid that was resting on one of its base vertices, and a thousand kilometers cubed meant it was ten kilometers by ten kilometers at the base and ten kilometers long (would have been tall if the pyramid wasn’t sideways). The candidates mentioned it was unarmed, which the councilors assumed meant all military-grade equipment was removed or offline. Security was a little less sure, since they were unable to scan the great vessel, and that it dwarfed most council vessels. Only the largest battleships and freighters came to or exceeded the barge’s size range. Though, luckily, the council station was also the home port of the council fleet, which outnumbered the barge two hundred to one.

Eventually, the delegation and the candidates came to a vast hall where the council sessions took place. The candidates were ushered into a floating booth. It was a machine that could fly off into the center of the auditorium and allow other member delegations to view the speakers when they were given a chance to talk. The machine had chairs and lounges that fit for the specific member species it belonged to. Additional facilities like water bubbles and such were custom fit for each delegation. The newcomers accepted a basic machine booth.

The head of the council initiated the session.

“As the chancellor of the galactic council, I will start this meeting preclude to judge the character of this ... species, before a vote is called to approve or disapprove their inclusion into our galactic council of species.”

The chancellor motioned for the newcomers to speak.

“Before I pass the floor to you, start off by explaining who you are. The translator droid will do its best.”

One of the newcomer aliens hopped up on the machine booth’s podium and pressed the button to launch it into the air. When it was in position in front of the rest of the councilors, the creature began.

“We are ... Catalums...”

The creature started off, squeaky voice notwithstanding.

Outside the main meeting auditorium, a security team sat, doing their duty in watching over the meeting. One of them members, Dale, a Human male, perked his ears up at the name of the newcomers.

“Catalums? Oh no.”

The other four members of his team, equals to him, named Ytryui (Icornian male), Weras (Jaxlin male), Qpoimn (Keranian male), and Gfaras (Czamnoan; hermaphrodite, though would pass as male for military standards), all perked up.

“Explain.” Straight to the point, Gfaras was. The other three nodded.

“On another job I did before working here, in one of the satellite galaxies nearby, I worked on a galactic council station much like this one. I was but a lowly security captain. A delegation of Catalums came and pronounced they were the rulers of the galaxy.

“As you could expect, being a people fifteen centimeters tall at best, they were laughed at. Especially considering they showed up in a small ship with low level technology for any species that would be permitted around their council.

“They were not some backwaters nobody species. They just appeared to be. The ship turned out to be a shuttlecraft from one of their smaller warships, which was cloaked nearby. No one. Could sense the cloaked vessel, technology, magic, or psionics. It was such perfect cloaking technology that governments would pay entire galactic arms worth of solar systems into slavery to have.

“It turned out the council’s positioning of their station was in the middle of a sector made up of artificial stars and starships the size of planets. The “warship” was closer to a starfighter in their eyes, despite being about a dozen kilometers tall, wide, and long. I investigated what these guys called their diplomatic barge, and it’s of the same dimensions.”

“Individual Catalums are associated with an individual ship. While only one ship might reveal itself, there are more. Since there are fifteen little creatures, there are fifteen ships. I don’t know if they’re all the same size as the barge or if they’re larger designs. I’m almost one hundred sure there’s a couple of larger ships that we don’t know about. A group of them aliens would not simply wander into our galaxy without a heavier escort.”

Opoimn spoke next. “What happened to their council?”

“Their council fleet was torn to shreds and their council was forced to recognize the Catalum rulers lest further damage was dealt. Look, those guys might look like cute cuddly creatures, but they’re so far advanced every planet in our council here might as well be the technological level of bacteria to them.”

“Then why not axe us all and be done with it?” That was Weras. As a jaxlin, Weras knew what superior technological species would do to inferior ones.

“Catalum are essentially puppy dogs. In looks and a lot of their demeanor. They behave more like children or in some cases, pets, rather than a civilization of hyper-advanced beings. Knowing them a bit, I wouldn’t be surprised if they completely ignored the council up until this point in favor of looking for places to play. The council of course wouldn’t know the difference.”

“Then let’s pray that what happened in your old job doesn’t come here, Dale,” said Opoimn. The others nodded.

Back at the booth podiums with all the councilors, the Catalums were explaining themselves.

“We are simple people that live in our starships. We seek only to become part of the community. This place is away from our home territories anyways.”

“Reasonable, I suppose. Alright, let’s do a vote. Anyone here opposed, speak up or forever hold your peace,” said the chancellor.

No one spoke for a moment. The chancellor took that as no opposition and was about to open his mouth and confirm the newcomers a seat in the council when the entire room exploded in horrified and terrified voices.

“They’re PREDATORS!”

“The eyes! They’re the mark of evil!”

“Only predators have eyes facing forward!”

“We refuse to grant predators equal seating!”

And on and on and on. Hundreds of delegates from dozens of civilizations called out their woes in anger, disgust, horror, and terror. The small aliens on the booth machine huddled together, crying and terrified of all the loud noises.

A particle shield enveloped the booth machine, shielding the aliens inside from noises and potential weapon fire.

“Murphy’s Law,” sighed Dale. “If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. What have we gotten into, guys?”

Weras pressed his lips together and started:

“Well, for starters, that vessel parked outside is one hundred percent guaranteed to have its weapons and defenses online. I would imagine the other fourteen vessels in the area Dale proposed would be there would have decloaked in the vicinity of the station too.

“Beyond that, I don’t know. They mentioned that they’re away from their territories. That would imply that this galaxy is outside the official Catalum Empire. So, I don’t know if any other ships beyond the fifteen that are present will respond.

“That being said, if history rhymes, those fifteen ships will easily outgun the council fleet. I don’t know if they’ll take the station down, but that fleet is definitely outgunned.”

The others had a somber outlook on all of this. There were at least fifty major warships out there, backed by a hundred and fifty support ships. Fifteen to fifty would normally be suicide to attack into. If these Catalums were what Dale was saying, things could get messy quick.