This is the scratch board for ideas with the Confidence story...

Connie left port on February 4, 2417. Myself, Ryannktsu, Snowhawk, and Kaners are all pregnant (I was for six months before, and the other three just spent their last nights with their mates before leaving o.O naughty girls.) So, Snowhawk and Ryannktsu's pregnancies are known, but Kaners' is not, since she can hold off development for five months or so...

The story picks up in April, when Ryannktsu lays her eggs (right after the newsletter I typed up on the Confidence site on 4/6, perhaps 4/8). Ryannktsu needs to go into labor in the next couple of days. The story itself will span until late November, when Snowhawk foals I think... (around 11/25)

After that happens is when the main storyline starts (say 4/12). The Confidence picks up an automated distress beacon inside Shiba-Inu territory. weighing their options, they decide to go in covertly and investigate, perhaps launch a rescue operation.

It's a Tak escape pod. Connie transports two survivors out of it, badly injured... one dies soon after, but the other, a female Tak, survives...

Kasorin's death

The first night after the two Tak survivors are recovered, Nauta has third shift as usual. She's talking to Felin on the comm... in walks Kasorin, disruptor in hand. Nauta's unaware of his motives, and after he shoots the male Tak, she goes after him... Felin runs to help... Nauta's violently shoved aside, injured and goes into labor... Felin takes out his dagger and fights Kasorin, much to his own pain, he kills Kasorin as other crew and medical staff arrive to stabilize Nauta and treat Felin...

It is, however, too late for Nauta... she's bleeding internally and her water has broken, she's about to birth over three months early... They strip off her uniform and assess the situation... it's decided the only way to save her and the baby is to perform a soul-mending... the gryphons altogether gather energy and direct it to her soul... her laboring stops... because she is changed, astrally and physically... she becomes (my) anthro herm gryphon form... as long as she's in this form, her child will be fine... and she will have to change back when he's due... but she's stuck this way for now, and can change to quadrapedal, or anthro as she wishes in the future...

As it's learned later, Kasorin was a double agent for the Tak, and instructed to kill the survivors of the ship... the Tak assume he succeeded, unaware of his own stupidity in doing it so obviously...

And now Nauta has her gryphon form. =)

The female Tak recovers enough to be interrogated (by 4/13). She says it was the Shiba-Inu who attacked her ship. The Shiba-Inu? The Tak and Shiba-Inu were allies, as far as was known to the Alliance... and both served under the Akula. What could provoke the Shiba-Inu to risk the Akula's wrath by bringing down a lightly armed Tak scout ship?

What comes next is the most peculiar thing any Alliance officer had ever heard. The Tak, it seemed, had stumbled across somat incredible. The history of their people, buried deep within the third moon of the Tak homeworld, revealed the following...

Backstory

A millennia ago, there were five star-faring races in the quadrant: the Dellechak, Newanak, and Somican, still called the Triad; the Shiba-Inu, and the Tak, who had just recently achieved space travel and were taken as protected allies of the DNS Triad.

Then, the Akula appeared. An extra-dimensional race, numbered few, with advanced technology. They were explorers, not ruthless killing machines. With their intelligence and technology, they explored the vast realm of parallel universes. DNS, however, saw them as a chance to manipulate them for their technology, for warfare, and other such 'dirty work', while able to keep their hands and hooves clean in the process...

DNS was intensely more powerful than the small flotilla of Akula ships at the time. They discretely sealed off the Akula's only means of escape, an artificial wormhole emanating near the Sol system. With numbers and power behind them, DNS made immediate contact with the flustered Akula. They warned them of the hostile species and dangers known to lurk in this galaxy, and if the Akula wanted to be safe, DNS would protect them... at a cost. They forced the Akula to sign a treaty...

The treaty basically said DNS would "protect" the Akula, at the cost of the Akula doing as DNS wished, when they wished it, how they wished it. In addition, none would speak of the treaty; for all intents and purposes, DNS and the Akula were unattached. Furthermore, in a show of "good will", DNS handed over the Tak and the Shiba-Inu as 'gifts' to the Akula. Train them, use them, they're yours... let them discover the truth, and it's the Akula's heads on a plate.

So, the Akula made do with the world they found most like their own; the dark, volcanic world they live on today. The Tak and Shiba-Inu were driven into a controlled war, to build them (and the Akula) up...

As every other race in the galaxy matured and became space-faring, they were sent a warning: control your advancements and military technology, or face the wrath of the Akula. DNS made themselves appear benign; they still don't seem to be a race who could have ever faced the Akula... and they even established universal alliances with everyone *but* the Akula to prove their loyalty...

A millennia of usurping, manipulation, and solidarity can turn anyone mad. It certainly did to the Akula, who in a millennia became the horrible, gruesome dogs of war they are today. DNS also made clear, through the Akula, that Sol was *theirs*. The Akula gave the Solians free reign until the moment they became space-faring, and made gone with them, because DNS didn't want the wormhole discovered/reactivated... which it could be...

Both the Shiba-Inu and the Tak were told silence is life; speaking of this history would mean genocide. The Shiba-Inu gave in easily; the Tak, being a spiritual race who valued their history, kept in secret hidden vaults the scrolls and accounts of their past. It was these the Tak crew had been secretly searching for for the eight years since the war began; since they were first allowed free reign... and they were found, on the third moon, buried deep in the blistering desert sands...

The Tak recorded all they could in their computers and made off with it... they made contact with their superiors, and attempted to show them the information... they were labeled as traitors, and accused of treachery. Their superiors contacted DNS with the alarming knowledge, and DNS commanded the Shiba-Inu intercept the Tak vessel as it passed through their space on its way to Alliance territory...

DNS and the Tak know the information exists, but they don't know where. The Shiba-Inu were stupid and didn't recover the flight data from the Tak ship before destroying it.

(End backstory)

It's decided the only option is to get proof of the facts before the Tak find it and destroy it as commanded by DNS. The only way they could ever hope to get into Tak territory is aboard a Tak vessel.

Confidence informs the Alliance that support may be necessary...

The Tak escape pod still sits in the cargo bay. Using it as bait, Confidence plants it at the edge of Shiba-Inu territory and cloaks, hiding nearby (4/15). The escape pod is rigged to emit false Tak life signs, and also an electromagnetic pulse weapon. A Tak vessel arrives to 'rescue' the survivors (4/16), and moments after the emp disables the ship, Confidence uncloaks and swaps anthro crew modified to look like the Tak: (The Tak herself, Felin, Fareme, and Ila'ni), with the Tak themselves, stuffed into one of the crew berths and sealed up with guards.

Confidence stays inside Alliance space while the four-crewed Tak vessel makes for Tak space. On the Tak ship, their arrival soon follows (4/16), with Tak vessels swarming their own system looking for the history...