He felt the ship change course.

It seemed strange after five years to feel something moving beneath him. Most of the time you couldn't tell as the ship was going steadily in one direction, but occasionally a course correction could be noticeable through the ship.

It was odd though, he thought they were heading back to the Bran home planet.

He had been laying in the temporary crew quarters for the mining party, playing with a shiny piece of metallic rock. He didn't think most people had a favorite rock, but this one was his favorite. It's magnetic properties were enough to burn out small metallic circuitry if held up right against it. Nothing had been done to the rock to make it that way, it was just it's natural way of being.

He found it fascinating.

However, that fascination was starting to wear off as he tried to determine where they could be going.

Curiosity got the better of him.

It wasn't something he noticed immediately, as curiosity had been what had gotten him in trouble in the first place so many years ago. If he hadn't gone hunting to see what that sound was maybe none of this would have happened. Ever since then he had done his best to squash any of his curious urges.

He thought they were gone now, though his silent trek through the ship was demonstrating that to be wrong.

He made his way past plenty of other aliens in the hallway. Humans, Drev, and even one of those Fuzzy little Celzex aliens, which he tried to keep a wide birth around. They were relatively dangerous creatures or so he was told, not particularly intimidating when close and personal, but with the most powerful weapons in the galaxy and an angry streak to mainin.

The Drev were almost the opposite. They were scary in person, and could probably kill you as soon as look at you, but their personal space technology was barely capable of getting them to their home planet's moon, and so they mostly borrowed from others.

The stairs up to the bridge were clear, and it gave him a good enough perspective, where he could sit in the door and watch as the Admiral gave orders.

This human had come a long way since being the one to scare ket into the deepest hole in the galaxy.

He was now Admiral of the entire galactic Armada, though Ket wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that particular decision.

Looking through the open door and onto the bridge he watched the Admiral lean forward in his seat.

Through another door, came the mining foreman, who stepped up beside the Admiral, "Sir, why are we changing courses. I thought we were heading back to-"

"The GA has called us in for some kind of emergency meeting. I promise from there we will be able to warp back to your home planet within the day."

The foreman went silent.

One of the other officers walked up, "What is the GA calling in about?"

"I am not entirely ure, but they said it was urgent.... Sounds like something has gone wrong, but knowing the GA, it could be anything.." he waved the foreman away and continued talking to some of his other officers.

"Do you think it's the kree again sir.... Or maybe...."

"I feel like they would have told us if it was something that urgent, but they didn't talk specifics over the com so I am thinking something like the leviathan or Deus."

The other officers shrugged, and they went silent

"Preparing for warp sequence."

The announcement came over the comms ust as Ket began wrapping his tail around the nearest railing.

The wrap of his tail turned into the wrap of his entire body around the metal structure, and he curled tight as the warp countdown began.

He wouldn't be able to make it to a seat in time, so this was going to have to do. He heard that warp on human ships was a nightmare, but as the countdown hit one he was surprised to find that it wasn't too bad. They must have borrowed a warp dampener off of one of the other species.

It didn't take more than twenty minutes until they were in position before the GA headquarters. On either side the two glowing warp gates pulsed as ships began to arrive. They were flashed in to one of the docking stations, and ket had to pull to the side as the Admiral and some of his others marched down the walkway and towards the docking bay.

He followed them at a distance, still to curious for his own good, feet padding across the open metal.

No one really noticed he was there, as they all seemed very intent on their current work, so he followed with near impunity, out the docking bay down the ramp and into the human controlled section of the station. The air was a bit to humid for Ket's liking. Like the rundi, they didn't react well to water, though the Bran weren't SOO bad as to have to worry about it being in the air.

The Admiral and his men were waylaid at a checkpoint.

"Identification please."

The Admiral frowneed, "This is new."

"This is protocol now.

"I guess then, how would you like us to proceed?"

The man waved the group of humans off to the side and held up something in one hand, "Chip reader for implanted devices, the easiest way to identify someone based on the device serial number."

Ket watched very carefully as the man held up the device to the admiral's head.

There was a bright flash so he didn't really see what happened, but the Admiral took a staggering step to the side, one hand on the side of his head. His men rushed forward to catch him, "Sir, sir are you ok?"

He wobbled a bit and shook his head, "yeah I.... fine." He turned to glower at the other man, "That thing feels like being punched in the head."

The man shrugged, "The price we pay for security, sir." He motioned the man forward and then waved in the other humans who approached with some apprehension as the man used the device on them too.

It seemed very odd.

Ket would have thought they might just use the device's inherent wireless barcode to scan, and he couldn't think why it would cause something like that.

But he wasn't a mechanic.

It seemed strange to him, as he stepped inside, that this protocol only seemed to apply to the humans. Everywhere else on the station he found no men with their strange devices. He wondered if that was because they were testing it on humans to make sure it worked. Something like that might kill another species depending on how fragile they were in comparison to humans.

In fact the entire things struck him as odd. \

Every conversation he overheard, and every group he passed seemed just as confused about what was going on as he was.

No one seemed to know what they were here for, which seemed rather odd to him.

Soon the entire group of them had been crammed into that center sphere of the station. Ket was surprised to find that no one stopped him as he tried to get in. Was it just him, or did security seem a little lax?

He didn't know much about these things though.

Maybe they just didn't see him as much of a treat.

Someone called the room to order and the chairwoman stood up, "Order!."

The crowd fell silent.

She turned to look at the Drev, "You called this emergency meeting."

There was a silence in the room for a moment as the Drev delegate turned to look in confusion, "I didn't call anything."

There was a murmuring around the room.

"What do you mean, I got your transmission no more than an hour ago."

There was a grumbling from around the room.

"You called the meeting counselor." The human's voice was loud in the echoing space.

The chairwoman turned to look at the human who had his arms crossed over his chest, a peeved expression on his face.

"No. I made no call for an emergency council."

The human shifted, his frown deepening." Behind him the other human muttered,

Ket crouched low behind one of the seats his rock still held tightly in hand.

Was it him or did the humans seem, off?

"Do you want to go ahead and explain to me why you called us in to waste our time." The human's voice was cutting and cold, and even ket, not having known the human for long thought it was a bit strange.

The chair woman looked a little taken aback, "Admiral-"

The human representative stood from their seat, "We knew your council was ineffective chairwoman, but now you don't even know who called your own meeting."

There was a mummer of surprise from around the room.

The human turned to look at them, "Now which one of you was it."

The humans behind them seemed to be growing agitated, but not with the heightened level of anger shown by their counterparts, but they themselves seemed to be growing more and more restless.

Admiral Vir turned toward the counselor, his one eye narrowed, "Do you ever know when to shut the hell up."

"Excuse me."

"I had this under control and now you have to pipe in when you aren't wanted."

"You would disrespect me-"

"You're a politician, you deserve it."

Behind them at least two of the humans were looking hungrily across the council chambers towards the iotins. Another pair of humans were looking hungrily at each other. The council chamber was frozen in shock. The humans were growing more agitated by the second. A fight broke out in the back row of the delegation, and one human went tumbling down the steps. The admiral and the representative had started a pushing match that soon devolved into a fistfight, which wouldn't have lasted so long if the Admiral didn't seem interested in, not only beating his opponent, but dominating him."

He had him by the front of the shirt.

There was screaming in the council chamber now as the aliens kept up to flee.

Two humans vaulted the railing and raced towards the Iotins who screamed and ran.

Another human was stalking the Celzex delegation with great intent.

Unnoticed at the back of the room, that pair of humans that had been eying each other earlier now looked as if they were trying to eat each other's faces.

Ket turned his eyes away as the room split into absolute chaos.

The Admiral had beaten the councelor bloody knuckle senseless and was now eyening the room, teeth barred. He was crouched down almost on all fours, but when he saw one of the other delegates from across the room, he vaulted the little walkway and began a chase.

The Drev delegates were the only one who had NOT run screaming.

One of them tackled the human chasing after an Iotin, but was having trouble pinning them down as the human snapped at them with their teeth and kicked violently this way and that.

The human was pressed hard into the ground as the Celzex delegation stood patiently waiting.

The human approached, and was immediately stopped with a current of force.

The human flailed, convulsed and then fell to the ground still.

Other humans were running INTO the room now, those that had been held back on the ship, and they raced forward confused, not sure who to help at first until one of them was tackled by a member of the delegation.

A human screamed as they were bitten by one of their counterparts.

The Drev named Sunny came charging into the room with a contingent of Drev From the Omen.

She caught the Admiral around the chest and sent them both spinning to the floor slamming him to the ground.

Ket thought he was going to try and fight her but instead his expression switched as he saw her, turning from livid.... To hungry.... Or something similar.

Sunny did her best to pin his hands.

Ket cowered under his seat confused and scared.

And then he remembered.

That strange human at the door. He tried to remember back to who the man had scanned and realized that all of the out of control humans.... Were the ones that man had scanned. He didn't really know what that meant, and nervously clutched the rock to his chest.

Wait.

The rock.

Could it be?

Could it be that the man had done something to their implanted translation devices? And if so.... Would his magnet work through skin.

Off to his side two Drev were doing their best to hold down one of the marines who was sapping and flailing at them like some kind of beast.

The Drev pulled back a fist and slammed the human's head painfully into the floor. It didn't knock them out but they were momentarily dazed.

In a moment of sheer panic Driven psychosis, for that's what it must have been, ket ran across the floor towards the dazed human, and pressed the lucky rock against the human's temple. The human went to move, struggled a little and then melted into a look of extreme confusion. They held a hand to their head, and curled up to moan piteously.

The Drev graved him by his shoulders, "What did you do!"

"Magnets... translation implants." He squeaked out.

The Drev stood cupping his hands around his mouth and bellowed for the others, "Find something magnetic! It's the translation implants."

Below them, the once angry human looked up in confusion unable to understand them but no longer angry.

Across the room Sunny looked down at one of her arms where a small piece of her carapace had been replaced by a silver and gold bracer. She unhooked it from its magnetic stripping and pressed it to the side of the thrashing human's head.

The man flailed for a moment, paused then grew confused.

He looked.

When he spoke, Ket could not longer understand him.

Sunny shook her head.

He said something in a guttural language and jumped to his feet.

They were rallying now racing towards the affected humans, sometimes catching them just in time and pressing the magnets into the skull just behind the ear. Every reaction was the same, confusion followed by embarrassment or horror.

The entire episode hadn't lasted more than five minutes, and by the time guards and emergency workers had arrived everyone was sitting around in various stages of shock and confusion. THe concealer had woken up and was holding a rag to his bloodied nose while the Admiral Sat next to him nursing his bruised knuckles. Neither of them could look at each other. In fact the entire delegation of humans was one big mess of confusion, embarrassment and concern.

A few of the other delegates demanded to leave and were let go, while a few others milled around in confusion.

Some of the delegates filtered back into the room, mostly the braver species.

The Iotins, Bran, Vrul, and gromm had up and left, leaving the Burg, Tesraki, Rundi, Drev and Celzex (and a few assorted others) as the only ones remaining.

The Tesraki delegate rose from their seat, "What was that!"

The human delegate wasn't exactly in a palace to speak, so Amiral Vir stood. He opened his mouth to speak but that is when the Drev representative took to their feet.

"I believe someone is attempting to sabotage diplomacy in the GA."

Admiral Vir leaned over to translate for the other humans, who could not understand Drev.

The GA chairwoman had something whispered to her, and switched her output speech to Drev for the convenience of the human.

"What do we know."

"The implanted translation devices inside the human's heads seem to have been tampered with upon entering the GA facility. We would need to examine one to find out what truly happened but we believe it-"

The Admiral stood cutting in, "I believe it has similar effects to a device I've run into in the past. I thought it was a one time issue, but it seems as if I Might just have been the test run. As I recall, the device stimulates the base center of the brainstem and heightens instinctive reactions, food, fighting and uh... other behaviors."

"Then how did this happen?" Someone shouted

It was just then that two Tesraki security agents ran into the room, "We rewound the security footage."

SOmeone walked up to the holoprojection and inserted something into one of the slots. The room watched silently as an unknown human pretended to 'scan' the incoming delegation.

"Do we know who that is?"

Someone did a quick facial recognition search.

"Nothing.... He's not in the system."

"Impossible, everyone who goes off planet has to has to be run through the software."

"That still doesn't change the fact that there are no matches, we are not infallible."

The room erupted into pockets of speech and argument.

Ket remained were he had hidden under the Admiral's chair holding his lucky rock to his chest. The admiral wanted him to speak on what he saw but he had argued against giving the man permission to lead people in the right direction.

It seemed clear to him what was going on.

Someone was trying to ruin diplomacy for he humans.

And it looked like tonight might have been a partial success.