Mass Effect – First Contact

Chapter 1: Encounter of the improbable kind.

Author's notes:

Hi everyone, Yaesephir here.

For those of you who usually skip AN's, a short collection of [TAG]'s which are a fast and easy way to describe the story:

[AU] [Changed timeline] [May contain spoilers] [Slow pace] [Femshep] [Romance as subplot] [Politics] [No Reapers]

If you read this story and think that I should add a tag to 'warn' people about certain things, just say so in a review or PM.

So I finally managed to sit down and start writing a fanfic. Took long enough.

It's a first for me, not only a writing a Mass Effect fan fiction, but writing a fan fiction in general – and not in my mother tongue on top of that. This FF will be heavily non-canon with some out-of-character personalities for some people, whenever I think it is beneficial for the story.

You should have finished the original ME series, not only to be safe from spoilers, but also to notice everything that changed compared to the original (which shouldn't be that hard). The rating for this story is T and will maybe change to M, depending on how explicit I'll describe some scenes. IF I decide to change the rating to M it is most likely due to realistic depiction of violence in a war-scenario, not due to sexual themes.

The story takes place in the near future (201X – 202X, originally I said 2016, but that was a bit too soon, so I decided to change it) but on a different timeline (e.g. the morning war still was 300 years ago, stuff like that) and will include timeskips at some point.

Last but not least: I would really appreciate reviews and/or personal messages that help me to improve my story – you may be as honest and brutal as you want, I can take it.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Mass Effect series. I will not repeat this disclaimer because I think it's unnecessary.

There were some things in life that are so extremely improbable, that no-one would believe you if you told them about it: Like throwing tails twenty times in a row, or never having hit your small toe on a piece of furniture in your house – sure, stuff like that happens sometimes, but not very often. That's why they are so hard to believe.

But humans are weird creatures: if something becomes so extremely unlikely, because statistical probability would suggest that it's more or less impossible, people start to accept things fairly easy.

When a person tells you that he was struck by a lightning-bolt, people will believe him – if he isn't known for being a pathological liar.

So when a large vessel crashed into Shepard's front yard and some bipedal creatures in weird suits stumbled out of the wreck, Johanna Shepard didn't have a hard time believing that those things were not from earth, and that she had just encountered extraterrestrial life – even if it was far more likely that someone was pulling a prank on her for candid camera, or that she was simply hallucinating.

Shepard didn't hesitate and moved towards the UFO – happy that the stories of flying saucers were right and wrong at the same time (right about them existing, wrong about them being saucer-shaped) she went to one of the apparently wounded creatures and lifted it up, to support it in walking.

Johanna could feel the creature tensing up within its suit, it was probably nervous on what was going to happen to it (at this point Shepard noticed that she was far more relaxed than she should be in this situation). Deciding that it would probably help to show the thing (Johanna was still struggling on coming up with a name for the creature she had encountered) that she meant no harm, she started talking to it in a slow and soft voice. She knew that the being wouldn't be able to understand her, but that wasn't the point in the first place – the main goal was to show that she (and humans in general) were a species capable of empathy.

She could feel the sentient starting to calm down as they slowly approached the front door of Shepard's home.

Johanna couldn't help but wonder about the suit the creature was wearing. It looked like a really slim fitting suit like seen in various science fiction movies, combined with a gas mask or respirator with full face window made from tinted glass. The back of the head was covered by a hood, which seemed to have no special purpose. The mask and slim suit she could understand, as the atmosphere on earth could differ heavily from the atmosphere of the planet this species was from.

After a short moment she concluded that the species was most likely highly advanced, and that space-travel might not be as expensive anymore, so that there was a market for casual space-clothing. Or that it had a religious/cultural meaning.

In the end it didn't matter right now – after helping the space-traveler into the living room and on the couch Johanna once more spoke to him (or her – she wasn't even sure if this species had genders just like humans did) and turned to the door to check out the other survivors. When she stepped out of the entrance she saw three other members of this race crawling around the shipwreck – apparently searching for a way to open the bent remains of what appeared to be a door. Shepard came closer but was interrupted by a loud scream that came from inside the ship remains. Immediately the creatures started to moving around, shouting some commands in a weird, yet melodic language at each other. Completely ignoring the presence of Shepard they started pushing against the door, while the scream from inside intensified. A shiver went down Johanna's spine – even though she couldn't understand the language she could hear that the person screaming was in great pain. She rushed towards the door and started pushing as well, which resulted in one of the creatures giving her a quick confused look, before turning back on pressing against the burning hot steel of the barricade that blocked the way (Shepard assumed that it was a confused look, the mask made it more or less impossible to see the mimic of the person beneath).

The door was moving like in slow motion, giving way centimeter after centimeter, but the increasing temperature emitting from the metal made it harder and harder to keep pressure on the surface, as the heat started turning from mildly unpleasant to extremely painful in matter of seconds. Her eyes started watering and she had to bite on her lower lips to keep her self from screaming as the heat slowly started burning the skin of her arm away. Even after Johanna started to taste a hint of metal flooding her mouth she kept pushing.

Then the door suddenly gave in. Johanna took a few steps back as a wall of smoke and hot air hit her face, drying up her tears in an instant. Two of the creatures dashed into the sea of flames, seemingly oblivious to the inferno around them.

A felt eternity went by before the two creatures returned, one of them carrying the screaming person over his shoulder.

Shepard felt a slight relief when seeing the screaming creature (if it screams it at least is still alive), but was quickly reminded on what it has gone through when she accidentally touched her right arm. The sharp pain made her moan loudly, which sounded more like a scream with closed mouth than just moaning. She only then noticed that she had still been biting down on her now bloody lip.

It took her a while to calm down again and steady her breathing. After she looked up again she noticed that the creatures had laid down their wounded on the grass, far too close to the burning vessel for her liking. Careful not to startle the aliens she walked towards them and started talking to them: "Hey! I know you can't understand me, but I think it's safer if you move away from the wreck." She first pointed at the creatures and then at her house while doing so, slowly moving towards the front entrance herself.

After some confused looks between the suit-people they seemed to understand. They lifted up the now apparently unconscious survivor from before and started carrying her (Shepard had noticed that some of them seemed to have breasts while others did not, so she decided to call those with breasts 'female' and the ones without 'male' for the time being) into the living room of her house, and placed her on the couch, after the male that she had helped before stood up to take a chair instead.

Two of the aliens started treating the wounded female with a weird gel which they pulled from one of the many pockets they had on their suit, while the other one took a look at the male she had helped out in the beginning.

Only now the events of the past minutes started to get processed in the brain of Johanna, and she suddenly realized that she had just made first contact with a new species, something that had never been done before – and that she would've to call for some firefighters, which would cause some problems of their own (how in the world would she be able to explain the burning spaceship?).

Since her parents would come home sooner or later anyway there was no point in hiding it anyway, so she took out her smartphone and called the fire department. If this whole thing would become a problem, she would still have time to deal with it later. After she had explained to the lady at the other end of the call that something had landed in her front yard and caught fire she ended the call and went straight into her contacts list - she had another call to make.

She quickly scrolled through the list and pressed the call button.

"Jeff? You won't believe what just happened."

Authors notes:

Hi everyone, Yaesephir here:

I know, this first chapter was a bit dull and probably boring – and the constant repetition of the word "creature" most likely got on your nerves. But try finding a way to describe a new species: It's not easy.

This whole thing is more or less the set-up so that the story can get started, the next chapters will be more fun to read. Imo.

(I think I should point out at this point that this is a slow-paced story, since I enjoy reading – and therefore writing – about the little details a world has to offer. If you are looking fast-paced action-oriented stories, then this story isn't the right one for you [yet]).

Anyway it would really help me a brutally honest review about the story, since it's the first time for me writing a fanfiction. Also my mother tongue isn't English (who would've thought ^^) so criticism on my language is also extremely helpful.