Orbit around Unknown Construct, Shanxi-Theta System

429 Interstellar Era

Admiral Kim looked around the bridge, making sure that no one was watching him before quickly stretching out, letting out a breath in relief as he felt his vertebrae pop several times. He inhaled deeply as he settled back into his seat, the rigid, upright angle of its back being the only thing keeping him from losing himself in the comfortable padding. Just another half-hour before the next duty shift which meant he could grab a quick bite before-

"Sir, Variable-Inertia Field detected!"

And there goes lunch.

Before he could take a breath, ships blue-shifted in-system next to the construct. By the time he exhaled, twenty new contacts had appeared on-screen, a good four hundred kilometers away from his battle group.

Fingers flew across his command terminal as he brought up the visual feed. The fleet that just appeared near the construct was a motley collection of vessels, even more so than his own. The five ships near the center of the formation, if the cluster of ships could be called that, were the only ones that seemed to share a standard design pattern. Likely military, or at least manufactured for military use, and thus they probably the most dangerous ships.

The rest reminded the admiral of pirates that still plagued the shipping lanes between colonies, or of the CoDEC fleet in the early years of the war, repurposed civilian ships and obsolete naval vessels. Effective, and often equipped with unpleasant surprises, but unable to stand against a sufficiently powerful force.

The familiar ache where the stump of his right hand interfaced with the prosthetic and the itch on the back of his left hand kept him on edge. His instincts, honed over five long years of brutal combat, hadn't been dulled by ten years of relative peace.

Admiral Kim took a moment breathe, before giving the order.

"General Quarters. All hands to action stations and put all ships on alert. I want Cobalt Lance in their armatures and ready to launch. Tactical, load ASCM tubes 33 through 64, warm up the point defense guns, and begin drafting firing solutions for the fleet." Alarms blared as the bridge crew rushed to complete their tasks, a picture of calm compared to the flurry of activity that surged through the rest of the ship.

"Do you think they will attack us, sir?" Ensign Maria Delgado, the ship's bridge controller. Like most of his crew, she had joined the navy after the Interstellar War and aside from the occasional pirate flotilla, hadn't seen much action. Unlike her contemporaries, she wasn't chomping at the bit to see combat, which made her among the more sensible ones in his book.

"I hope that they won't. But I'd rather be ready for an attack that won't come than be caught unprepared." But there was still a question to be answered: if they weren't hostile, how could they communicate? Radio was out. A civilization advanced enough to travel through the stars could certainly detect radio waves, but there was no guarantee that they could decipher them. And even if they could, there was no way that they'd understand the language. And they'd have no way to open, decode, or decompress a data packet of any kind.

Of course, there was the old science fiction stand-by of using some sort of mathematical sequence, Fibonacci or the sequence of prime numbers for example. Simple enough to accomplish, a clear attempt at intelligent communication, and unlikely to be misconstrued as an insult. Which left the question of which sequence to use.

The ship shuddered as alerts flared across consoles and damage reports flooded internal communications.

"Damage to armor in section 14, sir."

"The Laskey was just destroyed, sir!"

"Muzzle doors of ASCM tubes 15, 17, and 31 damaged; they won't open!"

"What are your orders, sir?"

Or they could remove the need for a means of communication with wanton violence.

"All ships, open fire. Launch all combat armature lances." He quickly marked down the five military vessels in the center as priority targets and sent the data to Ensign Delgado. "Inform the lance commanders that they should attempt to cripple these vessels if possible."

"Aye, sir." There was only a brief bit of hesitation before she responded and carried out her orders. Good. She has the sense to not ask questions during combat. Low thumps emanated from the deck as 11 megaton antimatter warheads launched from their tubes. Comm chatter increased as Saber, Iron, and Cobalt Lances launched from their carriers, the pilots exuberant and nervous at fighting an alien threat.

A few keystrokes brings the visual feed back up, the screen showing the hundreds of missiles streaking towards the alien ships, quickly followed by the fleet's combat armatures.

These aliens just made the mistake of attacking mankind.

He would ensure that they would regret even considering it.


Times like these, Balak regretted working with pirates. Some of the eyeless bastards had let their greed get the better of them and attacked without thought or provocation.

He had felt something was wrong when they first examined the alien ships. All of them projected mass effect fields, in the form of spheres of various sizes. Crude and inefficient, the sign of a technologically inferior species fit for servitude, if it wasn't for the lack of element zero.

They hadn't had the time to survey the whole system, but it was clear that the only element zero in the vicinity was in the mass relay. No trace eezo in their ships, not even a gram. And yet they could produce a mass effect field, with ships that large out this far which implied some form of FTL.

This was technological development on a level that even the Batarians hadn't managed, and the potential implications were lucrative at best and terrifying at worst. Regardless, this was a species with whom diplomatic relations might have been preferable to outright conquest. Oh, it would have led to their subjugation, but through a lighter touch, and with fewer Batarian casualites.

Now, they no longer had that option. All they could do is quickly subjugate them and pray that this system was the alien's home system.

The rhythmic thumps of the main cannon firing punctuated his thoughts as he watched hundreds of missiles approach his fleet on the tactical screen. And amidst the controlled chaos of his crew frantically bringing the GARDIAN system online, he made a remark to his first officer.

"Remind me to kill the bastard who fired first."

What a damn shame. These aliens might have been interesting.