Chapter 4: Contact

Date: April 17, 2188

Location: Attican Traverse / Mindior

The garden planet of Mindior settled in front of Faiths eyes. Yes, it was the planet she'd been born and raised on until the batarian attack when she was thirteen. She'd been lucky to have her uncle John Shepard with her that day. He'd taken her to some caves where he'd hidden her. The batarians had killed her father, thus leaving her in her uncle's custody until she was old enough to enlist in the Systems Alliance. She hadn't come back to Mindior until after the Reaper War to show Garrus where her life had begun, but she just couldn't bring herself to living here ever again. "Ah, Mindior," came Joker's voice, causing her to look at the pilot. "Home of the Alterian Fustian Tree and birthplace of the wonderful Commander Shepard."

This caused Faith to caught out a laugh. "Trying to say something Joker?" she inquired causing him to give her a who, me look.

He just smirked. "Well..." he began but EDI beat him to it.

"Jeff wishes to know if while we are stationed on Mindior if the crew, including himself, will be able to leave the Normandy." she stated.

"EDI!" Jeff yelled. "I can speak for myself!"

"You were taking too long." came her simple reply, causing Jeff to glare at her avatar.

Faith cleared her throat causing both to look at her. "Yes, the crew has leave time." she said as a laugh was squashed down from the little squabble. "However I want a skeleton crew on at all times, incase there's a reason we need to leave in a hurry. Jeff, you haven't taken any vacation time since my resurrection. You're on a mandatory leave, give the Normandy over to co-pilot Stenton."

Jeff cursed under his breath. "Aye, aye." he pressed a few buttons on the console as they docked to the Alliance Station, The Poseidon; which was positioned over the Alliance Training Fields that they were going to use for the evaluation of the canidates. "So ya think these people will have a clue what to do if the shit starts flying?" he asked.

"Thompson is from the Ukraine and is a professional killer, like Thane was. Sadaris, he reminds me of the salarian version of Zaeed." she began.

"That's scary." he commented.

Faith smirked. She kept in touch with Zaeed, who in turn gave her info on mercs who were becoming a threat. "No, it's kind of nice." she chuckled. "Ara'Zora vas Darrib, kinda is like a mix of a krogan and turian."

"Damn," he whistled. "What'd they do, give you the crazies?"

She laughed."Ya'isha Mio'i, she's got undercover work that has me worried about her sanity. She also has been playing with that damn knife since she got on board." she shook her head. "Its people like her I wish Kelly was still with us and not on Earth." this caused Joker to snort. "What?" she questioned, he just shook his head not wanting to open that can if worms. "I'm going to the airlock. Vern'ose, you've got the con."

The turian with black and white facepaint looked up. "Aye, commander." he replied as he took up a position behind Joker's seat.

Faith passed the rest of her crew on the CIC, who were a mix of humans, turians, and quarian. One or two would look up from what they were doing as she walked by to the elevator. When she entered the cargo hold she saw that all the candidates were there waiting for her. These people were a mix of human, salarian, asari, and turians; there were more asari than any other. Thirty people, but only fifteen would pass. Two weeks to see who had what it took to be a Spectre. She groaned internally. I need a month a least to give a proper evaluation of each. I'm just glad to have the Senior Spectres here to help me. Taking a deep breath she walked up to the airlock. The door was green, indicating it was safe to walk through it. She turned to speak to the group. "Today you'll be given temporary living quarters on the station. Tomorrow at zero six hundred hours everybody will be transported to the Training Fields. You'll begin with a five mile run then we'll see how well you are with your weapons. Afterwards, that's when the fun will begin." with that she turned and walked out of the airlock where she was greeted by Garrus, causing her to smile.

Date: Dorvan 21, 2588

Location: Epsilon Eridani System

Captain Vol'com looked out the viewing window in the mess hall. Her crew was currently eating breakfast, while she was standing near the window looking out at the system they'd come to. The Epsilon Eridani system had been believed by astrologers to have only gas planets in its system because the sun was too far away from the planets or so they had believed a thousand years ago. At zero two hundred hours they exited slipspace and had been greeted by a surprising, but beautiful site. As believed the system was inhabited by three gas planets; however circulating around the second planet were two Gi'ah based planets. They had begun scanning the planets immediately and found the energy signatures of Eco, and lots of it. Circulating around the third planet were two Fi'lo moonsize planets both with inhabitable atmospheres. All four planets were fertile, and had no inhabitants on there surfaces. It was the perfect system to drop off the colonists, leave the colony ship behind for her second lieutenant to be in charge of and leave the system on the Angelwing, an A class stealth frigate that had been magnetically attached to the hull of the Cealia along with two other C class frigates, which were smaller than the A class. "Tolen, begin cryogenic thawing of the colonists. Inform Major Ashlin and Commander Torn to go to the Angelwing and begin AI Cortana's awakening aboard. I want the ship ready to go by eleven hundred hours. Have a thousand of our special warriors aboard. I'm leaving second Lieutenant Va'nuse in charge after we depart from the system."

The AI blinked at her. "Aye Captain." he replied. "Do you wish for Dr. Vincent to accompany you?"

"Yes, and do try to keep Zor'dare busy in my absence." she smiled when the AI rolled his eyes at her.

"Aye Captain." he said as he vanished.

Looking back out at the beautiful system she smiled before turning her back to it and walked out of the mess hall towards the teleportation room. Upon entering she was greeted by Commander Torn and Major Ashlin. The commander was a handsome six and a half foot tall young male, muscles where it counted and could dazzle any woman with his green eyes and brown dreadlocks. He had worked hard to become a Commander. From keeping insurrectionists on the colonies at bay to doing undercover work in the drug wars fifteen years ago. Major Ashlin Praxis was the opposite of him. She had red short dreadlocks to her chin and deep brown chocolate eyes. Her father had pushed her into becoming a soldier. She and the commander had known each other for years and it was because of that and only because of that, that she'd even take an order from him. While he was a part of a twenty-man unit called the Deltas, she was a part of a unit called the Alphas. The Deltas were specialized soldiers who went in and killed anything and anybody without a single person catching on that they'd even been there. Alphas on the other hand were different. They went in and killed everything and everybody. No witnesses was their motto.. "Captain." they said in a monotone.

"Torn, Ashlin." she greeted as the three of them got onto the teleporter. "To the Angelwing." she said to the tech, who nodded.

"Teleport in 3, 2, 1." the tech said as there was a flash and they reappeared in the blue and white crystallized teleportation room on the Angelwing. The tech in the room walked over them and began the diligent scanning of their bodies to make sure nothing went wrong. After being cleared she went to the bridge while the other two went about their businesses. The interior of the ship was a light crystal blue color, reminding Narima of blue Eco crystals that use to litter the ground of Gi'ah, but now powered ground vehicles, airships, and their spaceflight ships.

Upon entering the bridge she saw several techs from the Cealia already aboard and working to bring her baby fully online. It was just as the ship disengaged from the Cealia's hull that the holo next to her came to life in a brilliant array of colors forming the ships AI. She looked down at the female AI. Her skin and hair were blue. Holographics appearing on her clothing, which looked like a second lieutenants uniform except she wore a skirt instead of pants, and she had numbers running up and down her body. She looked at Narima and instantly the Captain wondered if Cortana had more of Dr. Vincent in her than she'd been led to believe. "Captain, I've been brought up to speed by Tolen as to where we are headed. All personel are aboard including Dr. Vincent." she said.

"Good Cortana, bring the slipspace engine online and make a heading towards those coordinates given to us by these humans." she said as a tech came up behind her and handed her a cup of tea.

"Aye Captain." was the AI's response.

Date: April 25, 2188

Location: Arcturus System

Arcturus System had become quite busy as of the last few years. With it now holding the majority of the Council Species upon Zareth, it had gone from the fifth busiest system to the number one busiest system. This meant more security was needed upon the Systems Alliance Arcturus Station to keep nosey aliens out of their business. However this also meant that a second station was needed to be built for alien ships to refuel and make rest stops. So above Zareth was Z-Station, a small spacestation that had a fueling depot, stores, and restaurants for levo and dextro species. It was during a routine system check that the SSV Jericho came across a strange anomaly within the system.

"Captain Shepard, sir!" came an alarmed voice in the bridge. Captain John Shepard, a.k.a. The Butcher, walked up behind the tech and touched the young mans shoulder. This caused the technician to look up at his captain. The long jagged scar bisected the captain's face from the left side above the eye to the captain's right side of his chin. "S-Sir," the tech stuttered. "I'm picking up very strange readings hidden behind the ice planet."

"What kind of readings, son." came a gentle voice. For being one of the most feared people in the Alliance fleet, John Shepard was also known to have a kind heart towards those he saw fit.

"Some sort of energy field reading. Nothing like I've ever seen. It's almost like somebody just dumped a huge black hole in our backyard, but its not pulling us towards it; more like pushing us away from it." Just then a huge blue and white ship appeared out of nowhere, heading right towards the Jericho.

John's eyes widened. "Evasive maneuvers!" he called out to the pilot. He heard the pilot curse as the Jericho pushed itself away from the massive ship with its thrusters. However the aft section wasn't gonna clear in time.

"Brace for impact!" the pilot yelled out as the back end of the Jericho was hit hard from the side. The jolt shook the entire ship and forced people to fall to the hands and knees. "Shields down to fifteen percent." the pilot yelled.

Picking himself up off the ground John growled. "Damage report!"

"Life support failing, escape pods three through twenty are damaged, engineering reporting a bit of damage and fires their trying to put out, we got heavy damage in cargo, main batteries, port side observation deck and thrusters one and four are completely down." came a feminine voice beside him. The woman had a cut on her head causing her to bleed.

"We're starting to stablize." the pilot sighed.

"Sir, the unknown ship is initiating comm contact." said the tech who had discovered the anomaly.

"Bring it up." he growled. An image of a woman appeared upon the screen, but it wasn't because it was a woman or because of her revealing white blouse shirt that made his jaw drop a bit, it was her ears. They were long and pointed like...like a freakin' Elf! Her silver hair seemed to go passed her shoulders and was pulled back, except for the silver tendrils she had on either side of her heart shaped face.

"Greetings," came her voice in the heavily accented galactic language. "My name...is Captain Vol'com, I...apologize for the damage my ship...has caused yours." she paused, for she seemed unsure if he understood what she was saying.

"I am Captain John Shepard of the Systems Alliance," he said initiating first contact. "We understand you and what you are trying to say." the woman looked relieved.

"We discovered a...placed called the Citadel and found the messages left there." she paused. "We got this language through translating the messages." she smiled. "We are happy and excited to make friends with a species called the Humans."

"That is what my species is." John said and in english he spoke to the pilot. "Get a hold of Counselor Anderson and tell him we have a first contact situation near the ice planet in the outer most part of the Arcturus system."

"Aye Captain!" came his reply from the pilot as he looked back up at the woman and smiled.

M-Angel: Well? How was that? I'm excited about the next chapter. *bounces excitedly* Hope ya'll enjoyed this!

xoxoangii: FIRST CONTACT? DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN *plot twist*