The sheer idiocy of these pirates shocked him. Quineus Ennitis, captain of the Turian cruiser Victorious watched in confusion as the mass relay activated. Not only had these slavers been willing to open one mass relay, but two?! He called for his communications officer to hail them again.

"This Quineus of the cruiser Victorious, surrender now or we will be forced to destroy you!"

The pirate ship seemed to ignore them, and before they could enter effective range the ship jumped.

"Captain, are we going to keep following them?"

Quineus thought deeply. If they continued the chase the pirates would eventually be caught and face justice, but they would also further intrude into non Citadel space.

"Continue the chase."

The Victorious jumped, crossing hundreds of light years in seconds.

Quineus wasn't going to envy Councilor Sparatus.

-

The Victorious reappeared in a flash.

"Sir, pirate ship is already amongst the inner planets!"

Quineus groaned.

"Follow it! Keep the sensors at full power, I don't want to run into a Rachni battle fleet without seeing it coming."

He considered the likely hood of the pirates escaping again. Very low, given that they would have to pass him before reaching the systems relay.

"Sir... the Relay has destroyed a planetoid during its activation."

Wonderful.

Tiny fragments of ice and rock splattered off their kinetic barriers to no real negative effect.

The engineer would have to turn down the sensitivity of the barrier system, no use wasting power on something the Victorious's several cm of armor would be unaffected by.

The pirate ship reached the third planet from the systems star, and then it slowed and turned.

"What are they doing..."

A alert sounded.

"Captain, the third planet is inhabited! Something large is leaving its atmosphere!"

As the bridge watched, the display showed a frigate sized object leap from one of the planets oceans at incredible speed, thermal plume from its titanic thruster lighting up every sensor on the ship.

The pirate ship turned and began to flee, GARDIANs firing.

It was not nearly fast enough.

By the time the pirate ship had moved 10 km it was done.

The frigate, or whatever it was impacted it at a speed more fit for a mass accelerator shell.

Jaws dropped as the pirate ship was disintegrated by the force of impact.

"What, what was that..."

The answer came as a titanic explosion erupted from the dead ship as a warhead designed to kill dreadnoughts detonated, a miniature sun expanding and incinerating the remains.

Quineus wanted to scream, this was a diplomatic storm in the making if he ever saw one, a potential upheaval of the galactic balance of power, and likely to be included in the Hierarchies official statement for why opening Mass Relays without knowing what is on the other side is a horrible idea.

Luckily, his gizzard of Silaris was enough to keep him from showing his crew the inner panic he was experiencing, and his command came out fairly calm given the situation.

"We need to inform the council, pull back."

-

Councilor Sparatus groaned as he prepared to exit the elevator into the councilor chambers. This was bad, and the only thing worse than the tirade the other councilors were going to give him was the media storm once the news broke.

A entire new species? One that had first contact with a bunch of slavers? The media would make sure no one in the galaxy would be ignorant of it, no matter they be a Vorcha gangster or Asari Matron.

"Sparatus."

Valern stated, without blinking.

"What are you calling us here for," Tevos said calmly "Have you gotten into your "Lets go to war with the Batarians" phase again?"

Sparatus walked to his station, and pulled up a video clip on his omni tool.

"No. This is what I called you for."

The other councilors watched as the footage taken from the pirate ships destruction played. Tevos flinched at the impact and detonation, while Valern simply watched.

"What was that?"

Sparatus felt tired already.

He also felt that the Indomitable class dreadnought, already reaching the limits of their budget limits, would see yet another drastic increase in capability, this time for improved armor or kinetic barriers.

At least it shouldn't be too difficult to explain to the public why the Turian Navy continued to insist on gradually larger and large dreadnoughts anymore.

"Sparatus, that does not match anything known to Citadel intelligence. Is this first contact."

Tevos visibly cringed.

"A pirate ship opened a pair of mass relays. It discovered a new species currently bound to a single planet, and was destroyed by a missile of incredible size."

Tevos slowly raised her omni tool.

"I suppose there isn't a chance of us sweeping this under the rug?"

Sparatus stated factually "No, there isn't. Within a few days the Turian Hierarchy will release a official press statement confirming what happened. I believe that counter intelligence has already began to have to squash rumors of a mass relay being opened, but they will eventually be unable to prevent it from reaching the press."

Valern merely sighed. "I will begin preparations. Have you sent through any more ships?"

Sparatus nodded, "A small fleet is going to be sent through in two days. I was ordered to inform you so that your respective governments could assist in making contact."

The other councilors began to make calls, messaging government agencies and their superiors.

Within 10 minutes they were done.

Tevos spoke first. "The Asari Republics will send a diplomatic ship. It will arrive soon."

"The Salarian Union will send some scientists and a detachment of STG." Valern said in the quick speech that most salarians had.

Sparatus found his large eyes and small mouth unnerving, not that he would ever say that out loud.

"Then it is agreed, we will prepare for contact and disclosure at once." Sparatus did not look forward to the coming days.

At least Tevos took it rather well.