Hey I'm back. Sorry that took a sec, back from university and organic chem kicked my ass. Let's just dive back in.
Turian Heavy Cruiser Interdiction, 7th Flotilla Flagship, Conference Room, 1000 hours
The conference room had always been one of the Admiral's favorite places. Surrounded by sweeping (admittedly vulnerable) windows, a large wooden table and a not-insignificant amount of books was one of the few luxuries he had afforded himself on the vessel. The books, however, had been swept to the floor in favor of far more pressing materials.
Staring down at 6 alien rifles in various states of distress, Arrarian motioned towards his quartermaster. "What exactly am I looking at?"
The quartermaster grabbed one of the strange looking weapons and pointed. "These are all projectile weapons sir. Explosive propellant, with the loading apparatus behind the trigger mechanism. All self loading, fairly high capacity, functional weapons." The quartermaster seemed excited to have new toys. "You could probably use them as clubs and they would come out just fine. There is something strange about some of these weapons though sir…" He trailed off, looking slightly nervous.
"Centurion?"
The quartermaster picked up one of the rifles- with a broad front handguard, and a mounted optic above a high, sloping rail. "This weapon in particular, sir. It's caliber is massive- almost impractically so. Comparing it to our historical firearms, it would be adequate to hunt varren, if the varren were the size of an armored vehicle."
The admiral frowned. "An anti-material weapon then?"
"I thought so as well sir, but then…" The quartermaster clicked his talons and pointed towards a small switch on the handguard. "This weapon fires in a three-round burst. This may be a conjecture, but it appears to be an anti-personnel weapon."
The admiral sucked in through his mandibles. "Spirits, are they fighting krogan?"
The quartermaster shrugged at that. "From what I hear from the techs, their technology all appears to be built in much the same way. We'll hear more once the wreckage has been fully inspected, but everything seems primitive in some places, but sturdy and somewhat overkill."
At this, Arrarian gave a short laugh. "Overkill for everything except that," motioning to the burning wreckage of an alien ship floating outside.
Turian Heavy Cruiser Interdiction, 7th Flotilla Flagship, Holding Cells, 1200 hours
Staff Sergeant Chen woke up to a distinct lack of attractive blue women, a splitting headache, and Corporal Simmons entirely too close to her face.
"Jesus sergeant, you gave us a fright." Corporal Simmons breathed, leaning back from the wholly useless medical examination he was attempting to give her.
"Save it corporal," Chen groaned, "my head is going to fucking explode if another thing tries to go poking around where it doesn't fucking belong." Her brain simultaneously felt as if it had been stretched like a politician's asshole and compressed into a can of sardines. The blue woman had, at some point, gotten frustrated with the "inefficiency of spoken language" and had initiated one of its damn mind melds. At least this time it had asked permission. Everything was going swimmingly until she passed out.
"What do you think of them sarge?" Simmons still looked a little green around the gills. Fair enough, considering his NCO just got her mind sorted through like a library.
"I don't think they're covie corporal, but fuck if I know what they are and what they want. My mind just got sent through a blender explaining the goddamn war, and thank fuck we didn't have any sensitive information. Imagine if they caught an officer." They both shuddered at that. "It's still first contact for them, I think they're going to keep kicking us higher and higher up their ladder until we talk to their leaders."
Corporal Simmons still looked green.
"You'll be fine Simmons. Just like the simulations, no?"
"I'm going to be sick."
Citadel Council Chambers, 1300 hours, Day 2 of Ongoing First Contact
"I… I will have to confer with my government." Tevos was left staring at the end of the recording. There was very little else to be said after the bombshells dropped by the alien in the recording, and the following testimony by the translator.
"The Union as well."
Sparatus blinked at that. "I… I do not know if this is information we can share right now." At this, the other two council members turned and stared, as he rushed to explain. "If I share this recording, the people of the Hierarchy will call for war. Immediately."
Tevos scoffed. "Surely this is not something we could keep to ourselves-"
"Do you know what this will do to the Turian public councilor? We are a military society without an enemy for centuries. Now, one appears- attacking an ostensibly blameless race with extreme prejudice. Not just that- but then promptly breaking council law by deploying a weapon of mass destruction on a garden world, in a sector not far from council space. The public will be howling at us to mobilize immediately."
"Surely they must know we only have one source of information- a biased source of information at that?"
"You think that will matter to them? This testimony may be biased, but even your translator can sense that it is sincere. We share this information, the turian people will call for war and the Hierarchy will have no choice but to follow, on nothing but the smallest source of information, with two races we know nothing about. These humans might even be the ones at fault, we simply do not know."
Tevos sighed, acknowledging his point. "What then, do you suggest we do? I do not think the Republics will react so dramatically, and the Union will likely still want to gather information. We cannot just sweep this under the rug, and we still have a duty to our governments."
"Our council recordings are public, but we can delay their release by up to 3 days. Use this. Gather more information, make second contact if necessary. We cannot go to war without knowing more. There is a vessel heading to inform Hierarchy High Command, I will inform them to delay their mission" Sparatus seemed to have calmed down slightly, but the Salarian sucked in a breath still.
"You say this as if it is inevitable that we join the conflict."
Sparatus motioned towards the frozen recording, with the human pointing towards its glassed planet. "You think it's not?"
Alien Wreckage, 1300 hours, Day 2 of ongoing first contact
A half dozen EVA suited techs were roving through the wreckage of the alien vessels, scanning for anything interesting, valuable, or dangerous. So far, an absurd number of personal weapons, ammunition, and logistical equipment had been recovered, though most of the shipboard computers found were curiously blank. Bodies were left as they were found, though some of the specialists had brought coins, placed onto the right shoulders of the corpses as offerings. Hopefully whatever foreign gods these aliens followed would find it pleasing.
[[DRIVE CORE LOCATED. CONVERGE ON LOCATION 3326]]
A message flashed across the heads up displays of every technician within a kilometer of the zone. Like a swarm of bees, the various search teams bolted towards the most important discovery of their lifetimes.
Turian Heavy Cruiser Interdiction, 7th Flotilla Flagship, Hanger, 1400 hours.
The head engineer of the Interdiction stared at the hunk of metal in a combination of fascination and horror. One thought dominated his mind- I have no idea what this is. Rather, he knew what it was. Based on the location in the wreckage, its various connections, even some remaining electronics, it was a clear drive core. But, as he stroked his fringe, it became clearer and clearer that there was going to be nothing he could do to decipher it. He turned to one of the engineering crew studying the hulk.
"What kind of readings are we getting from this thing?"
"Selenium, technetium, the works sir. We have a rough schematic from scans, but no clue what this actually is."
"How much element zero?"
The specialist blinked in confusion at the reading"...Sorry sir, there must be some sort of mistake with the scanner."
The engineer chuckled, "How much, specialist?"
"Zero detected sir."
His heart sank. It wasn't entirely unexpected- the method by which the purple ship appeared was not consistent with relay travel, and these were aliens after all. But on the flip side, this effectively sank any hope of understanding the technology. Guns and electronics were one thing, but a drive core? Without anywhere to even start from, they were dead in the water.
"Send up a request to interview our guests. It won't be approved but it's worth a shot."
"Aye sir. Do you think they know about the relay network then?"
The engineer's eyes narrowed at that. The relay network, the most powerful form of transportation in the universe. Near instantaneous, limited, but faster, far faster than any other form of space travel known. Spread across the entire galaxy, it was the centerpoint of conflicts, rendering slower travel obsolete. And without element zero, the aliens would have no knowledge of it at all- and certainly no way to access it. Even without tactical experience, he could see it as a massive boone to either side. Assuming, of course, that these aliens didn't have relays of their own, or that their strange FTL drives weren't faster than the relays themselves.
"I don't know, specialist. But I don't suppose they would."
