Disclaimer: I'm borrowing from lots of things I don't own and I'm not earning any money from this. If you recognise it as yours, it is, unless you're claiming the whole thing, in which case bite me.

Now go read.

80 PPF, Scout ship 'Not Yours', The newly named Nivis system.

"And we have arrived. Burst scans reveal no immediate danger, passing over control."

"Yours, please bring up the map and begin assigning name- Oh, we have a habitable one here. I believe the next name on the list was Shanxi?"

"Yes commander, names assigned. Additional relays noted, one primary, primary relay is inactive."

"Launch drones for a closer planet scan and one for the relay, and find us a nice asteroid field to survey. Make sure the drones look for signs of life on Shanxi and launch that one first."

Something to note about Renebus ships, was that by and large the Ethereal ship patterns were kept. It was known that they worked [even if there were some logical flaws, such as engine units that were unstable and released plenty of radiation into major areas], but once those flaws were fixed and designs were updated with modern technology in mind, there was no real need to redesign for aesthetics. Keeping the view reinforced the 'We won, and we took it' mentality, and it meant that there was no need to scrap the stolen ships to reshape their hulls.

They were painted a highly visible orangy-gold though…

This particular ship was of the new Surveyor class. It was essentially a modified version of the 'Fighter' pattern Ethereal aerospace combat craft. Lasers replaced it's armament, and it was sealed instead of relying on barriers to maintain preasure. The craft was split into sections, and due to it's size, was crewed by 1-3 people and a ByteGeist [Who was referred to by the ships name, 99 times out of 100.], with the traditional manned roles being Gunner, Navigator and Engineer. Stocks of condensed materials and a nanofactory meant that enough food and air could be stored for several weeks even if recycling wasn't conducted, and with recycling crews could be expected to live for several months inside one, not that anyone ever did.

This specific ship was manned by one person [Ubunda Melone, a civilian who yearned to travel the stars] and a number of drones.

"Sir! The Shanxi probe has been destroyed!"

"What? Shit, what-"

"First probe lost was Shanxi-Observation-1, It is believed with 60% certainty that it and the remaining two probes were destroyed with laser fire."

I scrambled for my link helm, putting it on and pulling the pack over my shoulder.

"Link me."

And like that, I felt the USB port in my skull open up, and my mind tap was connected to the ByteGeist. It'd speed up communication if nothing else. As always, the feeling of a large number of excited puppies that was a ByteGeist in my skull overrode the cold feeling of a machine mind… Fortunately I had a speaker program installed, which meant I could feel one bigger puppy, which all the others talked to, and it talked to me.

"Drop a sensor drone here… Possibility of first contact, launch a beacon drone as well."

"… Done."

"Ok, initiate a psi-warp jump to… somewhere else in the field, pick a dense spot, then shut of our engines, jump us again and set everything to cool running."

I wasn't a psychic myself, I had no way to feel the psi-warp, but I felt the engines die and the eezo core run down. I moved to take a seat, waiting quietly.

"Engines have been detected… Hmmm… It appears that some metallic…"

"Current consensus."

"It appears that the aggressors have developed a form of stealth missile. It appears to be a large chunk of metal with an engine on one end, likely launched from a rail gun… It will be 30 seconds before more information becomes available."

"Coming for us?"

"No, they appear to have targeted themselves towards the drones we left…"

"Let me know when you've got better scans."

Seconds ticked past in silence… I thought about grabbing a coffee.

"The missiles are iron-tungsten blocks with a small eezo core, computer and a hyper wave communication device, the have a small chemical engine on the back. They are coated in a paste of stealth chemicals rather similar to the Seeker drone, which is damaged in places likely from the launch… I believe they are designed to be launched, then redirect as needed and increase their mass on impact."

"Any signals currently?"

"It's sending but not receiving, I'm recording but it appears not to be ethereal coding so it is unlikely to be decrypted within a reasonable timef-. The missiles have just received a message, the beacon drone is no longer a target, but the scanning drone is."

"… Well. It appears we have third contact. Ok, power up but keep power from the laser, I want a concentrated hyper wave scan on the planet, have us repeat the drone but only target the planet."

"Initiate potential reunition protocol?"

"Uh… That's signals in Ethereal and old-English right?"

"Yes."

"Sure."

I got up and made the coffee. It was a replication of my favourite cup ever, but it was beginning to get boring… I had taken my second sip before Yours spoke up again.

"Missiles have just redirected the communication drone and engine flares have been detected over Shanxi, something large is moving for us fast, it appears to have been drifting cold above the planet. Non-Ethereal is confirmed."

"Stop broadcasting Ethereal and heat up the engines. Get on the Gollop and contact X-Com, we need to let them know that we have a potentially hostile third contact… It looks like I won't be naming this system."

I drank more coffee before strapping myself in at the command consol.

"Yours you have authority to take control of this vessel for the purpose of taking evasive manoeuvres and returning us to allied space."

"Thank you captain… It is believed the vessel is 30 seconds out of weapons range at current speed."

I finished my coffee.

"Ship is no-" The ship shuddered "Laser fire, heading for Relay and confirming hostile contact. I will continue sending first contact messages should they be able to decode it later."

"Fuck… This is going to be trouble. I knew I should have voted for making our own ship patterns."

"Making for Relay, the ship opened fire as soon as hyper wave would give us too little warning to dodge. Passing through relay in one minute. Passing over control."

I took a moment to look at my hands. "You may keep control for another two minutes Yours."

"Understood, do you need assistance?" There was a quiet clink as a drone detached from the ceiling.

"No, but thankyou for asking."

-XXXX-

Commanders quarters of support class Alliance space vessel Religion's Decree.

"You are to be commended for your-"

A loud beeping cut off the general, and I looked over my shoulder to see Donovan holding a pad, beginning to motioning for allowance for a psychic link, stopping short when he saw who was on the screen. In the moment he held that posture he looked like he'd just been caught talking about leaving the Alliance before he snapped a salute.

I let my annoyance show before I returned my gaze to the screen.

"Yes lieutenant."

"Ah general. Sorry general. Comander Shepard, we've managed to decrypt communications. It would have been done sooner but it was considered best to-"

"To the important part, lieutenant." I growled out. I didn't need the man blubbering after he just interrupted my meeting.

"We've reason to believe the ship we came in contact with was from the X-Com seeding mission, not Ethereal. All communications were first contact, and from the partial packages one was a 'In case of this being our old brothers' message."

I stood stunned for a moment, brows narrowed in thought, then general interrupting the chaos in my head.

"Captain, I will be sending more men to group up with you. I'd like you to seal the relay the vessel left from. I will have to confer with others as to our next move. Alliance out."

-XXXX-

2113 AD, April 1, Earth.

"No if you'd listen to the condensed transcript," I clicked my fingers, and the AI activated the projectors, quickly bringing a small hologram over the table, the time/area stamp floating above. "take a note, this all came from mind tap records if you'd like to check."

2113 AD, Orbit over Shanxi, Support Class Alliance Space Vessel Religion's Decree command deck transcript.

"All hits, probes are destroyed, Non-Relay Alien Alloy is confirmed."

"Quiet the ship and tell groundside to run silent, how are the drifters?"

"Approaching signal source."

"I'm surprised we're still undetected, I would have thought they'd have better sensors than us." The ship's XO sounded like he was laughing.

"They're… They're gone. Wait, no, picked them up again, it's almost as if they teleported. They've left two packages, I've stopped all the missiles from changing course… One seems to be a beacon, however it's not transmitting in an known Ethereal coding."

"Destroy the other one, the beacon can be left for now."

Time advanced, people shifted around.

"We're being hailed. Several tone- One message is in standard Ethereal encryption!"

"Destroy the ship and the Beacon now! I want them out of the system. Alert the base, tell them to begin Watchdog protocol, they need to be growling, I alert them we have a near-confirmation as to 'Dog has his day' status."

People suddenly shifted, everyone at combat stations, quietly alarms rang in the background.

"The ship has fled and is out moving the missiles. It's making short distance teleports and… It's gone into FTL and is heading for the relay."

"… Kill the missiles and send word, we need a fleet here and transports to extract our people on the ground. I wouldn't have thought they needed a relay though..."

The recording paused, and with another motion I had the AI turn it off.

"Well, I have to agree, Hannah may have acted quickly but she wasn't being stupid. How much did we manage to get as to the 'old brothers' message?" Lord Ashton shifted in his seat slightly as he considered the recording.

"Just a code to send out to signal that we weren't about to kill them, and a reply phrase to say they've gotten the message. They began to say sorry about something, likely for leaving or not changing ship patterns and giving everyone a heart attack."

"So what do we think about them broadcasting in Ethereal?"

"We consider it likely that they were just trying a variety of communication modes, seeing what stuck. Additionally if another race had encountered Ethereals they could have cracked the message faster than they would have figured out their dialect. Speaking of which linguists are guessing based on what little they have that they're using a simplified version of Afrikaans, corrupted with some English. We're guessing most of their people will speak a corrupted form of English or Afrikaans, They're hoping that they'll be ok with what to them is old English, otherwise we'll have to use Ethereal language to create a middle ground at first."

"Thankyou lord Manswell. I think at this point we can take it to the other families and decide on exactly what to respond with, besides reinforcing the system and extracting Cerberus forces from Shanxi."

-XXXX-

2113, April 5, Maya system relay.

Bridge of battleship class X-Com space vessel Vandal's Prize.

"XO Hock stepping down, Captain Trask has the bridge."

"Thank you Vandal, you heard the Geist, swap out of stations as required. Someone put up a timer for when the carriers get here."

One of the large screens began counting down little over an hour.

"Well… Looks like we'll be able to set our eyes on the BiteGeists shortly. I take it the fleets status is the same Vandal?"

"Yes captain, tense but ready."

I looked around the bridge, restraining a snort. Everyone was dutifully at their monitors, but as crews switched I had a feeling that the only reason they weren't more relaxed was because they didn't Irish their drinks… And there was one yawni-

"Alert! Relay is spinning up for a catch!"

"Vandal, call to quarters. Put a minute timer and record how long it takes for them to get through the relay, let's not assume they need the minute, and hope they take longer. How complete's the minefield?"

"48%."

"… Damn, call in the layers, remember to set the 10 seconds max wait timer before we begin play once they pass through. Let's not enforce a mind tap… Patch me through to the fleet."

"Opening in 3 seconds."

Yet another timer popped up, letting people know when I wanted them to be silent and having finished clearing up their spaces.

"All hands this is Captain Trask speaking. Survive, Adapt, Win. This may be round three as far as first contact's concerned, but all you need to remember is we stood against plasma and starships with bolt action riffles and aluminium foil and won, and then did it again when someone decided they wanted a new slave race, so the galaxy isn't going to have anything we can't waltz through waiting for us. Trask out."

The bridge was quiet as we waited. Eventually the minute passed.

The arrivals appeared at 1:30, 30 seconds faster than our end transit warmup… If nothing else, they had better breaks.

Whoever they were, it was a large fleet that had arrived, we were outnumbered badly as ByteGeists began crunching numbers.

"Prepare for Op-Bladed Shadows on mark! Coms tell me they're hailing us!"

Seconds counted down, everyone waited rigid.

6

5

4

3

"Confirmed, we are being hailed, Ethereal standard coding… Welcome old brothers." A smile came to the man's face, quickly followed by the bridge crew cheering.

I couldn't stop my nervous laughter.

"Ok, everyone quiet down, send the reply and just keep 'em talking. Let them know they'll need to make room for our carriers and tell them where the mines are, they're inactive but bumping them would be a bad idea. Tell the fleet it can begin to withdraw cautiously, try to set up a meet. Sensors, I want detailed scans of the enemy fleet."

"On it captain."

"Yessir."

"Vandal, link me to the fleet."

"In three."

The bridge began quieting, the only real activity the silent tapping of keys as Comms continued to communicate to the other fleet.

"All hands this is Captain Trask speaking. We're not alone in a friendly way. That is all."

"Comms?"

"They've been made aware."

"Good. Set up translation gear, I want to speak to them."

Silence held for a few seconds.

"Captain Jarva Trask of the XSV Vandal's Prize, this is Commander Hannah Shepard of the ASV Religion's Decree, I hear you."

"Commander Hannah Shepard, this is Captain Jarva Trask, I'm sending over dimensions as to the size of our shuttles, and detailed system maps with a set of coordinates. If it wouldn't be too much of a hassle I'd like to meet my, extended family, in person."

Silence held for a while as information shuttled back and forth, Vandal already knowing what he was and wasn't allowed to give by way of information.

"Captain Trask, I'm surprised by the size of your military shuttles, we'll meet you there. But please don't completely fill your shuttle with a guard contingent."

There was some laughter around the bridge.

"I'll make it a roomy shuttle ride. Captain Trask out."

I waited for the connection to close.

"I'd like 4 Cinders, 2 Carvers and X-Com soldiers, if I can get a Jensen and an Adapter that'd be preferable. Carvers are to be breach pluger equipped, not breach maker. Get it prepped."

The bridge quickly became a flurry of activity as ships began preparations for the meeting, as well as recollecting the mine field and making sure there were no incidents.

"Oh, and someone get on the Gollop, let those actually in charge know what's going on. I'm sure they'll want to tell me what to say instead of letting me think."

-XXXX-

Hannah Shepard, hanger bay of Religion's Decree.

I stared quite closely as the shuttle as it floated in, trying not to draw my side arm, much like those surrounding me.

It was quite clear, whichever idiot decided that keeping the Ethereal aesthetic would be a good idea to apply it to shuttles…

Sure, we had Mutons, but we changed their armor thoroughly and they weren't common. They also weren't here for this exchange.

And then when the door opened, out strode two distinctly over armored and over engineered goldish-orange robots, each just shorter than the door they came out of at just over 6', with 4 smaller, more human sized robots following after. Each was armed with a cannon that seemed to slot over their right arm, and their heads were almost jerking as they scanned the area, their guns however were firmly pointed down.

Then came three people, one appearing to be a ship officer, one in a battlesuit with a clear glass facing, and another an obvious Jensen conversion. And then people took a second look at the colour and shape of the face of the being in the battlesuit… Decidedly non-human.

Someone began raising their gun, one of the robots began raising it's weapon, everyone else began aiming weapons, and in seconds there was shouting. Captain Hock pushed down the weapon of one of the smaller robots and tapped the alien, slowly pushing it back towards the shuttle.

"Homo sapiens sapiens vita-augetur! Homo sapiens sapiens vita-augetur!"

Eventually someone figured it out.

"It's just an Auged person! Stand down marines!"

"What do you-"

"Homo Sapiens Sapiens means person, the next bit is life improved!"

"All right! You heard the man lower weapons!" My voice echoed through the hall, and slowly people began lowering weapons, knuckles likely white under their gloves, and a great many looking around like I was insane.

"hierdie gaan nie goed gaan nie…" The captain then tapped his and the alien looking human's head, a breaf stream of purple could be spotted. He then repeated the motion without using psionics, indicating himself and one of my soldiers, and then me and one of the machines.

I motioned towards him and my political officer, who shifted slightly at the thought of someone unknown in his head, instead of him being in others.

It was fun making commissariat squirm when you could get away with it. It's something I aspired to take every opportunity to do.

Slowly the captain approached the commissar, cautiously instigating the link while everyone held their weapons tensely. While the commissar's face was a study in self-control for all but a half second of surprise near the end, the captain's shifted a couple of times before he broke off the link, speaking in fluent English.

"I apologise for the concern, Sergeant Nempa is a human who has chosen to undergo limited cosmetic alterations of her preference. These don't affect her combat effectiveness notably, and as such are allowed."

"Understood Captain. Many have been weary of possible alien influence despite understanding the reasons behind also using Ethereal coding and language as part of your first contact protocol. While some second contact war aliens do live within our boarders and as such our men should have known to wait, I hope you understand their distress."

"I accept it, though I'm sure you'll be happy to know we haven't encountered any aliens. Now, if you wouldn't mind, we've achieved the ability to create artificial psionics, and if you'd be willing I offer you a mindlink with one of our CNDR droids. Their ability is little more than the common second contact war sectoid, however the distance between mind and artificial mind means that they're safe."

"If you wouldn't mind I'd rather link with my aid, however I think given the tension it might be best if we returned to our respective commands. Now that the language barrier's been overcome fully we should be able to communicate easier for our respective governments."

"Acceptable. Arrive safely and flourish."

With that the captain turned, taking with him his contingent…

The politicians were going to have a fucking field day with this!

-XXXX-

Renebus, President's home office.

"'I'm glad to see that humanity survived on Earth, but having reviewed this historical brief that's about all I can say on the matter."

"I don't normally agree with Udina, sometimes even on the principle that it's his thoughts, but for once I agree. I've a strong feeling that just letting them know where we are may cause them to try and annex us."

"Maybe not, we're a bit more advanced than a rebellious nation or a terrorist organization..." Udina began to counter but stopped when he say my face.

"We have a population of just over 2 billion, and we're spread over 2 systems, they have undisclosed billions but stated they began with around 4 billion and have tried to repopulate as fast as possible, and they're spread out over 7 systems. We are a rebellious nation in the present scale. At this point, I think I best bet is to say no really reeeaaally politely, and request that we stay on opposite sides of the relay."

"And what exactly do we tell everyone?" Udina turned to look at me, a frown already forming.

"That there were signs of Ethereal presence. We lock down the relay hard, and if they ever need help, we'll be there to give it, like was planned 80 years ago. We just end up paying explorer vessels to go in the other direction." President Dumaka spoke calmly, for a moment it was like he just appeared, having silently say behind his desk.

"We made a promise, and we'll keep it. But if you'll remember, when we left, we were told that if there was a home to come back to, we may not like it. Well, we've figured out that home's there for us, but we don't like it. So let's just not go there."

Udina slowly nodded.

"I take it we're also not going to undergo a technological exchange?"

"No. If they decide that no is not an acceptable answer, and decide we need to join and submit to them, then we're going to need every advantage we have…"

The presidents words brooked no reply, and the truth of the matter was, no one in the room really disagreed with him

-XXXX-

Citadel Codex: Jensen Aug's

Named after Adam Jensen, a X-Com second contact war veteran, a 'Jensen Aug' is a human who's undergone between majority and total [excluding brain] replacement, defined in Alliance space as a person who's undergone over 60% mechanical augmentation. This level of augmentation is rare due to it's MELD requirements to ensure the body doesn't reject the augments, and the additional cost if you're not already resistant to augmentation rejection syndromes and thus have to undergo genetic modification, which illegal in Council Space.

Adam Jensen was the first person to undergo this procedure, having undergone it late in the war, with almost all his body destroyed by a plasma grenade. Having survived to return, plans that were little more than the daydreams of engineers and scientists were put into action and Jensen achieved almost full functionality within a number of days [much to everyones surprise], and after replacement with higher quality prosthetics for some areas, returned to the fight within a week, and was by far X-Com's best soldier on the field.

In comparison with Adapter Augs who originated in X-Com separatist space, Jensen Augs are better in almost all categories except biotic skill [Jensen's have strength if they have biotics at all], longevity and endurance, however the last is only true if they can withdraw as needed in order to regenerate, and Jensen's don't have access to power sources or high-end manufactories. However, Adapter Augs being created through heavy genetic modification are highly illegal in Citadel space.

AN:

Apparently people think this is worth reading.

Anyhow, Codex notes will be eventually moved elsewhere, however since I'm using the term Jensen and Adapter, I think it'd be worth mentioning where those terms are coming from her since I don't have an elsewhere for them just yet.

Other notes… BiteGeists isn't a typo, it's the Renebusian's designation for their Carriers, due to the fact they are nearly completely automated… Yes, Renebusian's have a very open government and secrets are hard to keep, but it's possible, and this is one such occasion.

And to respond publicly to a review, as to me nerfing humanity being a bad thing, I'll note it here it's more along the lines of nerfing them to near-canon [And believability.] as far as AI's go. Humanity is still better than canon, but they're not going to roll over the council… Speaking of which, I've a story for that, and while it'll be moved later the first chapter's on the AI issue if you're willing to suffer spoilers. Enjoy.