Shanxi Frontier System – Odyssey Science Station – 03 August 2356 – 1026 Hours
Professor Kobey Drellos 4 Days earlier

Professor Kobey's headache was getting worse, even after taking his fifth pill for it in less than a day. He could still hear Navy Admiral Jason Grace and Lead Scientist Amellia Hayes discussing in the adjacent room.

They had found the object buried inside an ice asteroid orbiting at the very edge of the Shanxi system, the automated systems classified it as several battleship core meltdown which caused mild amounts of panic system-wide.

"Professor, you can come from hiding now, we reached a decision." Amellia called from the conference room.

"We will be sending one unmanned probe with passive sensors only, the probe will stay at its destination for 30 minutes and hopefully come back intact immediately after." The stern voice of Admiral Grace

The age-old military fear of automated systems, it's surprising they agreed to the passive scanner at all.

"I am certain that passive scans will prove that the Relay is safe and subsequent missions will be maned, this technology will be a new step in human expansion." Kobey could see clearly that the admiral didn't like the word 'expansion" Civilian-Military relations were always strained after the Grand human expansion and corporate war.

"Human space already is quite expansive my recommendation remains that we explore whatever is on the other side of this device with the utmost care and preparations, the last thing we need is a first contact scenario made with an automated machine." were the last words uttered by the admiral before he left the room.

"Professor, I recommend you start preparing a probe, I want all passive scanners we can get our hands on it. At the very least, we need definitive proof that the device is safe for human transport, I already contacted Lincoln Research Institute, and they are sending their ships here for an expedition." Kobey didn't stay in the room long enough to see the Lead scientist's face, but if he had, maybe he would be more careful on his assignment.

Shanxi Frontier System – 3º Shanxi Defense Fleet – 03 August 2356 – 1052 Hours
Navy Admiral Jason Grace

"This is shuttle Bravo Niner, requesting docking with Battleship Invincible." The bored voice of the shuttle pilot almost betrayed the tension the Admiral felt.

It was the same thing again, the researchers wanted to send an automated vessel to whatever destination the object would take it and blast the area with active sensors, practically begging to be found by whoever created such thing.

"Admiral, welcome aboard Invincible." Grace was greeted with a formal salute by a short man, Captain Michael Drellos if he wasn't mistaken.

"Captain, we should go somewhere private there's lots to discuss." It was all the admiral said after giving a half-salute back to the captain.

He was guided through the corridors of Invincible, the dull metal gray corridor only broken by the yellow warnings and colored lines that helped guide the crew through the maze such ships could become.

The conference room was small, with only a half table and five seats placed against the wall. After seating himself at the table with the captain, the admiral immediately called a fleet conference with the other captains and commanding officers.

The light in the room dimmed, and he saw the wall stretching out with scores of seats, each occupied by the commanding officer of a ship. Grace couldn't help staring a little at them, Hologram technology always amazed him at how each officer looked like he or she was sitting here instead of on their own ships, if it wasn't the lack of color that is.

As his eyes focused on each, their image came closer, as if they were now sitting nearby, and a small tag popped up with their name and ship clearly identified. In the center of the table, easy to see from every seat, a large projection showed the alien object and the small station orbing it.

After quickly answering the salute from the officers present, Grace spoke. "I believe tests with the alien transport device are happening too fast."

"Did we get permission to move more Vessels close to the object?" was asked by the captain of the heavy cruiser Lorica.

"No Lead Scientist Amellia is still arguing that our jump drives could cause disruption with their equipment, but yes, splitting the fleet for regular border patrol and moving several of our elements closer than needed to the object." He said with a smirk, "Now for the bad news, since this needs to look like a real patrol, we will need to send someone to Shanxi's neighboring systems."

As he said this, the display on the table changed to show a small representation of Sindra and Gliese. "Captain Cressida, you will be moving into Sindra and Captain Druellos to Gliese, both uninhabited. You have permission to accelerate into combat speed and return to Shanxi at your best time. I hope you will arrive here to find nothing of interest happend" The meeting continued, deciding the maneuvers to be taken to approach the device without being too obvious

HIP 69044 System – Unmanned Drone ARD-01 – 03 August 2356 – 1437 Hours

Performing internal systems check...

Telescopic Imaging System... Check
Spectrometer... Check
Radar Emitter... Interference Detected... Correcting... Check
Gravitational Measurement Module... Offline... attempting to rebut... anomaly detected by the system... Attempting to rebut... Check
Magnetic Field Detector. Check
Particle Detectors... Check
Plasma Wave Analysis... Check
Communication Systems... Check
Lidar System... Check
Thermal Imaging.. Check

Initializing system scan.

Capturing high-resolution images of celestial bodies... Images received for future processing.
Analyzing light spectra for chemical composition... Compiling results.
Mapping planetary surfaces for topographical analysis... Data acquisition is in progress.
Calculating gravitational forces to determine mass distribution... Preliminary results obtained.
Scanning for magnetic fields to infer planetary interiors... Initial readings received and archived.
Analyzing cosmic particles for composition details... Data stream in progress.
Studying plasma waves and solar wind interactions... Observations underway.
Listening for radio signals... Monitoring and recording frequencies.
Creating 3D maps of system features... Lidar data collection initiated.

…. System Warning... Tight beam detected... tracking source... Non-standard Ship Design detected... Sending an IFF inquiry... Resending an IFF inquiry... Non-standard Radio Signals detected... Listing and recording... Resending an IFF inquiry... Gravitational anomaly detected... Non-standard Design classified as Battlecruiser... Resending an IFF inquiry... System Warning... Thermal anomaly detected... Weapons Fire detected... Tracking Trajectories... Resending an IFF inquiry... Estimated time for impaaaac...

Shanxi Frontier System – Odyssey Science Station – 03 August 2356 – 1536 Hours
Lead Scientist Amellia Hayes

The probe was underway, Amellia was successfully able to launch it before any navy vessels got close enough for a detailed analysis of the probe. There was no reason to limit themselves to passive scans.

The professor had already proved the Mass Relay was millions of years old and deactivated, whoever built was either long gone or very much aware of the human presence around it, they had to act fast before an alien response could be assembled.

Now they were surrounded by 4 'Patrol Elements' a very clever and welcome loophole in her honest opinion, she wasn't against the military presence, just the annoying part where they thought the old United Earth itself would pop out the artifact.

She was watching the two elements of the 3º Shanxi fleet closing on the jump points going out system, the ships were 3 light hours away, they most likely had left the system hours ago. She was only watching their time-delayed images.

She received a comm request, "Amellia, the Relay is activating again, we hope to be the probe we launched." His voice was professional, but she knew him for a long enough time to know he was excited. While she was the Lead Scientist, that was only because of seniority this was very much his project, and she only kept the politicians and military at bay. "Even if there has been a 30 minute delay for its return, the twins theorize we were simply wrong in assuming instant travel.. Well, we can't know why yet, but it does make sense"

She frowned. The professor's calculations were correct unless, of course, human physics were simply wrong, the extra sensory equipment would run with the passive scans, there is no reason for the probe to be delayed. "That's great, professor, i will be informing the Admiral." Amellia quickly ended the call and just as quickly made another one.

The Battleship Invincible, a name that in her opinion only challenged destiny, was almost 10 light minutes away from her station only a few light seconds from the relay. A live conversation would become really annoying quite quickly. "Admiral Grace, I have reasons to believe the Mass Relay activation you surely are already experiencing is not being caused by the probe we launched" she recorded before hurriedly sending it.

Her mind was still a fury of thoughts. Should she order an evacuation of the station? No use, the station has no ships fast enough to flee currently docked. Maybe they could send an early warning back to the still developing colony in this system, it would take almost 5 hours for them to receive anything from her, and the Navy would surely already have sent a warning ahead

Amellia was interrupted when the emergency communications came online, it was too soon to be an answer to her warning "Odyssey station, this Admiral Grace, we have been engaged by unknown targets emerging from the mass relay. As of now, there are kinetic munitions already on the way for your station, when this message is received, the kinetic rounds should still be 7 minutes away"