"Would you like a system report, Captain?" asked a feminine voice, and the man sitting in his chair, staring bleary eyed out at the stars in his viewer, sighed.
"And is there anything to actually report?" he asked, waiting as the AI control in his ship went over logs, scans, and transmissions from home. Sighing a little, he began to toy with the idea of leaving the bridge and getting himself a drink, only to just slouch back into his seat and wait as the computer sorted through everything.
"In my assessment, no. We are on course to the Sling Shot of this system, and should arrive within a few minutes. Shanxi control reports nothing of note, save the scores of last night's games, and my sensors detect nothing of note in the entire system," said the AI at last, and the man sighed again, getting up out of his seat and stretching.
"Alright, so any idea where this Sling Shot will take us?" asked the man, looking in one monitor and using a hand gesture to cause the screen to zoom in. The image changed from a star field to the huge device, many times the size of the frigate he was flying in, and far harder to damage.
"My current data indicates it would lead us to the just beyond the nearby nebula. Terra Nova Command is hoping to find more M-Type worlds for the colonization effort," she informed him, and the man just scoffed. He knew his orders, and would follow them, but really, Command wanted more worlds? Even Terra Nova itself, the largest out of Sol colony was only a few million people, most others couldn't even boast of ten thousand. What the heck could they need all this room for?
"Alright, get Tulley in his ship then I want this done as fast as possible," said the man, and the AI chirped at him, before turning its attention to the requested crewman.
"Lieutenant Tulley, we are within a few minutes of the Sling. Captain Archer has requested you get prep your veritech for its mission," said the female voice, surprising the two men and three women playing pool. The sudden voice caused the man holding the cue stick to jump a bit, missing his mark and causing the cue ball to ricochet off course, bouncing over the edge of the table, caught by one of the women standing off to the side.
"That's definitely a scratch," said the woman holding the ball, and the man standing with the cue in his hand looked about to protest, only to be cut off as one of the women held up her hand and went to a nearby screen.
"Acknowledge T'Pol. Tell Archer I'll be right down," she told the screen, getting a nice blue glow in it, before the AI turned its attention elsewhere.
"Game called on account of work. What a terrible thing to have happen," complained the man without a pool cue, walking away himself with Tulley to help her. The remaining to women just shrugged, the man leading them out of the room to their stations.
Ten minutes passed as Tulley and her wingman got into their veritechs. In two hundred years, the design of the modular fighters had changed little, except for being scaled up of course. To a twentieth century human, the vertich at rest looked like a jet fighter, but any survivor of the Robotech War could see the lines and curves of the thing where the ship could transform from the quick jet, to the versatile humanoid robot called a battloid.
Checking their suits, the two pilots climbed into their machines, silently going over the pre-flight check lists. Protoculture reactors fully charged. Engines clean and good. Tools and weapons, both green. T'Pol's link to the veriteches said they were ready to go, and as the frigate finally got in range, the two pilots pressed the launch buttons, the frigates bay opening up to allow them to fly free.
The thrill of the weightless moment, as the grav systems in the veritech spun up to give the pilots a dozen. This was what it meant to be free, to be burdened not by a planet's pull, but to drift in the stars, making your way through the heavens. Once they settled in, the two turned on their engines, and pointed themselves at the object that dwarfed them, the Sling Shot.
"This is Tulley, I have the Sling in my scope, moving in for inspection and repair," said the pilot of the lead veritech, gently pushing her fighter forward. Soon, she was within reach, and pulled a lever in her cockpit marked B. With a grinding sound of metal on metal, the veritech changed. Limbs, arms and legs, unfolded, as the wings swept back into compartments, and slowly, the once jet, became a humanoid shape, which reached out and settled its hand on the Sling.
"Beginning first run diagnostics," Tulley informed the crew as she pushed a button, and then got that odd sensation of vibration as the sensors in the veritech ran through the unit's arm, into the Sling Shot. Slowly, displays in her cockpit showed a wire frame image of the ancient relic, and then began to glow red in spots to indicate damage, wear, or just places that needed tuning up.
"Man, this thing is almost pristine, nothing like those last two we found," he told his crew. "I can get this one done in an hour."
"Affirmative Lieutenant," acknowledge Captain Archer from the frigate's bridge, and then settled in to watch Tulley work her magic. The woman was one of the engineer corps, some of the best the Terran Federation had to offer, and while there was still some unanswered questions about the Sling Shot's tech, it didn't stop the corps from learning how to fix the things.
Over the next ten minutes, Archer got to watch the seemingly dimnuative veritech work its way around the Sling, stopping at places to open a panel here, or push at a seem there, its hand sparking with welding lasers as it did its work. Looking at his scope, Archer sighed, about to order T'Pol to start preps for a Sling Shot, when suddenly his monitor flashed blue, and his sense instantly leapt to sharp attention.
"Alert, unknown ship approaching. Unknown profiles, energy signatures not in database. They're not ours Captain," said the female voice of the ship AI, and the monitors in front of Captain Archer switch from looking at his man on the Sling Shot, to a new ship.
Terran ship design followed, for the most part, a Zentraedi aesthetic, functional, but not ugly, with rounded smooth edges, which gave the reflex cannons on the ships larger firing angles. The ship on the monitor though, it was nothing but sharp angles, and wicked looking points. From the keel to the stern, it seemed like the thing was fashioned like an old arrowhead, and it was pointed straight at them.
"Shepard, get your ass up here, we've got a code blue situation. I repeat, we have first contact with an unknown bogey," said the Captain, pushing a button on his controls, before beginning to go over the available data. Looking at the things profile, he saw it was hot, hotter than anything flying through space should have been, like it had just come out of the atmosphere of a planet or something.
"On my way, Captain!" shouted the commander, and he could hear the thud of boots behind him, as Commander Shepard raced to the bridge, landing in the seat of the second in command, and then quickly going through displays.
"What the? T'Pol, this can't be right. They're only like a hundred kilometers from us. How'd they get so close?" complained Shepard as she began to bring other sensors to bear on the ship.
"Unknown. Extrapolation from current data indica...new data incoming, other ships have entered sensor range," said the AI, and both humans got to watch as new ships appeared, or more accurately, slid into being.
"Real Space FTL?!" shouted Archer, looking at the display, and then moving a hand over it to cause the thing to rewind, and then play back the recording. Both Terrans watched in amazement as elongated images of more of the unknown ships came into view, and then shortened, becoming small vessels that now hung around the larger one they had first seen.
"T'Pol, begin sending the First Contact package, and give me stats on the big ship," said Shepard, as her station began to ping and blip with her hands flying over the buttons and keys before her, slowly bringing every system up to full, while in the belly of the ship, the remaining crew members either fell into turret wells, their own displays showing targeting reticules, or began to suit up in powered armor.
"The larger ship I would estimate to be of a size with the Phoenix herself, while the smaller vessels or slightly larger than our veritechs," said T'Pol, bringing up an image of their frigate, and then overlaying it with the alien ship.
"So a frigate and a fighter escort then," said Archer, and Shepard shook her head.
"Probably not, T'Pol, do you see any windows or other viewing apertures on the vessel?" asked the second officer, and the image of the vessel began to rotate around, finally flashing blue in one spot, and then zooming in.
"Hmm, a small peep hole?" asked Archer, and then noticed as T'Pol caused the wire frame image of the ship to be overlayed with what their sensors were seeing, and then he could see what he was certain was a silhouette in it, before T'Pol helpfully showed an image of the humanoid, then placed a Terran next to it.
"Micronians?" observed Archer, and Shepard nodded at the statement.
"Makes sense. Most life out in M51 was around that size. The Zen were only up to our level because they were designed that way," commented Shepard as she continued to work at her station.
"Any response yet?" she asked of the AI.
"Negative, I am currently transmitting the First Contact Package on all known channels. I also have all sensor banks open, waiting for any attempt at contact from the aliens," the AI responded, and Shepard nodded, going over her training for this situation. If communication couldn't be established she would have to-suddenly a blaring alarm interrupted her thoughts.
"The main vessel of the formation is growing hotter," said T'Pol, showing a thermograph of the ship on the Captain's screen, as it shifted all the way up from red, to purple, causing the crew to wonder just what was going on, a split second before five objects launched from the front of the ship, traveling at a significant portion of light speed.
"Projectiles launched, kinetic weapons. Target, Lieutenant Tulley's veritech," said T'Pol, and below the bridge, in the gunner's well, all three gunners watched the things sail towards them. Impact timers popped up, with only seconds on them, and the trained men and woman instantly reacted, hands going to control sticks, each taking their assigned reflex cannon, targeting the projectiles.
With a speed that would have been impossible for a human mind, or even one of the old Zentraedi, the Terran gunners took aim, and each fired. The reflex cannons sent odd vibrations through the Phoenix as lances of blue light shot from their tips. Each shot was nearly perfect, the three working in concert so not a single bit of energy was wasted, the projectiles in space meeting the power of the reflex weapons, and being reduced to less than clouds of metallic vapor as the attacks met.
"Shifting to target enemy vessel," said the three as one, and began to take aim at the offending ship.
"Belay that. They fired, we stopped it, I don't want this to turn into a shooting war yet," ordered Captain Archer, and the three gunners acknowledge the order by merely locking their weapons on the ship, their fingers holding over the triggers, but not yet pulling them.
"Shepard?" asked Archer, and the Commander's fingers vanished as she pressed key after key, finally slamming her fist into a nearby wall, which already bore a slight impression of her fist.
"Nothing, just shooting at us. Captain, permission to do an EVA contact?" asked Shepard, and Archer only had to think about it for a heartbeat before he nodded his agreement.
"Take the stealth armor. If you can get close enough, I want you to take out those ships engines," he ordered, and Shepard looked like she was about to protest, after all, she was assigned to the Phoenix just for this situation, and she should have been the one making orders, but she bit her tongue. The Captain was being cautious, especially after being shot at for seemingly no reason. It only made sense to limit a hostile's options.
"Aye Captain," she said, snapping off a quick salute before rushing down the halls of the ship. Within five minutes, one of the bay doors opened, allowing a humanoid shape to float free. The black armor seemed to vanish as it moved beyond the Phoenix, the thrusters that propelled it buffered so they didn't shine. Inside the ship, Captain Archer began to go over his options, while the two veritechs at the Sling just sweated, wondering just what the hell the other ship had been thinking firing at them.