3rd February 2156,

1930 SET (Standard Earth time)

TCS Cruiser Roadrunner

Captain Lana Kushner was in the middle of writing her reports. While boring, activating a mass relay and escorting 2 science ships with her 10 ships battlegroup (2 cruisers including her own, 4 destroyers and 4 frigates), there wasn't much to write. She just left the other captains to write reports and she just combined the facts into the final report.

"Brenda, situation update." she called to the ship's AI.

"The activation of the mass relay proceeds Captain. All systems across the ships nominal. The activation will probably occur at 6 hours from now." the ship's AI finished.

"Alright then, wake me up in six hours."

Lana ordered.

Brenda didn't breally like what she heard:

"And what if something happens while you are asleep?" she asked annoyed.

"Like what? An alien invasion?" Lana said jokingly, and went to sleep.

4 hours later...

"...Captain, wake up!"

Lana woke up, saw that she only slept 5 hours and asked:

"What happened Brenda?" trying to blink the sleep out of her system.

"The mass relay was just activated from the other side! The science ships had to retreat! We need you to coordinate the battlegroup!"

"From the other side? That means... Fuck! I just had to jinx it, didn't I?"

To say Lana was frustrated would be an understatement. All the time she was muttering insults, swear words and other words that even Brenda couldn't hear. However, she got to the command deck and managed to organise the battlegroup into, what in her opinion was, a half decent defensive formation, with the science ships behind them and ready to send a message to the closest Coalition military base. They all waited, with baited breaths for what would come from the other side. Half an hour passed and nothing came. The crew managed to calm down and returned back to their duties, joking and talking like nothing happened.

Lana catched some snippets of conversations:

"Did you see the match against the Wildcats..."

"Hey, when will you return my five bucks?"

"Man, I wanted to see what aliens looked like..."

"No, you have to execute the debugging second and then..."

Lana had enough of waiting and ordered the ship's communication officer, Oswald Perry, to get her in contact with the captains of the science vessels. He followed the order and soon, both captains were on the screen:

"Captains Morales and Cutri online ma'am"

he said.

Lana acknowledged him and stood in front of the holo projector:

"Captains, are you certain the relay was activated from the other side?"

Captain Cutri answered:

"We are completely certain about that. The activation protocol takes hours to kick in because most relays stay dormant for too long"

Captain Morales continued:

"Also, we cannot speed up the process because the results could be catastrophic.

The simulations show a high possibility of malfunction if we try to rush the reactivation."

"Alright then, how the hell was the relay activated from the other side then?"

Lana asked.

"Maybe it was remotely activated? Or whatever exists on the other side detected our efforts and doesn't want to use the relay?" Cutri proposed.

Lana pondered for a bit, then said:

"We will send a probe to find out what happened then. The battlegroup will hold positions and you two will do the same. If needed, I will go there with 3 more ships."

She closed the comm and issued the orders. Everyone did as ordered and a probe was sent through the relay.

The relay probe had an installed QEC for live communication and translation software in case of first contact with intelligent life. The very reason of the creation of the Terran Coalition, the rapid advances of technology, the acceptance of keeping about 7% of the population in the various army and navy branches and the funding of said armed forces with the best weapons, equipment and training revolved around the very thought of encountering intelligent, possibly hostile, life or, even worse, the Reapers.

"The first encounter must be perfect, for humanity's sake." Lana monologued.

4th February 2156, 0000 SET

"Captain Karn, an object just came out of the relay!"

XO (Executive officer) Abakor Sagparah informed the superior officer of the batarian destroyer Adek. Captain Karn Graksebar, an agent of the Hegemony, hid his true identity under the guise of a typical space pirate. He, along with his ship, his crew and the 2 other destroyers under his command, received a mission from his superiors: Open the mass relay so the Hegemony can expand under the nose of the Citadel Council. However, he didn't expect that someone else would try to open the relay the same time as him, let alone from the other side. Was it some new race that just found out about the mass relays? Or was it some species like the Rachni? He shuddered at the last thought.

"What is the object XO Abakor?" he asked

"The scanners show it is some kind of probe, don't know what type or make.

It's propably some new race."

Abakor answered.

Suddenly, the probe started to emit some kind of signal. Like it was trying to communicate.

"What is the probe's message?" Captain Karn asked the communication specialist Grafin Praf'kah.

"It is some kind of a data packet. Permission to download?" she asked.

"In an isolated system. We can't risk the possibility of virus infection or sabotage."

Karn ordered.

The data packet was installed to the computer, but did something no one excepted. It changed it's own code to suit the systems and adapt to the processes.

"Is this even possible?" Karn asked, equally awed and creeped out at the same time.

"No sir, not even the most advanced VI's are capable of something like this, unless..." Grafin didn't finished, suddenly too shocked to speak.

"Unless what? Spit it out already!" Karn said, his patience thinning out.

"It's... it's an AI! It already made a translation matrix in less than a minute!"

Grafin stuttered, too shocked for words.

Karn's 4 eyes went fully wide. An AI? Even the Citadel Council didn't possess such technology. Maybe this new race had a lot of tricks in their sleeves.

"Here I hoped for a typical illegal relay opening. At least it's not more Rachni or anything hostile."

he monologued.

AN

Wow! First Contact with batarian pirates. How will it go? Relatively smooth or shots fired? Find out soon.