Thepingman Presents

Mass Effect & Megaman Crossover

Reploid's First Contact

Summary: A one shot story showing how the first contact should played out when you don't want to make Turian or Earth a punching bag against one another, that maybe all for now. Crossover with Megaman. Partially Crossover with Star Blazers.

Disclaimers: Megaman, Mass Effect and Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers belongs to their owner, namely Capcom, Bioware and Leiji Matsumoto respectively, I owned only plot.

Thanks Ghost501 for Beta Reading and help pointing out mistakes. It really help

Chapter 1: Space Pirate, Eh?

Prairie gazed upon the great unknown with its blinking dots of stars from the window on the bridge of her patrol cruiser, Light of Sol, in awe as her patrol fleet circled around the edge of the Shanxi Star System. As she stared out into the unknown, she couldn't help but wonder what else was out there beyond that which they had already discovered. Despite their advanced technology of the 26th century from Earth and around 50 years of space exploration outside their home system, mankind still had yet to discover the just what all was out in there in space.

Glancing to the monitor on the ceiling, she ignored the reflecting image of a teenage girl with long blonde hair, a pink hat, a large blue crystal on her forehead, and a matching pink trench coat covering her one-piece shirt and shorts—aka herself on it. It also showed the convoy accompanying her cruiser: two Konigsberg Class Patrol Cruisers and two more unarmed vessels that looked like a flying bricks with blue jets at the back; so uncreatively designed, but yet extremely effective mobile space laboratories.

She sighed. The Earthnoid Cosmo Force always hogged all state-of-the-art technology without sharing them with the civilians. They were pretty much the reason why those vessels had to use Prothean-derived technology, like Mass Effect Drive for FTL, with a CIEL reactor and kinetic barrier to fend off space debris instead of the more advanced Wave Motion Engine and technology that her escorting cruisers and all military vessels possessed.

Although she was irritated that the civilian risk being ruled under dictatorship was higher when they had no weapon to defend themselves with, she also saw the logic behind the implementation of this rule. She didn't need Master Thomas and Master Mikhail to explain to her like they did from the recorded history files they unearthed before the age of space exploration 50 years ago during the First Maverick Uprising, dubbed as "Day of Sigma". 400 years ago, humanity faced extreme danger when the first generation Reploid who went rogue caused severe destruction because humanity thought it was a good idea to integrate advanced technology that can be used as weapons into them. This fact made Prairie wonder what those humans were thinking at time when they created her ancestor from the blueprints of Master X.

Wars between Reploid and Humanity raged on for centuries. Sometimes, they were instigated by Reploids, sometimes by humans like Dr. Weil, who even left remnants of his works scattered around the world. It took another decade for her, her friends, and Legion to clean up almost completely.

Master Thomas's hidden agenda, while not as bad as Master Albert's who tried to make use of Dr. Weil's legacy, was still counterproductive from what they strived for. There was some much bloodshed between allies that had been narrowly avoided when she, alongside Aile, Grey, and Master Mikhail, managed to confronted Master Thomas and those Megamen on the Legion's Throne Room and convinced them to drop their plan. It was then that the world once again moved forward. Humanity unearthed the relics of the lost age across the globe, technology advanced, Mavericks and Rebels were stopped, and finally, they reached the star.

Once the discovery of Prothean ruin on Mars had been made, the world realized that internal struggle between different beliefs and race was no longer a good idea. There was someone out there; and if they did not unite as a single planet, there would have no chance when they encountered the malevolent and hostile spacefaring race. The world, now truly needed to move under one single banner even after the years of strife.

"It feels like yesterday, isn't it?" The Eldest Reploid alive since the Neo Arcandia's rebellion three centuries ago murmured to herself, "I never thought I see the day when we would finally be able to eliminate all Mavericks on Earth and set our sight to space. It only took 50 years, but here we are…"

Her gaze fell upon the Science Vessels speeding past her cruiser toward a strange, smooth, grey, fork-like object with still silent gyroscopic ring at the center between them, which look just like another object orbiting Pluto. They first thawed it out by accident and discovered that it was, in fact, a transportation device from ancient civilization which was practical for civilian use in substitute of the Wave Motion technology of Earthnoid Cosmo force.

Prairie barely suppressed a giggle. She would always laugh whenever the subject about this Wave Motion technology came up because the scientists of the Legion and Master Mikhail got the idea and basic theory from certain ancient set of data disks, that existed long before Dr. Thomas Light and Dr. Albert Wily came to be. She had unearthed them from the region that was once called 'America' during her exile from the Guardian as to let Aile and the new generation to take the helm [1].

She discovered later that it contained the perfectly preserved animation, probably for entertaining the children of that time, titled 'Star Blazers 2199' and 'Star Blazers 2201'.

This advanced technology came from an ancient cartoon! If the masses knew of this fact, they'd never let them live it down; they would mock her and every scientists involved in its creation to the end of their lives! Hell, even the patrol cruisers she currently commanded had its blueprints based on the ship presented in the cartoon! To think that their ancestors could predict the future!

All joking aside, Prairie couldn't suppress the shiver that ran down her body whenever she looked at this giant piece of ancient technology covered in ice floating among the stars in this Shanxi system. Whoever built these things had perished long ago, maybe even millions of years before humanity ever lived on Earth! She always wondered how civilizations could preserve such artifacts in a prime state as if they were waiting for other races that comes after to activate them. If they could do that, then why were they wiped out?

The implication was disturbing, and that's the reason Earthnoid Cosmo Force was formed in the first place. With Prairie at its helm, much to her chagrin of wanting to step down from the leadership role for long now but had not because Alie and Grey talked her into this! Damn their reasoning being so true and irrefutable. She had the most experience due to a life of over 300 years they said. They needed all those experience in dealing with the unknown they said. That and Model A reminded her that their powers weren't that useful in space combat, which would likely be firing cannons between a giant floating city (What cartoon did they watched anyway?) that was ten of thousand kilometers outside of their personal weapon range.

"Admiral Prairie, Science Vessel TK-421 and TK-422 reports that they'll begin their operation, please hold your fleet back at 80,000 kilometer from the Relay."

The Humanoid communication officer on the bridge spoke, causing Prairie to snap back to reality as she walked back from the windows to her seat at the center of the bridge. Pushing the console a few times, she replied to the Science Vessels, "Understood, good luck on your part…" and then watched as two Scientific Vessels started to move closer to the so called 'Mass Relay' to begin their mission.

No, their mission wasn't to activate the thing. As of now, the terraforming project (Again, idea and theory came from another entertainment, science fiction film, Star… something…) was to make every system habitable to humans; not that Earth and Mars were overpopulating, but because the sense of adventure began to awaken on people's mind once more. In hope of finding clues of what happened to other advanced civilization long gone and salvage anything of worth, they journeyed out into the unknown. But now their resources were spreading thin. They had to stop expanding since there was not enough manpower to look everywhere.

But still, the "salvage advanced piece of technology" part was for naught. None of the technology they recovered from the aliens thus far had yet to surpass that of their own that started from scratch, especially the Wave Motion Engine and FTL.

Sure, Mass Relay could send ships ten of thousand light years in seconds by reducing its mass in a way that not even the Wave Engine could match. But with the MK IX that they're currently using, the gap of time it took began to close down to mere hour. Prairie was sure that scientists back on Earth were working on Model X Wave Engine in order to reduce that time even more.

Anyway, their mission was to examine the functionality of the Mass Relay without thawing it out. Then place sensor probes around it to make sure that it wouldn't turn on without their knowledge, get back to Shanxi, had a nice comfortable vacation on the Garden World, rich with natural beauty unlike Earth that nearly everything has cybernetic parts including plant life! Prairies first intended to go to this planet after a long tour of duty…

However, such hope had been lost the moment the alarm sounded up all over her ship, just seconds before TK-421 and 422 could get close enough to begin scanning the Mass Relay!

Prairie's sense of danger, honed for centuries, screamed in her mind as she quickly shouted to the bridge's officers, "Situation Report Now!"

"Admiral, the Mass Relay began to activate on its own!" the sensor and intelligence officer, a female Reploid dressed in green soldier uniform who currently sat at her workstation with many wires connecting from the console to the back of her head, and a shade covering her eyes answered immediately. Her voice conveyed excitement and worry to everyone on board.

"What? Do those two…" Prairie began before being cut off. The monitor in front of the bridge flared to life and the captain of the Science Vessel TK-421 reported directly to her.

"Admiral… this is Captain Slate…" the captain, who was a middle age male humanoid with black trench coat and white captain hat spoke, "This's a great discovery for our kinds. The First Contact with another civilization; we cannot let anything slip!"

"Are you sure that it is not one miscalculation on your part that made the Relay activate by accident?" Prairie inquired, her emerald eyes narrowed dangerously on the captain who gulped at the sight of (apparent) angry teenager despite not doing anything wrong. As she glanced back and forth between the monitor and outside where the ice covering Mass Relay in the distance began to break apart from the structure and the blue orb at its center glowed eerie blue.

Captain Slate shook his head, "No, madam, we're still outside the effective range of laser cutter. No signal has been sent; I'm sure you can confirm it with your ship's sensor…" at that Prairie glanced at the sensor officer on the bridge, she nodded a little to confirme Captain Slate's statement, before returning back to duty "…Thus that leave us with two possibilities, the Relay are activating automatically, or… someone on the other side activate it…"

Prairie's face now has worried look as the word sink in "Then what do you suggest?"

Sure, she was the Admiral of all Earthnoid Cosmo Force and the eldest Reploid, but Prairie wasn't above asking other's opinion when the situation called for it.

Captain Slate spoke with confidence this time as he coughed to get her attention, "I suggest that your patrol ships back away much further, about 150,000 km. from the Relay. I and Captain Orion will do the talking. We're currently assembling a team right now to create the first contact message. I'll send one copy to you as well. Please refrain your Intelligence officers from trying to hack their system too; even if it'll speed up when try to translate their language, it'll create mistrust if caught…"

At this word, the sensor officer reported again " Sensors indicate an energy spike from the other side of it!" her face paled considerably, "Something is coming!"

Prairie nodded and turned back to the captain, "Understood, I'll let you handle the situation, but prepare to jump just in case they turn out to be hostile…"

"You should drop that grumpy attitude for once Admiral…" Captain Slate chided, causing the whole bridge from both ships to laugh while Prairie crossed her arms in her seat, pouting, "…What could possibly go wrong, this is not the Maverick war… sorry Admiral… I have to go now, prepare to hail them!" The transmission cut out.

Prairie shook her head, before shouting orders "All hands, Battle station level 1! All ships are to retreat and positioning 150,000 km away from the Relay! Ready your shield just in case things go ugly! Sensors don't miss any miniscule details and data reading from everything around us…"

Engines of all three Konigsberg Class Patrol Cruisers flared to life as the ship back away from the ancient relic from the alien civilization, in mere minute, when they're all just about 140,000 km. away, the giant blue orbs shine brightly behind them, as Prairie mutters "…Here they come…"

Commander Talarn, the Batarian pirate leader, couldn't believe the day he was having. After the misfortune of running into a Turian patrol fleet at the edge of their border, his ragtag crew had somehow been able to destroy them and force their command cruiser to retreat, tail between their legs, while only taking minimal casualties!

It was nothing to be proud of actually since a patrol fleet consisted of one cruiser escorted by six frigates while his fleet had a dreadnought, six cruisers, and eighteen frigates. All of them were supplied by Hegemony themselves at disposal. The battle was pretty much decided before it even began.

But he knew that his fortune won't last. If he stayed in Turian space for any longer, a retribution fleet from the Law Keeper of Citadel would come seeking his head. The only relay out of the system—a few light years away—and his fleet was in need of discharge, the build-up electrical charge would fry everyone inside if he continued. Before he could order his fleet to flee from the system, something else caught his attention: the non-activate Mass Relay, No. 314.

If anything, Talarn was also a glory seeker, whose achievement in piracy during the last decade put him above all those gangs in Terminus System. Before he decided to try something bigger, like raiding in other more secured Star Systems, he decided to enlarge his crew. As more and more pirates joinied his gang with every achievement he made, his attitude got cockier and cockier. Now, he wanted to try his luck on Turian space, and today would be the day.

He wanted to rub even more salt into the wound of the so-called Law Keeper of the Citadel, as well as trying to find a new stronghold for himself and his pirates. He activated the Relay 314 and went through it…

Only to find himself and his fleet in a completely new System and more importantly, not alone!

A mere thousands kilometers away from their fleet, sat two vessels of a never before seen space-faring race. Talarn was sure of it because their designs didn't matched with any known vessels of Citadel Council or any species in the known space! And behind those two were some flying brick-things that were best described as cylinder tubes with radar superstructures attached to the top on bottom of it painted in grey and yellow. All the crafts were sitting in silence as the two closest begin transmitting some signal aimed directly at them on every frequency, most likely a first contact...

He quickly barked an order to his XO, "Scan those… frigates and tell me what you can find!"

His XO, in turn, shouted to another crewman who worked on the scanner. A short while later, he got an answer, "Scan is completed sir. The two vessels in front of us have Element Zero emitting from them, weak kinetic barriers, no armament presents. Another three behind them are warships, if those turrets on the deck are anything to go by. However, they don't have any Element Zero signs; their armament is most likely chemical reaction cannons or missiles. Nothing to worry about sir." He added knowingly what his boss's about to ask.

Talarn grinned wickedly as his four eyes widen in anticipation, "So their home planet is most likely in this System?"

His XO, a Batarian as well, smiled, "No doubt about it sir. Since their warship doesn't have Element Zero, it means that they just discovered it recently. Thus they have no FTL drive too… well. Scratch that, if their fleet is this small, then they're likely at the beginning space exploration as well."

Talarn laughed like he had just received a birthday present, as he shouted to the crews and all his forces, "Attention my loyal underlings, this's Talarn speaking. We've found a new booty for our legacy. A new species ripe for the conquest!"

As all the pirates cheering through their communication channels, Talarn fueled their excitement even more, "We'll eliminate these puny thing the upstart race call a fleet and descend upon their planet. We'll conquer them, and we'll show them WHO IS THEIR MASTER!"

Before the cheering gets any louder, the pirate leader barked an order, "All ships, prepare to fire, target the two front most vessels, they'll bow to us!"

"This isn't good at all, Admiral!" The sensor officer reported worriedly, if she wasn't a Reploid; she'd have sweats covering her face by now, "The energy reading from the fleet in front of us is rising rapidly and they begin to close in on TK-421 and 422!"

"We've intercepted communication between ships in their fleet. The chatters are in foreign language to us so I cannot make head or tail about situation, but we'll try to translate it as fast as possible," a communication officer also spoke up, a grim expression on his face.

Prairie sat on her command seat. Her face paled as she looked at the sight of spaceships eight times her number. Despite never knowing how the aliens' designed their ships, her instincts told her that these twenty-three spaceships in front of them were designed for war. And when warships powered up, bad things tend to happen.

Not to mentioned that all of them are bigger than all ships she had, and one of them was at least Kilometer in size!

She quickly assumed command, "Get TK-421 and 422 out now! All hands battle station Level 3! Activate Wave Motion Shield to maximum power!"

As her orders were carried out, the alien fleet opened fire; multiple blue glowing ammunition from their bow mounted main gun streak forward. Most missed their mark while two rounds from the biggest and second biggest vessels among their ranks struck true on two Scientific Vessels, destroying their puny kinetic barrier instantly and the ship in a massive explosion!

"TK-421 and 422 are down!" the sensor officer panicked, "They're turning their ship toward us!"

"Madam, issue order to fire Wave Motion Guns now!" one of the crew suddenly shouted at Prairie who gritted her teeth; her hands balled into fists in anger as those who died all hoped for a peaceful contact. No one had ever expected this kind of response despite her warning. And now they were paying the price for being too optimistic with their life.

But for Admiral of the Earthnoid Cosmo Force, it was her responsibility to get them through this alive. She slammed her fist on her control console, shouting with voice full of authority "Silence!" before she calmly explained, "In the time it take us to prep the gun, those ships will already surrounded us and we'll be done for!"

She turned towards the communication officer, "Contact Captain William and Captain Shepard [3]! Tell them to turn their ships around, we cannot fight them here!"

"What?" the communication officer shouted in disbelief. He didn't expect their Admiral to be a coward at all, but why?

"Are you all deaf or what?" Prairie repeated angrily, "Turn the ship around, retreat at flank speed until we can maintain distance between them at 150,000km, evasive maneuver! Order every communication officers to jam their signals! Sensor officers make sure to not miss any miniscule detail and coordinate our fleet to evade their attacks! Intelligence officers try and hack their system, disrupting their sensor, firing solutions! Don't let them get a good shot at us, but not at any point trying to shut them all down, or they'll notice you and counte… urggh!"

However she cut off by a single round from Dreadnought slammed into her ship creating a quake that felt throughout the hull. Many crews who didn't have a grip fell flat on the floor. Some equipment, like spacesuit for Humanoids that wasn't bolted to the ground, flew out of their lockers making the entire ship a mess.

Prairie didn't waste any time, once she regained her bearing on her seat again, she barked, "Damage report!"

"Wave Motion Shield at 50%! We just finished analyzed their weapon, they're solid slugs…" another officer was about to report what they just discovered, butwas cut short again by Prairie.

"You heard my order, do it now! If another round like that hit us, we're done for! Send a distress signal through FTL network! Inform Shanxi via a one-way communication and tell them to prepare their ground force and not reply to us. They'll trace signal back to the colony, we'll try to lure them away until reinforcement from nearby sector arrive!"

Three Earthnoid cruisers accelerated to a pace unmatched by any Batarian ships while zigzagging to throw off the aim of their pursuers, who took it as a sign of victory and rushed forward disregarding any formation or tactic, gun blazing in hope that lucky shot will gun them down. (Unlike their Shock Cannon which is an energy weapon thus the power gradually disperse to the surrounding the more distance they went, rendered it ineffective after certain distance, slug shooter on the other hand doesn't have maximum range, only 'maximum effective range' due to there're no friction in space, Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a **** in space, as always…) The pirates couldn't help but wonder why any shots ever connected since the start of pursuit. No one cared enough to dwell on it though; letting them run was a good thing. It made them easier to track to their home planet!

"Ready rear missiles launchers, aim in the general direction of their cruisers!" Prairie ordered the weapon officer to use their only aft weapons at the pursuing Cruisers (or Frigates if go by Citadel standard) to slow them down. Not a second later, the supposed smoke stack-lookalike behind the bridge of Light of Sol and another two cruisers erupted in flame shooting dozens of missiles repeatedly. Their flight path then altered toward the chasing Cruisers.

However, their missiles proved to be quite ineffective, as the pursuing Batarian Frigates also carried dozens of point defense lasers or GARDIAN, not to mention number of their vessels, which shot down their missiles with impunity. Some of them got through, but they were still stopped by a blue glowing barrier around the hull without slowing down at all.

At least their efforts still yielded some result as the crews tasked with analyzing their enemy detected that the barrier surrounding their ships, were all kinetic barriers intended to stop solid object and offered no protection against direct energy weapons, which mean their Shock Cannons would punch straight through them.

But to put those Shock Cannons to use… Prairie thought grimly as another salvo from the alien behind missed her ship by a wide margin thanks to the efforts of her fleet's intelligence officers secretly sabotaging their computer (Thankfully, their electronic equipment still has its root in on and off, aka binary code,so working up from there isn't that much difficult) and sensor officers detecting their trajectories before they even fired their gun (main gun being spinal mounted and not rotating turrets also help made it easier). They would have to turn their ships around, either broadside or facing them as that's the limit of their turret arc of fire, meaning that the enemy would catch up with and obliterate them with superior number. She needed a backup plan.

If she survived this damn experience, Prairie was going to make sure that any warships designed for speed to outrun enemy will have rear Shock Cannon turret to shoot back at their pursuers, including her flagship. Screw the missile launchers; after all, point defenses cannot stop energy!

While circling around the sun of Shanxi system as an attempt to throw off enemy swarm of heat-seeking missiles, the communication from another cruiser flared up, a man with Captain Uniformin mid-50 and white beard then proceeded to speak urgently with Prairie, "Admiral, my officer has just cracked their databank. We're currently downloading content to the virus-vault and translation is under progress. Can we keep our fleet at this distance for a while?"

Prairie wasted no time to scowl him, mid-50 or not. She still old enough to be his great-great grandmother, and his decision in such situation didn't help either, "We're in a middle of running from death and you still have time to task your officer with stealing stuff, Captain Shepard?" She snorted, "And what fleet? I saw only three of us here!"

"Because I trust that you can pick up my slack, Grandma," Captain Shepard replied nonchalantly, but filled with confidence at the fuming teenage Admiral in front of his monitor, she didn't like being called Grandma at all, "…after all, we've been running without getting any hit for fifteen minutes already are we not?"

Prairie resisted the urge to pout like a child, before turning to her sensor officer , "What's the status on enemy fleet?"

"They're currently 150,000 km behind us Admiral; we're maintaining distance as to not let them get an idea of ignoring us and leaving to go after the colony as you instructed earlier. It seems this speed is the maximum those aliens can squeeze out of whatever generator they're using now."

Prairie nodded, seeing that their Konigsberg Class patrol cruiser could leave this alien fleet in space dust if they wanted to. It relieved her stress a little, because if they're really in a pinch, she can order them to push engine at full throttle and none of them will be able to catch her force. "Any words about the cavalry? When will they arrive?"

The communication officer shook his head grimly, "The closest one is one hour away from here Admiral!"

"We're on our own it seems…" Prairie muttered to no one in particular, before turning to address the Maverick human captain on screen with annoyance, "Captain Shepard, you have my permission to do whatever you've want with your ship. Just don't get your ship blow up for it. We won't have any backup for a long while!"

"Aye, aye, Madam… but they won't get any either." With that mocking affirmative, Captain Shepard signed off. While Prairie ponder the aged Captain's word a little, her face seem to calm a bit more. True to his word, with their long ranged communication jammed, they were at least sure that these aliens wouldn't get any back up soon as well.

However, once Prairie and her cruisers made another turn to head for the recent gateway to alien invasion in an attempt of a 'Wronski feint' (She's not sure where the phrase originated from though.) to make some of those cruisers on their tails collide with the gigantic structure. She cursed her luck once again as her sensor officer noticed that the Relay is flaring up once again!

Instead of making a turn to avoid colliding with whatever about to come out from the ancient transporting device, Prairie barked order to her remaining fleet, "All ships maintain current course, flank speed!"

"What! Are you insane Madam, we'll ram into whatever is about to come up at this rate!" Captain William shouted in panic through his communication channel as his ship pulled off a barrel roll to dodge the incoming fire moment.

But the Reploid Admiral won't budge as she shouted loudly into the comm. Channel, "That's an order Captain! Just do it! No Question!"

"Y… yes sir!"

Thrusters on all three cruisers shined bright orange as the agile ships speed increase to the point of literally 'leave their pursuers in dust' as Prairie once determined. Their cruisers sped past the Mass Relay at breakneck speed, and when the alien cruisers, who were too eager to catch their prey tried to rush past without noticing Relay activating. Their thought only the prize of what they're about to reap…

Until they rammed head-first into many ships from a fleet emerged from the ancient transportation device…

General Septimus Oraka of Turian Hierarchy Enforcer fleet was furious as he directed his fleet to approach the Relay 314 with caution and checked for any mine fields the Batarian pirate might have left behind. Glancing from the window on the bridge of his Dreadnought Spirit of Palaven, he saw the wreckage from previous battle fought here.

All of them Turian's, with a piece or two from Batarian, he wasn't taking any chance with these scum. The death of his men only served to make them look weak in the eye of criminal, dirty tricks or not. They would just creep out of the woodwork to make more strikes in their space, increasing unrest and chaos among the populous.

In his years of service as a Turian General, Oraka never thought he'll live to see the day where those Batarian criminals would make a hit in Turian space and destroy Turian peace keeping fleet in their territory! If that wasn't enough, they still had guts to do what forbidden for centuries by Citadel laws by activating a Mass Relay to make an escape!

Yes, Oraka, his XO, and his fleet's captain agreed on the assumption. After all, this system had one escape route through Relay in Turian space where his fleet just passed through. There were no habitable planets nearby, but those pirate fleet disappeared leaving the Activated Relay behind. You didn't need to be a genius to connect the dots together and know what happened and where they went.

"General, all the fleet is accounted for and awaiting your command!" another Turian spoke, his XO snapped the aged general out of his thought as he back to command seat and begin broadcasting message to all ships gathered here: six frigates, three cruisers and his dreadnought. He knew that his force was outgunned by the pirates from the report of the surviving cruiser. However, this was all he could muster in such short amount of time, so he has to make do with it…

Waiting for more reinforcements was not an option. If they dared enough to open the Relay 314, then they could just open another one on the other side in order to escape justice, so he had to act… now.

"All ships listen… we're about to enter the unknown space in pursuit of the criminal who destroyed our patrol fleet here 15 hours ago. You will not show mercy to those pirates as they deserve none; if we find unknown species on the other side, just stay clear of them and focus on getting those criminals behind a bar first, understood?" The last part, he added in just in case, after all, who know what lies ahead in the unknown space?

"Yes, sir!" all the officers shouted simultaneously, as expected from a species known for disciple.

Oraka let out an equivalent of a Turian smile and gave out his orders, "All ships, advance through the Relay. You all know the drill, form up defensive formation once we got through! We'll show those pirates what messing with the law keeper of the Citadel mean!"

With that word, his fleet simultaneously jumped through, but what awaited them on the other side isn't what they quite expected…

The moment Oraka's Dreadnought dropped out of the Relay, his ship suddenly shook violently as something repeatedly rammed into it, while the communication channel flooded with frantic reports from other ships in his fleet suffered similar fate.

"Status report!"

"Sir, our ship has been rammed by three Batarian designed frigates! Hull breach to port! Sealing bulkhead No.2, 3, 10 and 11… and our main gun is jammed!" his XO looked absolute shocked when reading what came up on his personal Omni-tool.

"What about the frigates? Are they pirates? And the rest of our fleet?" Oraka frantically inquired.

"Three of our frigate were destroyed by ramming into frigates of the same design! The others are fine and ready… wait… that's…" his XO's mandible flayed open in surprise "Pirate's Dreadnought! Batarian design dead ahead sir! Distance 300,000 and closing in… spirit! They have escorts!"

Sure enough, Oraka could see the kilometer long Warship accompanied by six Cruisers of Batarian design on his screen. They were of the same reported by the surviving patrol. He never thought that the pirates would have the audacity to set a trap waiting for him instead of running tail between their legs.

But if they thought he was easy prey because his Dreadnought's main gun was disabled, then they'll soon learn a pricey lesson…

"Ten Batarian Frigates, likely pirates, are chasing after three unidentified ships to starboard side, distance, 600,000 kilometer and rising sir!"

"On screen!" Oraka ordered, as the monitor on his ship flared to life showing the game of cat and mouse between the pirate and three ships of frigate size that he never seen before and not existed in any databank of Citadel. A voice from sensor officer to the side nearly made him deaf as he exclaimed in surprise. Those unidentified ships didn't have Element Zero reading but yet were able to outrun the Element Zero equipped Batarian with ease!

Turning his attention back to the more urgent matter, he barked an order to the bridge as the rest of the pirate, six cruisers and a Dreadnought began firing wildly at his fleet, "All hands battle station! Engage pirate fleet next to us!"

Alarm flared up around Oraka as his ship was hit by main gun of enemy dreadnought. He then asked his XO solemnly, "How much can we take at this rate? Can the engineer repair our gun?"

XO shook his head and replied, "Our shield suffer considerable damage from the ramming, sir. I'd say about five minutes; but the engineer needs more time to get the gun going again, sir!"

"Spirit…" Oraka muttered solemnly before ordering, "Send message to Hierarchy through the Relay! They must know of this crimes! Should we perish here; the pirates won't be running wild for long before our forces exact retribution on them!"

"Yes Sir!"

However, Oraka was giving the newfound species less credit than they deserved, as the sensor officers from all Konigsberg Cruisers reported in unison that the newcomers were under attack by the chasing alien fleet. Prairie's sharp instincts told her that the opportunity had presented itself. It was time to make a move.

Without wasting any time, she gave out an order, "All ships reverse course! Ready your Shock Cannons! We're going to attack the pursuing Cruisers (Frigate by Citadel standard) now!"

"About time!" Captain Shepard's voice heard from the communication channel, as the old soldier had been irritated by constant running away without doing anything for about half an hour now.

With a swift motion, three cruisers suddenly flipped on their axis, their bow pointed toward the approaching pirate ships. Their two twin-linked Shock Cannon turrets on forward deck took aim; barrels glowed blue as the energy gathered. The weapon officer reported to their respective commander of each ship, "All guns ready to fire!"

Prairie then shouted, "Fire at will!"

Bright blue beam shot out simultaneously from all guns on Light of Sol and her accompanying cruisers, skewered three front most alien ships right through, leaving a giant gaping hole covered with bright orange molten hull in one of them. The reactor core ignited and exploded the ship from inside out in ball of flames.

Without leaving any chance to slip by and as other pirates were still closing in, another volley from Shock Cannons blew up three more while they fired back with a gun that had accuracy impaired by jamming and hacking from the Earthnoid. The aliens' fire missed the three Earthnoid Cruiser completely and followed their comrade in death.

The last pirate moved in close before jerking his ship upward, trying to circle around Light of Sol while peppering the cruiser with their laser point defense. However this proved futile, as the Wave Motion shield could stop direct energy weapons more effectively than kinetic weapons, even with dozens of shot hit. The shield of the cruiser was barely dented.

But in contrast, the Light of Sol rotated the hull in place faster than the enemy's could; Shock Cannons then blasted the hapless pirate ship into pieces.

"All ships confirm that pursuing enemies has been eliminated. The bulk of the enemy is currently engaging another faction of alien fleet at the Relay, Admiral!"

Prairie listened to the report from her XO half-hearted, her emerald eyes look at the screen displaying the ongoing battle between two alien factions. Oh she's sure that it is the case, their ships have different designs already a clue and they firing at each other solidified that assumption even more.

The next question was: what should they do?

Her train of thought interrupted when Captain Shepard contacted her, "Madam, we've successfully decoded and translate their language, the one attacking us at least. Uploading data to the network as I'm speaking…"

An idea hit the Reploid Admiral as she turned to her communication officer, "Intercept the communication from that Dreadnought…" she pointed at the pirate's ship "… I want to know what they're saying… hopefully they still chatting during a fight…"

"Aye, aye, Madam…"

The bridge fell silent, only radio static was heard, and then it turned into a mechanical, translated voice from their enemy, likely the chatter from one ship to another.

"Damn, why those 'Turian' has to come now, didn't the boss say it'll be a while before they're here…-"

"Shut up you maggot! We'll crush them like before, their Dreadnought is damaged and can't fire at us. We'll win for sure and the legend of Talarn the Space Pirate will spread even more among the Citadel Space!-"

"Space Pirate eh?" Prairie's eyebrows twitched, but she kept listening in silence as the voice of their 'Talarn' spoke again.

"Turian, the peace keeper? Ha! Hiding behind flag called 'Justice'. There's no justice, only weak and the strong! Excuse for the like of them! We will show them who's boss!"

Prairie had heard enough of the corny dialogue which sounded like it came straight from some lame movie. She used her override command to switch off the transmission interceptor, before making up her decision…

General Oraka was having a bad day. His Dreadnought was taking a pounding from all sides as his force struggled to hold off the slaughter from Batarian pirate fleet to no avail, even with ten of their frigates absent in a wild goose chase of the alien ships!

His flagship shook violently again. The light of the bridge changed to red as the reports of damaged sustained in starboard by disruptor torpedo that got past his overheated point defense, and about 1/3 of the defenses of his ships already destroyed wasn't helping the situation at all. Even the fact that they managed to take down half of Batarian cruisers didn't comfort him!

Trying his best to ignore the explosion from one of his frigates struck by a mass accelerator from the Dreadnought, he gritted his mandible in frustration. That's another loss, he thought; his fleet was down to one frigate, two cruisers, and his dreadnought. That's just a cannon fodder with main gun inoperable against three cruisers and a functioning dreadnought. Spirit damned surprise attack right when exiting Relay!

If this kept going, he would soon perish in this system; along with another primitive space faring civilization will get orbital bombardment into oblivion. As his intelligence officer reported a while ago that these ships had no Mass Effect core which only meant that they had no FTL and were just reaching space recently, he knew that there was no hope for them to stand up against pirate's Dreadnought firepower!

Another round hit his Dreadnought on starboard while it tried in vain to maneuver around the debris clogging up the Relay 314. As the officer shouted that their shield would be down if hit by another dreadnought shot, his other ships tried their best to fight the overwhelming odds, using debris as cover because there was nothing in vicinity to act as one. Metal slugs moved at fraction of light speed and rained down upon them from their oppositions; some missed some hit as the kinetic barrier flared up, but those wouldn't hold up for long.

From the corner of his eyes, he noticed one of the enemy cruisers had decided to kill his ship first. As another round from the enemy Dreadnought slammed into his ship, draining the shield completely, Oraka was completely vulnerable to the cruiser.

Suddenly, three bright blue streams pierced the side of the pirate cruiser, cutting three giant holes on it before exploded in a shower of wreckage right before General's eyes!

He stared in disbelief as the screen shifted toward the source of this surprise rescue. There! Closing in toward the battlefield at a speed that even the best Fighter/Interceptor in Hierarchy would envy, were three alien frigate-sized ships!

The alien vessels opened fire again, not from the spinal mounted holes that supposed to be their main armament, but from the gun turrets in front of their ships, fired streams of blue light which streak through the void. They sheared another two pirate cruisers in two uneven halves. Dozens of torpedoes launched from their bow mounted launchers racing toward the distance Batarian Dreadnought as it prepared a killing blow on Oraka's ship.

But the killing blow never came. One of the frigates jerked around to bring its guns to bear when another volley of blue beams shot past missiles launched earlier (beam move at speed of light isn't it?) and hit the main gun of the Dreadnought dead on…

An explosion erupted on the Batarian Dreadnought just second before it delivered a killing blow, followed by missiles exploding in space all around it as its point defense dutifully trying to protect the ship from the onslaught. However, it also served as cover for the three alien vessels to close in to knife fighting range at rapid speed!

Even without asking the sensor officer, Oraka know that now the pirate's dreadnought is finished, but he has more urgent matter to address to.

"What's that weapon? I thought that those Alien were primitive; aren't they? Can someone get a reading or scan on them?" he shouted while three of the alien vessels now rushed toward the pirate's dreadnought like wolf to a wounded sheep, shooting volley after volley of strange blue beam onto the hulking mass of doom damaging it despite the dreadnought's shield still having full power!

"VI is calculating sir… it…" XO stuttered, eyes widening in disbelief as he peered at the report sent to his Omni-tool "…it's an energy weapon sir!"

That would explain why their weapons damage the ship's hull without triggering its kinetic barrier. But that was not the point, Oraka quickly asked, "Can you repeat that? You said energy weapon? How is that possible?"

As he's argued with his officer, the three alien spaceships were carving the hull of the pirate's flagship with their Shock Cannons while circling around it. Holes after holes tore open, explosion after explosion rocked the giant four times their size whenever their beams pierced through inside. The Dreadnought tried turning around in vain, hoping to bring the damaged main gun to bear while firing point defense lasers at the offending ships to no avail. Most GARDIAN Lasers even bounced off the little ships!

"Why the hell don't we use the Wave Motion gun and be done with it?" annoyed voice from Captain William echoed through the communication channel as his Shock Cannons created another explosion on the starboard hull of the giant dreadnought. However, the giant refuse to stay dead as its point defense defiantly shooting at them despite it cannot even dent the shield of the circling cruisers!

"Cut the chat, Captain William!" Prairie yelled, "Because we don't want to show them all our cards yet; and if it bleeds then it can be killed…" well, if one call flame erupted from the innards of the vessel 'bleed' but of course, so do Reploid like her.

As if hearing the complains of fellow Captain, Light of Sol shot another salvo from its Shock Cannons which penetrated right into the reactor. Chain explosions occurred inside the ship bursting out plating and armor panels were sent flying as the giant was torn apart from the inside out. The three cruisers broke their circle strafing and made a run away for the dreadnought at full throttle as it exploded into a biggest fireball Prairie ever see since Ragnarok broke apart three centuries ago.

"Well, that's more like it, eh, William?" Shepard called from his ship while they were regrouping at the edge of the battlefield in battle-ready formation.

"You two…" Prairie, their superior simply sighed tiredly, unable to find words that will make them feel guilty. However, they did their job properly and she couldn't scold them about it either so she opted to orders their next action instead. "Now, hold position with shield and engine prime, I'm going to talk to the survivor…" she glanced out of the window on her bridge toward the new alien Dreadnought in the distance ,"Hope that your translation program really worked Captain Shepard, because if another fight breaks out because they misunderstand us, then it's on your head!"

"Aye, aye, Madam…"

Codex Entry: Wave Motion Engine

This state-of-the-art technology invented by Master Mikhail and a number of earth scientists consisted of both Reploid and Human came to be thanks to certain piece of relic containing ancient entertainment animations series titled 'Star Blazers', with the advancement of technology in the closing of 25th century, this fiction has been turn into reality.

Like its original imagination in Sci-fi works of 21st century, the Wave Motion Engine achieve faster than Light Travel by "riding" the wave of Tachyon particle, which move at the speed faster than light, generated by the engine converting vacuum of space into Tachyon particle through certain method (Classified Information), with its side effect of generating huge amount of energy for all system of the starship to operate, which is far greater than any known technology the Citadel ever encountered, thus their ships tend to have massive energy to mass ratio result in high agility and acceleration and faster FTL without using Mass Relay.

However, this engine is not without flaw, as achieving FTL drive with it carried risk of dumping the ship in subspace dimension if miscalculated, but with the invention of subspace sensor equipped on Konigsberg Class Patrol Cruiser and UX-00 Subspace Submarine which can intentionally "cross" between these dimensions, the risk lessens considerably as the lost ship can still be rescued.

Codex Entry: Konigsberg Class Patrol Cruiser

Picture: look up Starship Schematic Database: Space Battleship Yamato: Konigsberg Class on Google

Specifications

Length (from bow to stern): 270 meter

Beam (at widest section): 48 meter

Height (From Top to bottom superstructure): 80 meter

Power Plant: One Mark IX Wave Motion Engine generate power for every systems in ship to use, including main propulsions, FTL warp and Wave Motion gun

Armaments:

2 forward deck 8 inch Twin-linked Dual purpose Shock Cannon Turrets

4 Triple-linked bow Torpedo tubes

16 Point Defense Laser

Rear Missile Launcher behind the bridge

Forward Mounted Wave Motion Gun

Other Equipment:

Electronic and Cyber Warfare suite

Wave Motion Shield Generator

Teleport Capsule

Atmospheric Landing: Yes on all level of Gravity force

Description: Equipped with a large Sensor and communication array located at the top and bottom of ship superstructure, along with Electronic and Cyber Warfare equipment, Konigsberg Class Patrol Cruiser is an ideal capital ship for command and control of the fleet along with searching, hacking and disrupting enemy's electronic equipment. Its high speed thanks to very good power/mass ratio ensure that it can outrun and outturn any Citadel ships with ease.

Combined with strong Wave Motion Shield and accurate Point defense make this ship very hard to lands a hit on, however, without those countermeasures, the ship itself is very fragile, one direct hit from Citadel races Cruiser's main gun when the shield is down always fatal, and the shield can endure against main gun of Dreadnought for only 2-3 rounds. Basically, speed is this vessel's best defense.

Author's Note:

[1] Explanation why Prairie isn't in ZX Advent… in this fiction only…

[2] Reaper, per canon, capable of 30 Light Year travel per day.

But truth to be told, this number is significant lesser than what Wave Motion Engine can do in its original incarnation (Space Battleship Yamato 1974 version / Star Blazers: Quest for Iscandar)

Because in there, they have to travel to Iscandar, planet in Large Megellanic Cloud 160,000 light year away from Earth, and get back to Earth in 1 year to save it, which mean a total distance 320,000 light years in a single year. Do the math and you'll realized that Wave Motion Engine is capable of 874.31 Light Year per 24 hour at Minimum, but as they have a lot of delays along the way due to the opposing Gamilas/Galman forces trying to destroy them, the real number might be closer to 1,000 Light year per day or more!

Even if you say the translation is wrong and it is 160,000 light years total, it still put Wave Motion Engine speed at 400ish light year per day, much faster than the Reaper don't you think?

[3] No, this's not Shepard in the game; this is his dad, or at most granddad… I'll leave it for you to decide, same as Captain William.

For the record, I saw so many fanfic out there that make the replacement of Earth curbstomping Citadel fleet, or do the opposite when it doesn't make sense like having a ship mile long filled with Energy weapon get stomped flat by Citadel, thus I settled for the middle ground, is that Earth can win, but they have to fight smart, and here we are.

As for Earth fleet of this fic, due to using the template from Space Battleship Yamato, I imagine them to be basically a 'Glass Cannon made out of some sort of Direct Energy Weapon resistance Glass', ludicrous firepower and speed, but die to pretty much anything if they can land a hit on (as long as it's not Laser) when compared to Citadel fleet, with emphasis on 'if they can land a hit' of course.

Why Glass Cannon? Well, when you have Patrol Cruiser carried a friggin Wave Motion Gun which can blow up Pluto in one shot (This's Canon, mind you.) and Engine that enable you to travel 160,000 Light years and back in 1 year (see the note above), you know that your faction adopted this philosophy to its heart content.

Still, I'm not sure if I can continue into the main game itself, or past this chapter even! As I never played Mass Effect series before, but my brother did and I watched him time to time plus data mining from internet, so I doubt that everything will be accurate enough as not to induce rage in fandom.

Heck, even Prairie's personality when commanding ships is more like Captain Okita / Captain Avatar in Space Battleship Yamato / Star Blazers than herself! Right to shouting down subordinates who doubt her decision! Or shouting order on a bridge, not given order with calm, normal voice expect from someone of that position, you need to see the show itself to know what I mean, especially the recent remake, Star Blazers 2199.

Then there's a matter of I don't like open up many fictions and never finish it, so I guess this's all you got for now, as I wrote them just to test how to write space combat, or aerial combat, heh...

But if anyone wish to adopt this idea and write the fic yourself, then by all mean feel free to do so.

Or if you want to do Space Battleship Yamato / Star Blazers crossover, well, just crunch the number and statistic above about Wave Motion Engine, and get the fact right is good idea too. But to be fair, of all space opera crossover with Mass Effect out there, I have yet to find one that cross with Star Blazers or Space Battleship Yamato, maybe the show is too old to remember?