25 March 2144, Shanxi-Theta Gate, Gamma-class research vessel

"Sir, permission to speak freely," a young private spoke to the ship's captain.

"Granted, and how many times do I have to tell you to simply refer to me as Captain? Sir makes me want to look for my dad," the reptilian-looking captain said with an amused half-smile.

"Alright, Captain. Why exactly are we over here? We barely understand the Phase Gates and to be frank it's a miracle combined with blind luck that we were able to figure out as much about them as it is. Shouldn't we wait until we know more about them before doing experiments like this?"

"We wouldn't be out here if the Alliance would share their knowledge of the Phase Gates. Tensions are still high between the Alliance and the Clans. Quite frankly I think both the Clans and the Alliance should trade knowledge, the Clans genetics and the Alliance the Phase Gates.

"When should our relief supplies arrive?" the captain abruptly asked.

The lieutenant blinked before responding, "Approximately one hour. Food, better scanners, and some of Tanks just in case."

The captain nodded in satisfaction. Their food supplies were beginning to run low, one of the scanners wasn't quite working as well as they'd like, and they were close enough to an Alliance colony to make everyone nervous. After the Battle of Alcatraz back in the early twenty first century, tensions between humans and mutants were at an all time high. Things began to change about twenty years later when World War Three erupted. By that time all nuclear weapons had been dismantled, after all why keep nukes when you've got mutants with enough power to do as much if not more damage to the enemy while preserving their resources?

The end result after the war was the vast majority of Earth's countries being absorbed into the world super powers. When there had been over a hundred countries, after the war there were twenty. Around the same time, colonization of Mars and Luna began becoming a major focus of the space administration.

Then in 2060, almost thirty years after the colonization of Mars, ruins were found in the frozen southern pole. The technology salvaged and subsequently reverse engineered had allowed humans and mutants to finally separate. Humanity formed the Systems Alliance as mutants formed the Mutant Clans, the two then set out to colonize the stars. It was around that point when mutant abilities began to stabilize. Mutant abilities began to appear with less variability and within ten years all mutants born had powers in seven general types. These eventually became the seven Mutant Clans based on the combat roles their powers were suited for or what their powers revolved around.

In 2106 the Mutant Clans made a breakthrough on genetics research behind the Mutant Genome. The X-Gene, as it was commonly known, had been cracked and a startling and to some horrifying discovery had been made. The gene showed signs of having been engineered. Meaning that some time in humanity's past, they were genetically altered by some advanced race.

Debate raged across the upper levels of the Mutant Clans on whether or not to reveal this information to the public and/or the Alliance. Unfortunately the choice was taken away from them, news leaked and swept across known space life wildfire. Reactions were mixed, but eventually life settled into a peaceful, if tense, rhythm. Both the Alliance and the Clans colonized worlds, advanced research in their chosen fields, and kept a wary eye on the other group.

The Mutant Clans focused almost all of their scientific research into genetics while the Alliance branched out, though they had a slight focus on weapons tech and study of the gates in an attempt to figure out exactly how they worked. Some in the Mutant Clans suspected that the Alliance had actually figured out how to theoretically recreate the gates but lacked the resources, though most ignored them.

In another twenty years the Mutant Clans managed to form the first organic starship. The clans then began replacing all their technology with a hybrid of the technology they had before and the Alliance still used to this day and the new organic technology they had developed.

"Captain…we've managed to activate the gate. Do we go through or wait until relief supplies arrive?" the ship's pilot asked.

"We wait after all there's no sense in going unprepared. When the relief supplies arrive, we'll inform the Alliance base at Shanxi that we'll be passing through. They'll probably want to reinforce this system in case we find anything that isn't friendly," the captain responded.

"After all, it isn't like they've reinforced this system simply because a single Mutant Clan research vessel is here now is it?" the pilot drawled.

"Contact General Williams, he should know that we've managed to turn on the Gate."

"Yes sir. Tele-field up. Initiating contact wave. Received. Message start…now."

The captain closed his eyes as he felt the telepathic communications begin between himself and General Williams at Shanxi. When he opened them, he saw a man in his late fifties sitting behind a desk looking warily at him.

"What is it Captain Jackson?" Williams asked with a hint of caution in his voice.

"I just wanted to make sure that you knew that we'd managed to activate the Theta Gate. We'll be going through after our relief supplies arrive in about an hour. Standard policy among the Clans is to reinforce the system of a newly activated Gate until the team that first travels through returns or forty eight hours pass with no word. I don't know what the Alliance's policy is, but better safe than sorry after all," the reptilian captain quipped with a very slight smile.

General Williams was silent, making Jackson begin to feel slightly nervous, before responding, "I'll contact Arcturus Station to let them know, odds are they're going to want to send some ships of our own through with you. What's the precise reasoning behind the Clans' policy?"

"It's quite simple: we have no idea of what's on the other side. For all we know each gate could lead to the territory of a hostile alien empire. Forty eight hours was chosen because it's enough time to get through, scan the system, determine any possible colony worlds, and get back to report their findings. If the preliminary crew doesn't return in forty eight hours, we shut down the gate."

"And if the gate opens up from the other side?"

"Well no policy's perfect, but all the same, you should probably let your superiors know that we'll be going through shortly. Our relief supplies come with another research vessel that will stay here to provide feedback and to make sure that no data gained once we're through is lost."

The captain shook his head as the communications line was abruptly cut. He never could get used to the feeling of that happening. From what he'd heard researchers were looking for a way to make it so that ending telepathic communications didn't give a slight headache, but progress was slow. Natural telepaths were rare, but artificial telepathy wasn't able to do anything other than act as long distance communications. Even if it was able to read minds, specially designed mental shield were required in order for the communications to work.

"Tell all the crews that we'll be having an Alliance escort through the gate. We should also expect this system to see a burst of reinforcements soon," the captain told one of the crewmen as he headed to his quarters to get some rest.

25 March 2144, Shanxi-Theta Gate, 2 hours later

"Are all ships ready?" Captain Rodgers asked the image of his counterparts on the screen in front of him.

"Our ship is ready to pass through the gate. Our procedure upon entering an unknown system is to do a quick scan to determine what's in the system, planets, asteroid belts, any ships, etc. and then spend a day doing more in-depth scans of the planets to determine whether they'd serve any colonial purpose. After that we head back through the gate to give our report. Is that an acceptable game plan?" Captain Jackson responded from his bio-ship.

"Sure, our two frigates will go through first, followed by your ship, and then our cruiser will bring up the rear. See ya on the other side."

The two Alliance frigates, one heavy and one light, swiftly moved towards the newly activated gate. Captain Jackson heard some grumblings amongst his crew about the Alliance going through first, but paid them no mind. This was Alliance territory so they had the right to go through first. In addition should anything go wrong the Alliance would be the ones to lose the ships and not the Clans.

"Bring us through thirty seconds after the Alliance Ships go through the Gate," Jackson ordered his crew as they moved to their stations.

The massive research station released the two asteroids keeping it steady, and with a massive telekinetic push, began towards the gate just as the two Alliance Frigates passed through.

"This is it boys and girls," Captain Jackson whispered as the gate grabbed hold of the ship and flung it to a corresponding gate in a far off system.

The best way to describe being sent through a gate that Jackson could think of was that it was like a mix of getting pushed through a tube like putty and getting stretched out like a rubber band. In other words, it was really freakin' weird! Coming out of travel through gates however was like walking through a thin wall of slightly charged water as you body was restored to its normal mass.

Shaking his head as the last tingling left his body, Jackson barked out, "Start scanning the system. I want everything about this system known in two hours."

"On it captain!" Michael Moreau called out from the pilot's seat.

Moreau was a one of a kind pilot, he was one of the Psi Clan and one of the few telepaths. For unknown reasons though, he couldn't read the minds of people. What he could do was telepathically interface with any of the Clans' ships, turning his already formidable piloting skills into near godly proportions. Some suspected that Moreau was capable of interfacing with multiple ships at once, though he just laughed the idea off.

"Scans are finished Cap: single blue dwarf star, a gas giant with sixteen moons, and five terrestrial planets. Scans indicate the terrestrials are dead and have no atmospheres, most of the moons are the same though two could form potential colonies. In addition there's also an asteroid belt twice as thick as the one back in Sol and two gates in addition to the one leading back to Shanxi," Moreau said, taking the captain out of his thoughts.

"Message coming in Captain, looks like the Alliance's also finished their scanning, patching it through," Ensign Alla Nat-Smith called out as the image of Captain Rodgers appeared in front of Jackson.

"Your scans of the system are finish I'm assuming," was Rodgers opening statement.

"Hello to you too, and yes they are. Any specific planets you want to scan?" Jackson asked.

"I think we both know that we're both going to want to scan the livable moons, so why don't we start there?"

"How about you take one while we take the other, after we've finished then we'll switch. That way we both get information on both worlds. Since you have more ships, would you mind scanning the asteroid belt for mining purposes, after all the Alliance uses metals a lot more than the Clans do so they'd be more beneficial to you anyway."

"Agreed. We'll divide the system in two, Alliance scanning the asteroid belt and everything past it, while you scan the gas giant and its moons in addition to the livable moons as you suggested."

25 March 2144, Unnamed System, Los Angeles cruiser

"Captain, why are we going with the muties' ideas? And how come they get to scan the habitable moons first?" one of the crewmen asked Captain Rodgers.

"No matter who scans what first, both the Clans and the Alliance will eventually scan the entire system thoroughly. Remember Private Carter, this is a scouting trip to figure out the basics of this system. What we find isn't going to mean a lot in the long run. The Clans don't have any colonies or major space stations near Shanxi, the Alliance is going to get everything from this system that they desire. Understand?" Captain Rodgers responded, a slight hint of warning in his tone.

Narrowing his eyes, Stefan Carter simply nodded before going back to work. Damn muties, they should just go through the farthest gates and never return. All the wishful thinking in the galaxy wouldn't get his work done though, so might as well get started. Bringing up the rudimentary map of the system formed from the scans that had been done. Zooming in on one of the habitable moons, Carter's eyes narrowed as he began to read the atmospheric data that the scans were giving.

High levels of oxygen, much higher than Earth but not so high that it'd be toxic, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, low-mid levels of ammonia; all in all breathable but not very comfortable without gene-mods to deal with the ammonia. It also was apparently about half-again thicker than Earth's atmosphere.

About two panels away, another crewman was checking different scans measuring for presence of water. Four major oceans, little to no salt content, about twice as large a volume of water as Earth. Given that initial scans put the moon at about half again Earth's size, the amount of water was surprisingly large.

"Any signs of life already present on the moon?" the Captain asked as the crew kept scanning.

"We know it's there sir, but in order to know more we're going to have to send out a crew to examine more in depth and possibly take samples," the pilot responded.

"Send one of the valkyrie shuttles with the eggheads down, have one of the frigates accompany them. We don't know what's on that world."

"Understood captain, sending orders, valkyrie shuttle Eucalyptus leaving hanger, frigate Thermopylae moving to follow, Gamma research vessel moving towards the other habitable moon."

The Alliance ships moved quickly, scanning the system with practiced ease. The crews performing their duties with detached professionalism, managing to not let the fact that there was a clan ship in the same system as them distract them from their duties. About seven hours after their arrival in the system, Captian Rodgers decided to turn in for some sleep. He had been awake for sixteen hours before being assigned to keep an eye on the Clan ship going through the gate and was exhausted.

The moon that they had scanned so far had plenty of plant and animal life, though no intelligent life that they had recognized. The moon was on average more humid than Earth, and if it was to be colonized then careful construction would be needed in order to minimize impact and keep the hippies happy.

On the Clan research vessel, Captain Jackson was just waking up. With a sigh, he got out of his sleeper pod and headed towards the mess hall for some food. After breakfast he needed to speak with the teams that went onto the moon that they had been examining and see if they found anything interesting.

He was only halfway to the mess hall when a young scientist almost ran into him. Outwardly it was impossible to tell which clan he was a part of, the Beast Clan was the only one of the clans that the members could be identified on sight, but the fact that the scientist had walked through one of the walls identified him as a member of the Ghost Clan.

"Careful with the walking through walls, walk through the wrong one and you'll end up spacing yourself," Jackson warned the young man who nervously scratched the back of his head.

"Understood sir, but Dr. Tamase wanted to speak with you about some of the samples recovered earlier. Said that they might lead to breakthroughs in various projects back home," the young man said as he handed a datapad to Jackson.

Nodding in thanks, Jackson continued to the mess hall while keeping one eye on the datapad, literally, and reading the message on it. The details were vague, but apparently something about the DNA of the dominant life on the moon would open up new possibilities that had previously never been thought of before. He'd ask for more details after he had something to eat.

Looking at the slush that the food dispenser had provided, Jackson sighed before walking to a table to sit down.

"As far as we've come, cracking the secrets behind the X-Gene, developing organic technology, and we can't even synthesize food into something that doesn't look like it came out the opposite end," Jackson muttered as he sat down and began to eat.

"Tell me about it, I can't wait to get back home," Moreau said as he sat down across from the captain.

"You've got a wife don't you? Back on Yavin right?"

"I still say that whoever named the place watched too many old vids, but yeah I do. Moved there last year, but less than a week after we got there I got picked to pilot this baby. Fortunately military service runs in her family so she is understanding about sudden transfers like this," Moreau commented as he began to eat.

"Which clan is she, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Tank Clan, doesn't have anything except a slight healing factor that has her heal at about twice the normal speed."

Jackson nodded as he finished his slush, following the age old adage to eat military rations quickly to spare yourself the pain. Nodding good-bye to the pilot, Jackson put his tray in the bin for washing before heading towards the research labs. The mess hall and research labs were close together, then again considering that research labs covered most of the ship everything was close to them.

As he entered the one he was asked to meet the head researcher in, Jackson felt a slight smile spread across his face as he saw various scientists and researchers running around, talking to each other in excited whispers, truly enjoying their work. The best workers were ones that were happy doing what they did. Spotting the head researcher dashing to and fro between five different stations at just under Mach One, Jackson felt an amused smile spread across his face.

"Doc, what was it you wanted to show to me?" Jackson asked as he approached the excitable woman.

"OhCaptainit'!It'sfascinating!" the woman spoke rapid fire before the captain held his hand up to get her to stop speaking.

"Slow down Doc, I'm Beast Clan, not Speed Clan, I can't understand you when you talk that fast," Jackson drawled with an amused smile on his face.

"Sorry, I can't help it when I'm excited. Anyway, the DNA of the life on the moon is dextro instead of levo. Humans, mutants, dogs, coconuts, every form of life on Earth and every other life-bearing planet we've discovered so far has levo based DNA, life on this planet has dextro based DNA, meaning that it coils in the opposite direction. I can think of half a dozen projects where this single idea will allow for breakthroughs just off the top of my head.

"Do we know what sort of life is on the other moon?"

"Not yet, though I'm guessing that this means that this moon isn't viable for farming correct?"

"Not for growing food anyway, we couldn't digest it. At best it simply would pass through our systems without providing nutrition while at worst it would cause a lethally allergic reaction."

"But for new tech…"

"Not enough data to ascertain. We only got a chance to look closely at the DNA about an hour ago; we need more time to run experiments."

"Fair enough, I've got to get back to the bridge; we should be moving to scan the dead moons in about half an hour."

Jackson left the main research lab and walked into the elevator to the upper levels. The ship was grown in layers, with the bridge at the top, the mess hall and main research lab being in the middle, the hanger bay was at the bottom, sleeping quarters were scattered across the ship and almost all other rooms were for some kind of research.

Gathering his thoughts, Jackson stepped out of the elevator and with a deep breath walked over to his post directly behind and slightly above the crewmen handling scanners, maintenance reports, and pilots.

"Anything new?" Jackson asked as he stood in a relaxed military stance.

"Nothing extraordinary Captain. We've prepared to leave the moon's orbit and move on, the Alliance ships have scanned the asteroid bent and most of the planets beyond and are beginning to scan the moons that those planets have. Nothing from either of the two unexplored gates, though that's no surprise," one of the men scanning responded with a bored tone of voice.

"Just because we haven't found intelligent life, doesn't mean that it's not out there. This galaxy is so old that I'd be amazed if we are the only ones expanding. Also keep in mind, the race that allowed us to get off Earth in the first place. I don't like that we haven't found any other trace of them, it makes me wonder what could have brought them down."

"Perhaps their empire fell apart from the inside, we don't know that they were wiped out by war."

"All the same, the only traces of them that we've found are ruins, ruins that don't look like they were simply abandoned, and we've found nothing that could even possibly have once been an advanced space faring race. Face it; in our little slice of space, they're extinct."

Almost twenty hours later, the crewmen manning the long range scanners on both the clan research vessel and the Alliance ships detected a gate activating…a gate that led to unexplored space.

"Ensign, report!" Captain Rodgers hollered over the alarm that just went off.

"We've got hundreds of ships pouring out of one of the two gates that don't lead back to Shanxi!" the Ensign currently running the long range scanners shouted back.

"Report coming in from the Sojourn, they have a visual on the fleet leaving the gate and they don't look like a military fleet. The way they described it was it looked like 'a collection of almost any kind of ship you can think of' that has been repaired beyond recognition," another Ensign shouted over the alarm.

Rodgers bit back a groan as Captain Jackson's image appeared on the screen in front of him and immediately ask, "I'm assuming that you've picked up the fleet entering the system, what can you tell me?"

"Why don't you scan them yourselves and tell me what you know first?" Rodgers snapped back.

"You've got better scanners for stuff like this in addition to the fact that you've got more ships here than we do, not to mention that the last I checked you had a few ships near the gate these ships are coming through. Besides, this is bigger than either of us. Do you have a language pack onboard?"

"Let me guess, you want to send them one of our languages so they can understand us while we contact home and ask how to proceed. Am I wrong?"

"No. I personally would suggest using the Trade language pack, and I don't want to use one of our telepaths because we don't know how they'd react with alien physiology. After this comm. line ends I'm going to use the tele-communicator to ask the Clan Council how to proceed. Captain Jackson out."

Rodgers scowled before typing up a message to be sent with the language pack. After the message was sent to the massive fleet that had entered the system, Rodgers opened a secure line to contact General Williams at Shanxi.

25 March 2144, Ast System, Nana, Two minutes ago

"Captain, there are several ships already in the system positioned around the planets," Het'Gena vas Nana said from his seat in the ship's cockpit.

"Whose are they? The turians aren't due to patrol this area for another month and there are no worlds of colonial interest from any of the Citadel races and it's too far from the Traverse to be of any interest to them," Captain Bena'Zorah vas Nana mused.

"The one that we've scanned doesn't match any standard designs, meaning that it's either a custom ship or that of a new race."

"Hold on, one of the ships is sending a data package. Scanning for viruses…that's odd, it looks like a total listing of a language," Until'Henso said as he looked over the data contained within.

"…That implies that it is an unknown race. Contact the Conclave and Admiralty Board, they need to know that we may be initiating a First Contact," the captain told his communications officer.

"Understood sir."

After two minutes, the language pack had been decrypted and, upon determining that there were no viruses of any sort that they could identify, distributed amongst the ship's systems and the crew's omni-tools.

"Captain, we're being hailed, bringing it up on screen," Until'Henso told the captain as he walked up to stand behind him.

Bena'Zorah's eyes widened as two images came onto the screen, each one featuring a different looking alien unlike any he had ever seen. The one on the right looked almost like an asari, though with harsher features, a dark brown skin color, and strange growths coming from the top of its head and around its mouth. The one on the left looked basically the same, minus the growths and instead of dark brown skin had dark green scales.

"Greetings, I am Captain James Rodgers of the Systems Alliance and this is my counterpart," the brown skinned alien began before trailing off as the other one picked up.

"Captain David Jackson of the Mutant Clans. We are representing our factions until such time as official representatives can arrive," the green scaled one finished.

"My name is Bena'Zorah vas Nana and I am the Captain of the Nana. The leaders of our fleet will not arrive until about thirty two hours from now. Can your official representatives arrive by then?"

"We believe so, we will move our ships to the inside of this system's asteroid belt; can the rest of the system contain your fleet?"

"I believe so, it will be a tight fit but if not the rest of the ships will move to just outside the system."

"Out of curiosity, just how many ships are in your fleet, there are roughly six hundred now and more are pouring out of the phase gate as we speak," Captain Rodgers asked, the translator telling the quarians that phase gate was their term for the mass relays.

"I cannot give you an exact number, but the Migrant Fleet, as we are known, has roughly fifty thousand ships containing about seventeen million individuals."

Both alien captain's eyes widened in surprise upon hearing the numbers. Neither had heard of a fleet that large, but the scans showed that very few of the ships were combat ships, meaning that the fleet was a nomadic one, traveling from system to system gathering the supplies they needed before moving on. But for a population in so many ships that meant…

"The Migrant Fleet is most of your species isn't it?" Captain Jackson asked with a horrified tone in his voice as the implications dawned upon him.

Captain Bena'Zorah was both surprised and horrified. Simply by knowing their population and the size of their fleet, it was able to figure out that the Fleet was the majority of their race. He was just about to cut the comm. feed when Captain Rodgers began to speak.

"How it occurred is none of our business, but perhaps your fleet and the Alliance could trade with our end being ships? I will make the request when our representative arrives."

"Any sort of trade is up to our individual representatives; I will contact both of you once the representatives arrive to establish an agreeable meeting location. Until then gentlemen," Captain Jackson said before snapping into a stiff position with his right hand at the ridges just above his eye before his connection was cut.

Captain Rodgers raised the growths above his right eye before muttering, "Didn't think I'd get a salute from one of the Clans."

Before Captain Bena'Zorah could ask what he meant, the comm. line was cut. With a sigh, he started writing up a report to send to the Conclave and Admiralty Board. When the "Alliance" and "Clans" as they called themselves diplomats arrived, they would need to be ready.

25 March 2144, Ast system, Gamma-class research vessel

"Contact the Xavier, we need to update the diplomats on the Alliance's plan," Captain Jackson said as the tele-comm field was started up.

Jackson closed his eyes before opening them to see four people sitting in a semicircle.

"You have an update Captain Jackson?" one of them, a man in his late sixties with the symbol of the Tank Clan behind him, asked.

"The Quarians as they call themselves all live on what they call the Migrant Fleet. We don't know how, but their entire species has been reduced to seventeen million quarians on fifty thousand ships, give or take. The Alliance captain suggested entering trade with the Alliance offering ships. I don't know if the quarians or the Alliance diplomats will accept, but I thought that you should know," Jackson responded.

A woman sitting in front of the Magnet Clan symbol leaned forward as she said, "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We should be in the system in thirty hours, we'll use that time to come up with a rough plan. Dismissed."

Jackson nodded before the mental image of him vanished from the room.

"So, what'll our move be?" Nati, the Speed Clan diplomat, asked as her right leg bounced up and down.

"I think that we should first see what the quarians lack before we commit to any sort of trade agreement. First see if we have anything to offer them before deciding on what to offer. We know that they are in need of ships, but quite frankly we don't know if they'll accept our organic ships and our nonorganic ones are all in heavy disrepair," the Ghost Clan diplomat, a man named Alen, pointed out.

"Then it is agreed? We will be open to trade, but first see what we can offer them," Ulysses, the Tank Clan diplomat, clarified.

"Agreed," the three other diplomats chorused.

Chapter End

AN: Okay, this is a plot bunny that evolved from several different stories that I had in the works and a new love of Alternate First Contact ME fics I've found. I've got a lot of plans for the future of this fic, but will always welcome suggestions.