Basillius~

In a dimly lit room, a large man sat atop a dark throne overlooking the room and its occupants. The man's metal body was as black as an abyss; a stark contrast to the pale white faux skin of his weathered face. He stared down for a moment at the people milling around below as they called out various callsigns of ships and spatial coordinates. With a deep breath, the massive cyborg closed his eyes, and visions of the past immediately started to push their way into his mind.

He was standing amidst utter chaos, his suit tattered and burned, civilians... family, behind him. He stared up at a massive creature that seemed to be little more than a gigantic sickly-green mass of eyes, barbed tentacles, and fangs.

He felt a mechanism click in his arms and a long blade extended into one of his hands while a cross between a shotgun and a submachine gun quickly assembled itself into his other hand. He took one last look behind himself at the gathered group of people before his eyes landed on a little girl with blonde hair. He gave her a soft smile, turned back to the monstrosity before him, and roared as he sprinted towards it.

In a flash the twenty-foot-tall ball of death lashed out with several of its tentacles, whipping them towards the man at incredible speed.

The man grit his teeth and slashed at each of the oncoming tentacles, dismembering the two tree-sized tentacles and dodging another. He brought up his left hand and took aim at the beastwith his compact shotgun before holding down the trigger. The sounds of the world were drowned out as the weapon fired with a deafening 'BRRRRRRRRRR'.

The 12 gauge shotgun slugs impacted all over the creature's face, pockmarking its skin and breaking some of its needle-like fangs, but otherwise doing little more than enraging the creature.

In its fit of rage, it let out a petrifying screech and flung a car at the man. His eyes widened and he slammed his feet into the sidewalk as he braced himself for the oncoming vehicle. He shouldered the impact to protect the people behind him. His hefty cybernetic body dug furrows into the ground as the car wrapped around him from the sheer force of the throw, but he held firm.

The car, while only half the size of the massive cyborg, still threw him off long enough for the massive creature to get its tentacles around him. As the tree-trunk-sized tentacles locked him in place, the bone-like barbs scraped across his metal body creating sparks along with a loud screeching sound akin to nails on a chalkboard. The creature seemed to struggle for a moment before it lifted the man into the air above its mouth.

The fanged maw opened to reveal several dozen sets of needle-like teeth. The world seemed to slow for a moment as the man was dropped. He grinned as he fell, unleashing a volley of slugs into its mouth. The monster reeled in pain as its insides were torn to shreds by the slugs and the man began laughing like a maniac as dropped the rest of the way onto the stunned creature, sword first. He fell across its side, splitting its belly wide open and spilling its entrails across the suburban street.

With a roar of victory, the man looked back to the civilians and family he had protected to see if they were safe. He smiled wholeheartedly as he watched the local planetary guard loading them all into troop transports for evac.

He took a deep breath to savor the moment but was cut short by a deafening sound that was a mixture of a hellish screech and a deep roar at the same time. His eyes darted towards the sound and he saw a fiery yellow-green rift high in the sky. The tentacles stretching towards his planet were at least a mile long already and as thick as a small house.

A moment of panic set in as the creature's head poked out of the rift and he got an approximate size for the thing. It was the size of a major city at least. The creature's massive eyes all seemed to focus on the body of the small one the man had just slain. The colossal being held there for a moment staring at the corpse before its eyes slowly focused on the man instead.

Moments later the creature swung itself out of the hole in space with a lightning-quick speed that shouldn't have been possible with its size and reached for the man with its dozens of building-sized limbs.

"Lord Basillius!" The man on the throne's eyes slowly opened as he heard his name being called. He looked towards the origin of the sound and his eyes alighted on Aurelius, his Arch Primarch. "Lord Basillius, we have a slight issue. We intercepted a comms alert from an unknown callsign simply labeled 'Jeff'. We cannot trace his contact and he's specifically attempting to speak with you."

Basillius smiled as he heard the name and he waved an affirmative to Aurelius, "That's fine. I know him, so let him speak. Reroute him back to my personal communicator." Aurelius gave a quick Imperial salute and added, "Yes, Lord Basillius." before he walked back to the communications center.

Moments later a small 'ding' sound resonated in Basillius's head and he mentally answered the call. The cyberware in his head acted as a communicator, connecting him to 'Jeff' with a single thought. "Basillius. We have a... problem? Catherine has initiated first contact with a ship belonging to an unknown species that looks like... well... bipedal mice."

Silence hung in the air as Basillius processed this until a loud 'PANG' resounded throughout the bridge of the ship as his metal hand impacted his face in an award-winning facepalm. After a few moments, he finally replied, "...What? Sentient, bipedal, space-faring mice? How? And why Catherine of all people?! Oh for the love of... please... please tell me she handled it without creating a diplomatic incident..." His earnest pleas were met with silence.

Basillius sighed in defeat before asking, "What are the coordinates? I will jump there as soon as possible."

Moments later he was met with another 'ding' that provided the spatial coordinates to Catherine's ship. 'Hopefully, I can get Aurelius to let me go without the whole fleet... That man fears for my life more than anyone else...' he thought as he anxiously stared at the curious Aurelius.

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Catherine~

A dark ship hung in space around a newly formed colony. The defensive weapons and blade-shaped exterior of the dark ship created a rather menacing appearance to this unassuming hauler, but the ship's name, Amaryllis, being painted in bright pink across the side of the vessel gave it an odd contrast.

Catherine Dulacy was reviewing her cargo manifest in her quarters when she heard a knock at her door followed by a quick, "Catherine? Nadiya picked up an odd signature in a nearby unexplored sector of space. She thinks it could be a disabled ship, probably got attacked by those Azarian squids. Do you think we could pass by to check for survivors?"

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Catherine hopped up out of her chair and tossed the digital manifest onto her bed as she weaved around the stuffed animals littering her floor. It took her a moment but she made it and waved her hand over a small indent in the wall. The wall quickly turned into a cloud of nanite dust that seemed to absorb itself into the surrounding structure, revealing a door-shaped hole.

"Let's go, Alan. of course we can't just leave someone hanging if the Azarians attacked them. There might be enough left behind to resurrect." As soon as she finished her sentence she took off through the ship's long corridors.

Alan smiled as Catherine ran off to hopefully rescue some poor soul that got attacked by one of the abominations. He snapped out of his reverie as he watched her round the corner with her long, blonde hair flowing behind her. He cleared his throat and started following his Captain.

Ashley Hale was nervously pacing the bridge while she waited for her brother to get Catherine. After a few moments, the door to the bridge fell into dust revealing Catherine's usual expression full of excitement and wonder, followed by a very exhausted Alan who was out of breath as he had to sprint after Catherine just to catch up to her.

As the two entered Catherine leaped over a railing and swung herself into her seat while Alan sighed and walked to his station. As soon as everyone was in their place Catherine cleared her throat and began. "Ashley? I know we are in a newly established primitivism colony, but they surely have system defense stations around. Can we rely on their assistance should Azarians still be there?"

Ashley conjured a hardlight console with a wave of her hand and she queried the system defense AI. "The local defense AI has stated that the system is out of its jurisdiction but it would send a couple of drones to provide a distraction for our escape should it be necessary."

Catherine nodded her head slowly as she cataloged the information in her mind. With a deep breath, she turned to Nadiya. "Have there been any attempts at communication from the signature? Any quantum communications whatsoever?"

Nadiya looked at her apologetically before shrugging her shoulders, "None Cath. Comms are silent but the signature is moving albeit slowly. It could be an old ship from before we used quantum comms... But that would mean they've been lost for a few hundred years. Probably from the fall of the United Planets. Oh! We got a return. A set of coordinates. Confirmed. They are coordinates nearby the vessel. It's probably an ARK AI."

Catherine raised an eyebrow at this, "Hmmm... Most of the old colony ships and ARKs were tracked down and recovered... Oh well. It could be people in need, so let's go." She gave a passing glance to Alan and nodded her head at him.

He returned her nod and pulled up his own hardlight console. "Spatial coordinates confirmed, triggering warp drive," he said as he pushed a virtual lever up.

The space in front of the ship shimmered for a moment before a small crack appeared alongside a bolt of lightning. The crack started to spread further and further, and with every passing second, more lightning began to burn through space. After a few moments, the crack seemingly shattered, creating a sound that managed to pass through the vacuum of space akin to a deep groan of pain that shook the fabric of space itself. The lightning storm was putting out dozens of bolts per second that all seemed to focus on the rift in space, creating a vortex of electricity that would occasionally strike the ship passing through its center.

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Vrillex~

Captain Vrillex was escorting a team of scientists to one of the many protected worlds under the Galactic Compacts' care. The Atteni scientists were to study the primitive life and the culture of the natives. Almost as soon as they arrived in system he disengaged the FTL engine and began the slow stop that would land him near the planet's orbit within a couple of days.

His Vice-captain and long-time friend Rialla was seated next to him staring intently at her console for a few short moments before she said, "Hey Zrin? Are you seeing these pings?" as she passed the log over to his console.

The young communications officer pulled up Rialla's log and stared at it with a look of utter confusion on his face. He started curling his long, prehensile tail nervously as he said, "Uhhhh... We... we are being pinged? An attempt at communications? It's something advanced enough that I have no idea what it could even be. It's definitely meant for us though, whatever it is." he said with a nervous tilt to his voice.

Vrillex eyed the two with some apprehension before asking, "Could it be the Razerian alliance?"

In response, Rialla turned to him and shook her head, "No. Even if they advanced their communications this far, they would still have been able to change to the galactic standard. This... This is most likely an unidentified species. One more advanced than us, though by how much I don't know."

With the information that this could be a first contact scenario with a species more advanced than them in mind, Vrillex made his decision. "Send them these coordinates," he said as he swiped the virtual numbers over to Zrins console. "These should have a safe entry into the system and give them enough time to stop near us. May the goddess be with us."

Vrillex tabbed open the ship-wide PA system, "Everyone, prepare for first contact. We have made contact with a species advanced enough that we don't know what to expect. In light of this, I am readying the escape pods and preparing the black-box alert that was entangled with the Council's own." He took a slight pause before continuing.

"Should we perish we will be remembered as Atteni who bravely gave our lives to send this information home. Should we have a successful first contact, we will be known as the Atteni who made first contact with the first-ever civilization more advanced than the Galactic Compact. The bridge is open to all at this time, but we just gave them the coordinates so it should be a few days before we meet. Get your effects in order and message your families just in case."

As he cut the PA off he looked back up at the people manning the bridge and smiled. "Sorry for the heavy talk, but if they are more advanced than us, there's no guarantee of escape. We have a few days so let's-"

He was quickly cut off as a small crack appeared in the space in front of his ship. Suddenly electrical storms appeared in space where they should not be, lightning shooting off in every direction while the space inside the storm began to ripple and twist in every direction widening the crack in space. Alarms within Vrillex's vessel began blaring off every single warning imaginable as space itself began to shake... then he heard it. The loudest sound in the universe. Loud enough to be carried through the void. It was deep and sounded as if a god cried out in pain.

Panic took over the hearts of all in the ship as everyone's eyes were locked on the stellar phenomena in front of them. Over a dozen people had since run into the bridge to see what was happening outside.

The sheer number of people crowding the bridge made it feel confined. Combine that with the godlike event unfolding in front of their very eyes, and the minds of the Atteni were going into overdrive. Their fur had begun to stand on end as their emotions peaked and their tails were grabbing onto nearby items or other people reflexively.

They watched in awe and horror as an absolutely gargantuan ship slowly revealed itself from within the massive electrical storm. Lightning coursed over the hull of the ship accentuating the malicious-looking vessels' weaponry and dark colors. The unknown vessel was sleek despite its size and bristling with weapons that could fit their own tiny ship in the barrel.

They could see what seemed like spikes at odd intervals all across the vessel that should serve no purpose other than intimidation. As the final thousand feet of the ship pulled itself through the storm it began to ping the whole system with some unknown sensor array.

The entire crew was silent as the dead, staring at the malevolent vessel in a mixture of fear and awe. After a long moment of breathlessness, Rialla took a deep breath, cutting the silence. The rest of the crew followed suit as many of them had forgotten to breathe during the display. Rialla whispered without looking away from the massive, dark ship looming in the darkness of space. "What the fuck is that?? How could they even build something that large? Why put spikes on it? Oh, goddess..."

Valthan an engineer that had come up to the bridge during the ship's grandiose entrance simply collapsed onto his knees staring at the new ship. He muttered through tears, "She's... She's so beautiful... They are gods. These people are gods and we are but motes of dust before them..."

Vrillex finally came to grips with what was going on and quickly snapped his tail to get the attention of the crew. He took a deep breath before yelling, "Zrin! Get that ship on comms! Send them a lexicon in every frequency possible!" Zrin hastily complied and set their communications relay to blast the Galactic standard language lexicon at the ship in every form they could.

Moments later they received a picture of a closed fist with the thumb pointed up and the main viewscreen came to life on the bridge with the image of a furless bipedal creature. The creature was staring at someone or something offscreen as it said, "Wasn't this supposed to be an old ARK? Oh, we're already connected?" before it turned to the camera and cleared her throat.

"Hello, I am Captain Catherine Dulacy, representing the Cargo Freighters guild of the Terran Imperium and I am here to... OHMYFUCKINGSHIT!!! You're mouse people!? Holy fuck you're all so adorable! Is that tiny thing your guy's ship!? You guys have to be like two feet tall? Ohhhhhhh!!!! I just wanna cuddle you!"