The Typhoon slowly emerged from the burning throat of the Expanse. Its fiery scarlets and oranges falling behind them as its colors bled into the dark. Ahead space stretched onward a sweep of stars bright, close. Within an instant sensors lit up displaying planets, moons, stations, and warp signatures.

Civilization.

“Welcome to the Reach,” Sheppard muttered, staring at the data stream. “One of the first regions of space unseen or touched by anyone. Aside from those native.”

The bridge was silent for a moment as they stared out of the viewscreen. The patch itself seemed quiet. After the deafening pulse of the Corridor, the quiet was almost unsettling. Across the ship the crew looked out of viewport looking at the beauty of the newly discovered region but also enjoying perhaps the last calm breath they would have while here.

“Report,” D’Antonio said softly, as he emerged from the ready room.

T’Ren adjusted the holographic display, an overview of the surrounding space filled the viewscreen. “We are on the periphery of a lightly populated system. Two m-class, one l-class and three gas giants. I’m detecting artificial satellites throughout the system. Local subspace is highly active. Preliminary linguistic decryption identifies multiple transmissions using variants of Beta Quadrant trade phonemes.”

“Meaning?”

“They’re speaking something close to Federation Standard,” T’Ren replied. “Or learned from someone who did.”

The captain’s gaze lingered on the planet below display as they stood still at the edge of the storm. He wondered if they were talking about them and if so what were they saying. “Open all hailing frequencies.”

“Channel open,” Lieutenant Uhmari responded. “No response.” The chief communications officer was young even by Haliian standards despite that she was able to decipher countless transmissions ranging from Federation Standard to remote Romulan dialect.

“Keep trying,” D’Antonio ordered. “Let’s see if anyone here wants to meet their new neighbors.” As he stood at the biter of the bridge Ober the Federation seal he thought back on what Sayegh had said on Framheim. He was leaning to the latter of the two.

Hours passed.

The Typhoon hung quietly at the edge of the Valora System, drifting near the mouth of the storm. Repair crews worked double shifts while science teams scanned every bit of sensor data from the Corridor. Deep within the ship, five members of the senior staff met in the astrophysics lab.

Lieutenant JG David Artin, the ship’s astrophysicist leaned against a console along the outer periphery of the lab. “The readings we received from inside the corridor,” the young Human officer started. “It simply does not make sense, sir. It is my hypothesis that the corridor, let alone the entire patch, isn’t natural.” He and his team had been analyzing the data since they had emerged from the corridor.

D’Antonio as well as T’Ren and Pressly looked at the young man in mild surprise.

Artin pressed on, “Subspace fields simply do not pulse like that. Something has to be influencing or even controlling it.” Despite his young age, Artin was skilled at astrophysics, a natural gift as he put it.

T’Ren nodded. “I concur, Captain. The harmonic frequencies are not consistent with similar nebulae.”

D’Antonio opened his mouth to speak suddenly the lab lights dimmed and yellow alert indicators began to flash. Simultaneously the captain’s combadge chirped to life.

“Bridge to D’Antonio.”

He tapped his combadge to respond. “Go ahead number two.” his voice harsher than he had intended.

Several decks above them, the bridge was a buzz with activity. On the viewscreen, was a fast approaching group of eight sleek, dark metal ships that had emerged from the far side of the system. In a wedge shaped formation they moved with precision each day in careful sync with the other. Their transponders were unrecognizable as Lieutenant JG Uhmari tried nearly every algorithm at her disposal to figure out who or what was approaching them.

“We have company.”