"Thorn Ironhart's Log, Eye in the Sky, mission day 274 of scouting the Outer Arm of the Milky Way for signs of intelligent species.  So far, I have found passing radiological evidence of some varient of wormhole technology, but haven't found any life bearing worlds just yet.  Current location is 245.99175 degrees into Galactic southeast of Earth, at a range of about 30,173.21 light years.  I am starting to be convinced there's nothing out here."  The heavily scarred researcher in the camera frame rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, stretching in her cramped cockpit.  "I've found four pulsars and a smallish black hole out here, but no life more advanced than simple flatworms and crabs.  I have geological data on sixteen potentially habitable planets, and haven't seen so much as a reaver out here.  What was that?"

Here, the edited video overlays a jump signature warping out not too far away, and a high resolution image of the ship slipping into the rift.  It looks almost like a shrimp rotated ninety degrees forward, a large, bulbous nose shimmering away in the distortion, but trailing back into a tail that trunicated from about halfway up the forward mass of the ship.

"Correction to last statement.  Day 274 and fourteen hours, six minutes into mission, I have observed a modified wormhole jump, destination unknown.  I am scanning the area for any form of potentially life bearing world.  There appears to be a life bearing world nearby, and I am locking in coordinates for the jump.  30,157.8 light years from earth at 245.99575 degrees, 5,000 lightyears vertical from core plane.  Jumping... Now.  Estimated time to arrival is three days."


~~~

"Ironhart's log"  She yawned heavily, shaking off the grogginess of cryo with a snack.  "Mission day 277, four hours, thirty minutes into the search for another new world and a species to make contact with."  Rubbing her eyes, she leaned forward towards the camera, the wrapper of her ration bar audible over the beeping and changing light of notifications popping up.  "I have arrived at the star, and found myself... Oh... Oh, shit.  Ahm, we have a live one.  Switching over to the external feed and transmitting friendship messages."

The camera cut out to show the tall, thin hull of what would later be called an Arbiter, alongside a popup notification that the ship had managed to gain a target lock.  It seemed to give no indication that it noticed her friendly broadcast until a small video window popped up, displaying a thin, blue face with a diamond shaped glistening object in the forehead, It spoke an unintelligible string of words, before ending in a question.  Then the language switched over to Galactic Standard.

"Unknown ship, you will identify yourself or be fired upon.  Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand."  Thorn's voice overlayed onto the video.  "My name is Thorn Ironhart, I'm working an exploratory mission to locate and make contact with any sapient life out here.  I'm human.  Can I ask what your people call themselves?"

"If you are an explorer, welcome to Eronia, Thorn.  We call ourselves Leverian by species.  Stay put, and we will have another Arbiter dock with you and meet with the scientific community... Actually, this scan shows no docking point.  Nor weapons.  Alright, we'll have a carrier bring you into the bay.  It's a little dangerous in this part of the system.  Please burn towards the star, 360 meters per second delta V, ten second burn.  Follow me."

Approved.