Over the course of the next couple months they establish a number of solar collectors around the sun and build a stellar laser to make it faster to move to and from the outer system. So far they haven't figured out how to move actual matter through the sub-realm safely.

In the meantime, several dozen light-years away, the Federation Starfleet ship USS Andromeda is moving at warp 8, headed towards a planetary survey mission.

"Captain, I'm detecting unusual subspace fluctuations in a solar system about twenty-six light years away. It's about two light years off our current course."

"Divert course to investigate. Do we know anything about that system?" asked Captain Montgomery.

"There are no inhabitable planets according to our last survey, no inhabitants at all for that matter. The fluctuations don't seem like natural subspace phenomena though, more like someone is causing them intentionally. Someone without much knowledge of warp theory."

"That's strange. Can you see anything in system from this range?"

"All the planets, large moons and the star are where I'd expect them to be. I can't see anything much smaller than that from this far away."

"Let me know if you find anything when we get closer."

About 8 days later.

Emiko stared at the data. Starting about a day ago, some of their experiments with the sub-realm had started returning slightly different results and the effect seemed to be increasing over time. So they created new experiments and scans to study the deviations. This data was the result. "This looks a bit like a radar sweep."

"Agreed," said Alison, another member of her team. "If we're reading that right we're being scanned and we might have visitors soon. It looks like the origin of the scans is getting closer and at speeds faster than light."

"Let's hope they're friendly."

Meanwhile in a conference room aboard Andromeda: "Based on our scans they have several thousand vessels at least the size of a shuttlecraft. They also have six vessels with more volume than me. And that's not counting the massive station they've built. You could fit Gates, Deep Space Nine, and a couple Borg cubes inside it without issues. They're also building fixed installations close to the system's star. We're still too far away to determine what the purpose of those is."

"Do we have anything like these vessels on record?" asks Chief Engineer Xass.

"Not in any records I or the captain has access to."

"We've transmitted our sensor readings to Starfleet. For the moment we still have the go ahead to make contact. Starfleet has decided that given their ongoing construction efforts and unknown technological base, we need to know as soon as possible if they're hostile," Captain Montgomery explained. "We're about a day away at this point and we'll learn more as we get close enough for more detailed scans. Suggestions are welcome."

"Are we treating this as contact or scouting? If we're scouting we should go in under cloak."

"Starfleet has made the decision that cloaking might be taken as provocation if they're able to see through the cloak somehow. We've been ordered not to use it unless things turn hostile."

"I don't like this," says Andromeda. "There's too many unknowns and I can't be sure I can keep you safe."

"Risk is part of the job," the captain reminds her. "If we wanted a life without risk, we wouldn't be out here."

"I know, still, I recommend we come out of warp at the edge of the system away from any of their installations. Hopefully that will give us a chance to run away if they turn out to be hostile. It's also less likely to make them hostile. A ship appearing deep in a Federation system without announcing itself wouldn't be taken well either."

"That's probably a good idea. Keep scanning, let us know when you have more information. Any other suggestions?"

"If they don't have subspace I expect we should set up to use subspace radio relaying otherwise we'll be limited by lightspeed lag while communicating," offers Xass.

"Good catch. Make it so."

She waits a few moments. "Given that there are no other suggestions, we'll end the briefing here."

The next day they're coming up on the system in question. "Captain, we're fifteen minutes out. All six of their large vessels are arranged along my current course in pairs. I think somehow they noticed us coming. I haven't detected any scans originating from their system but warp eight is fairly loud in subspace."

"Do we have a better sense of what we're facing?"

"We've been going over Rommie's scans as we've gotten closer but we don't fully understand their systems. They're using fusion power but in most of their smaller drones we can't make head or tails of how their fusion generators work. There are no magnetic or gravitational containment fields that we can detect. They have what appear to be a variety of weapon systems though nothing I would expect to be able to get through our shields. We don't really know for sure though because we haven't seen them fired. I'll also note that as best we can tell there's only two hundred life-signs in the entire system," answers Lieutenant Hriss, the science officer.

"Nothing you've said changes the plan I don't think. Let's come out a million klicks off from their first pair of ships."

"Aye Captain." The lights indicate the alert status.

The next fifteen minutes pass with palpable tension.

"Dropping out of warp now. Shields on standby."

Just after they come out down in sickbay Dr. Fook gets Rommie's attention. "Ship something just tried to touch my mind. It didn't try to force the issue when I rejected the probe."

Andromeda relays this to the bridge staff.

"It's not too late for us to run away."

The captain shakes her head. "No, we've been scanning them pretty thoroughly I don't think we can justify running away just because they've returned the favor. Let's wait and see how long it takes..."

"We're receiving a message in Federation Standard. It's a fairly basic radio signal format."

"Hello there, Welcome to the Starlight research outpost Meld. We greet you with the hope of peaceful contact between our peoples."

"Does anyone have a guess as to how they got our language so quickly?"

"I expect it has something to do with the mental contact Dr. Fook noticed. Most of our crew isn't really trained or able to repel psychic contact like that." 

"That's a good point. We could also just ask. In fact, please open a channel." Hannah waits for a chime that indicates that the channel is open. "This is Captain Hannah Montgomery of the Federation Starship Andromeda. Thank you for your kind words of welcome."

"You're quite welcome Captain. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. How would you like to proceed? Our scientists would be very interested in talking with yours."