When I did that mission, they never specified the neutral zone was there, so I operated under the assumption we were in Federation space. When the birds of pray appeared, there was no option to hail (or they didn't respond), so I just beat them. And they attacked one at a time. Felt really cheesy, like they used Kobayashi Maru as a reference without actually replicating the test, because it also served as the tutorial.

Kobayashi Maru should have been the last mission, not the first. And it should be properly impossible.