Memento Mori
2173-Q2
Did you really expect anything less than victory? Your technology is the most advanced in the galaxy, even having a cloaking system didn't make up the difference for the next best competitor. You celebrate with Brian, Mom and Dad. You spend the next couple of days enjoying a brief vacation, but before too long you and your traveling companions need to go home. Mom and dad have a farm to run, you own a company and Brian does need to complete his schooling in preparation for joining the Alliance military.
The trip back on the
MSV Chestnut is still as high-class as the trip to Earth. You enjoy winding down from the trip. The ship travels rapidly as it jumps from the Earth relay to Arcturus and then hits the Beta-Alpha-Gamma relay towards the Beta-Alpha-Tau relay and Mindoir.
"This is your captain speaking, we have just left the Beta-Alpha-Tau relay. We'll be entering FTL soon and within 24 hours we'll have arrived at Mindoir." comes over the intercom, interrupting your dad's anecdote about his misspent youth.
"Well anyway there we where our clothes partially burnt..." he begins again. Your ears detect the faint sound of machinery starting to work harder. A useful skill for an engineer as it can often herald explosions, fires and other unintended side effects. The slightest cocking of your dad's head shows that he's heard it too. It's probably only the FTL core warming up. You don't recall noticing it before, but you may have been distracted.
Two sharp thumps echo though the ship shaking everything. Even though the inertial dampeners you can feel the shock of the impact.
The captain's voice comes over the intercom again this time strong and commanding, "All hands secure yourselves, we are under attack."
A mad scramble ensues as everyone moves to the crash chairs a the steward had pointed out during the safety briefing. Your parents are at least familiar with this sort of thing and make sure everyone is secure with a military calm.
Your mind races as the ship shakes again, is they anything you can do? There's no way you can do anything electronically the ranges involved are just too great. The squad in Legionary armor wouldn't do a thing in compared to a warship and the two Tigers you have left are just as irrelevant. As your mind races your hear a humming beginning... your parents are singing? Whatever, that's not important maybe if you...
-----
Interlude: Captain Bartholomew Quin of the MSV Chestnut
"Captain, we've just exited the Beta-Alpha-Tau relay. Drift is ten kay-kay-em." The pilot reports, a slight tone of disappointment in his voice as he says the last part.
"Don't worry about it to much Mr. Danau, we're not here to set any records. Ten thousand kilometers is far better then... what was the worst case record? Eleven million or so?" Captain Quin, sitting in the captain's chair, tells the pilot with a smile, "In any case have the FTL plotter begin calculating a course to Mindoir."
The pilot nods, "Yes sir, plotting course."
The captain taps the intercom button and address the ship, "This is your captain speaking, we have just left the Beta-Alpha-Tau relay. We'll be entering FTL soon and within 24 hours we'll have arrived at Mindoir."
"Sir," the sensors and weapons operator, Felicity Kidd, begins confused, "There are two frigate scale ships headed this way. Sensors are IDing them as Terminus Frigates."
In the passing of a moment Captain Quin switches from business as usual to serious. A message from one of his employers flashing into his mind. "Shields to full power!" He calls out.
It is in no little way fortunate that the command is not meant for a human but the ship's VI, who with the lightning fast reflexes of a machine allocates more power to the shields just in time for two spinal mass accelerator slugs to hit the
Chestnut's shields.
"Shit!" Jasper Tesar exclaims from the co-pilot/ops seat.
The two terminus frigates quickly slide past the
Chestnut their GARDIAN lasers tearing holes in the armor of the civilian ship. Their thrusters are pointed in the direction of travel as they brake and aim their spinal cannons at the Chestnut for another shot.
Captain Quin can feel the rising panic of the bridge crew. Training can never truly match the real thing. As good as the crew is they need a strong unpanicked commander. "Mr. Danau get us out of here. Aim for the black!" he orders firmly before toggling the intercom, "All hands secure yourselves, we are under attack." at the same time with another button tap he puts the ship on combat alert.
The
Chestnut maneuvers quickly as it is stuck by two more spinal mass accelerators rounds and trades fire from its own GARDIAN array and turreted mass accelerator cannon with laser fire from the enemy's GARDIAN array. The ship points toward the black emptiness of space, with luck the FTL plotter will clear faster if the ship can't detect anything near the path of travel.
As the
Chestnut burns hard, the two hostile frigates give chase less than 40 kilometers behind. They continuously adjust their travel vectors so that their spinal cannons can have a clear shot. As long as they keep firing at the civilian ship it can't risk reducing its mass to far or it risks being slapped around by the impact of the shots. To much and the unexpected shock would be more than the inertial dampeners can handle killing everyone aboard. However without the mass reduction the ship can't escape into FTL.
"No go on FTL sir! We've got MA fire, I'll keep maneuvering and run to FTL if I get a shot!" the pilot reports as he uses the secondary thruster to weave an erratic course.
"Very good Mr. Danau. Ops thrusters and shields have maximum priority." Captain Quin orders keeping his voice calm. This isn't good. He needs a plan, a better one the hope and pray.
If this was a holomovie or other drama the crew would have yelled out reports and assorted expletives, but it is not. The crew is far quieter the noises are mostly computer tones as buttons are pressed, the occasional "Shit", "Damn" or other expletive is quietly muttered. Occasionally the captain gives a crisp command.
A quiet, "Fuck," from Jasper, marks the loss of one of the secondary thrusters to a GARDIAN shot. The automatic systems shutting it down before super-hot plasma damages other components. There's no need to call out the damage as Captain Quin can see it clearly on his own holoscreen.
Felicity's "Damn," heralds the loss of the turreted mass accelerator to a GARDIAN shot, it was irrelevant to the battle and its sacrifice buys the rest of the ship more time.
The
Chestnut's active mass effect fields do partially blunt the effect of the GARDIAN lasers and running from the MA cannon shots reduces their effective speed and thus their effective damage. In the end though, the
Chestnut is not a warship and the two Terminus Frigates, as low quality as they are,
are warships and can deliver much more hurt then the
Chestnut can handle. A few more shots from the spinal MA cannons and the shields will be down, opening the armor already ravaged by GARDIAN laser fire to direct hits.
"Mr. Danau I'm sending you a maneuver pattern. Execute it after the next shots from their spinal MA cannons hit or pass us. Then do an FTL run, plotter has maximum CPU priority." Captain Quin orders, sending the pilot the data.
"Yes sir!" the pilot says his voice showing more confidence now that he has an actionable plan.
Despite her other disadvantages the
Chestnut is the chased not the chaser giving her the initiative in maneuvering. After the next twin shots from the frigates' spinal MA cannons strike the
Chestnut's shields, the civilian ship cuts thrust and instead decelerates maneuvering slightly out of the way of the two hostile frigates' path of travel. This rapid maneuver causes the Terminus Frigates to completely overshoot the
Chestnut's position, falling out of GARDIAN range and aiming the wrong way to hit with their spinal MA cannons.
As the hostile ships try to correct their flight paths so that they can fire their MA cannons at the
Chestnut again, the civilian ship begins to accelerate as fast as she can tangent to her original path. The FTL plotter crunching numbers in preparation for FTL travel.
The timer for the FTL plotter on Captain Quin's holoscreen reads four seconds and starts counting down. It will take only a little more than eleven seconds all told for the ship to warp the bars of Einstein's cage so far that it could barely be called a cage at all. But for those eleven seconds the ship will be still be in danger and if the attackers land a shot everyone on board will die. Fortunately the hostile frigates will have the incredibly difficult task of landing a shot on a ship more than 50,000 kilometers away, made even more impossible by the ships increasing speed, distance and the distortions of light caused by mass effect fields and relativity.
"Beginning FTL run, Mark six seconds!" The pilot calls out once the plotter clears the flight plan. The information is more for the crew's moral then anything else, but it does its job as the tension on the bridge is vastly reduced.
"Five..."
"Four..."
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One..."
"Zero..." there is nothing particularly magical about the transition from the perspective of a passenger or crew member. No sounds, no feelings, but the ship is now going faster than light does naturally. Making any attempt to harm her pointless. The bridge crew breathes a sigh of relief.
"We're not dead!" Jasper exclaims happily.
"Yeah..." Felicity says shocked, "Take that pirates." She adds with a small fist pump.
"Excellent work everyone." Captain Quin congratulates the crew, "Though I doubt those were pirates. At a guess I'd say that was an assassination attempt. Pirates aren't trying to destroy their targets. Mr. Danau how long is the FTL run for?"
"It's only a five minute run sir." the pilot reports, "I didn't think flying off into the black to long was productive."
"Perfectly reasonable Mr. Danau, once we decelerate, immediately plot a course to Mindoir. Mr. Tesar give me a full damage report."
"Sir, secondary thruster number four is offline. Its bell was punctured by a GARDIAN laser, the containment systems prevented any additional damage, but it's pretty useless without time in a dock. The MA cannon turret is also offline it took a couple of direct hits so it'll need to be completely replaced. Most of the rear ablative armor is damaged or gone, computer estimates 17% coverage left. A few shots even got down to the primary pressure hull. Omnigel systems have got that covered. We also lost a GARDIAN turret and a few shield projectors. That's all I've got without an inspection. I've got the DC teams looking at things." Jasper reports.
"Very good Mr. Tesar" Captain Quin says, tapping the intercom he again addresses the ship, "We've successfully escaped to FTL, however in five minutes will be drop to STL again. In the extremely unlike case that we meet hostile force when we leave FTL, we will remain secured for combat until we begin our FTL run to Mindoir."
Which another button press Captain Quin calls the Steward James, "James how are our passengers?"
"Alive, the younger two seem to be in a bit of shock, but I think that Ms. Shepard's parents being ex-military and having done this sort of thing before helped."
"That's good, I'll let you get back to your job then." Captain Quin's attention returns to his holoscreens as he keeps an eye on the ship's operations. Soon they'll be under the Systems Alliance detachment at Mindoir's protection and he won't have to worry anymore.
End Interlude
----
As you travel down to Mindoir's surface, you look out the shuttle's window at the damaged
MSV Chestnut. Her torn armor panels and partially exposed hull are a stark reminder of how close you came to death. You've been in life threatening situations before. However, there is something just... different about a threat to your life that you can do nothing about, about being helpless.
The attackers, two "Terminus Frigates", had no IFF beacons or identifying marks. Which makes sense, "Terminus Frigate" is the nickname for the Wuni class frigate. The frigate was originally developed produced by the Terminus manufacture the Elkoss Combine, but now it's produced by several independent Terminus manufacturers as well. Cheap, low-tech, disposable, and produced in large numbers they make the perfect deniable asset. The frigates that attacked you probably never had any names other than the serial numbers from their production run. (Which were no doubt promptly filed off of course.)
The Systems Alliance knows about this attack, but they admit that not much is likely to come of their investigation. They will keep you informed.
You almost died, what will you do? (Immediate Reaction)
[ ] Nothing! You're totally fine!... maybe?
[ ] Talk to someone. (Who?)
-[ ] A professional
-[ ] Mom or dad?
-[ ] Someone else you know?
[ ] Lock you self in a lab for a bit, tinkering will help.
[ ] Have a nice freak out in your room
[ ] Explosive Therapy, you, some big guns, and lots of things to shoot.
[ ] Retail Therapy! Other girls have said that shopping helps.
[ ] You'll get drunk. You hear alcohol helps.
[ ] Your going to find those fuckers with your mad hacking skills and #$%@ them and then %^$# etc.
[ ] Write in
And for the long-term?
[ ] Nothing, there is little you can do.
[ ] Launch an investigation
-[ ] How much money will you allocate? More money might give better results (Minimum 500k)
[ ] Write in
-----
GM's Note: So yeah I was kinda planing this for a while after most people in the last thread said they wanted conspiracies and stuff. This is related to larger events that are going on in the background and stuff. From an out of game perspective you technically where never in any danger. I'm not going to kill you without offering some choice or a chance, though if you guys hang yourselves with previous choices that's your fault. Consider this a cinematic.
Anyway for those of you that don't do Latin or literature, the title,
Memento Mori, means "remember (that you have) to die", I've also seen used as "remember death" or in literature as a description of the hero being reminded of his or her own mortality.
The good ship
MSV Chestnut apparently didn't have a in quest name before that I can find, she is actually named after a ME character. Though good luck finding the connection. I might give points if someone can find it, but be warned it'll be really hard.
I tried to render the space combat with my best understanding of how it works in ME and applying a little realism to fill in the holes. However I did include a little unreality in some of it for better action/drama. I wish I could show you the pretty mental images of the 3D maneuvering paths, I hope my descriptions got them across.
As for the vote, seeking professional help is the "safe" vote as far as any mental trauma goes, however I will be rolling regardless of what you choose. With a good roll even voting to get drunk would turn out okay, but getting professional help will give you the largest "bonus". The fallout of the vote will show up in the awaited 2173-Q3 update. I'll also be trying to post a picture of the new tech tree before to long so that people can comment on it.
The update itself aside the arc is done. So I'd like a little feedback. The arc was one of the longest, running twelve updates, nine of which are my work. I tried to keep things interesting and give you some additional options outside of "[ ] Win the competition". That said it did make things longer. Was that okay with people? Where other things you thought could be fixed/made better outside of what has been said before?
Finally the Finances doc is kinda out of date last I checked. It's missing the ISAR, the three Tiger orders, the four Tiger built for the competition, the expenses for the purchases you made and probably a few other things I forgot.
@UberJJK I believe the current form is you brainchild for the most part, could you look into adding that stuff? I'll look into adding the new tech items to the production sheet soon if they aren't already there.
Feel free to ask questions and point out any errors!
