What? Any reason to post that gif, is a good reason.
+10 points for the Firefly reference!
-10 points for making a dirty joke!
Congrats, Sakuya's Butler. Net. Gain.
Zero!
I wanted to quote all of these in order and then rag on you for teasing our readers, but the mobile quote ability cleared the formatting...
Wait... for... it...
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72 - Tranquil
Although I'd initially intended to create but a single starship, I ended up producing three. Well, two and a half. Rather than argue out the merits and flaws of building a frigate over a cruiser, and vice versa, I simply made both - and given what I had planned, I'd probably end up needing them anyway, which meant that all I was really doing was saving future-me some time.
And besides, a girl can never have too many ships.
The first and smaller of the two was the Birch Frigate. At about (and by 'about' I mean 'to the atom') three hundred and forty metres long, it was rather large as Mass Effect universe frigates went - closer to a destroyer, really. Nevertheless, due to its lighter armament and focus on speed I felt it appropriate to call it as I did.
The design was a
bit of a departure from my norm - blockier and more angular, featuring a lot of hexagons and sharp edges as opposed to circles and smooth curves. I was saving
that aesthetic for Hope's side of the plan. Heh.
Like all Mass Effect-based ships, it possessed a single spinal cannon, a number of smaller broadside turret guns, and several dozen clusters of GARDIAN lasers… except they weren't really on the same level as most GARDIANs, because I'd gone through the Batarian ship's blueprints, ripped them apart, and put them together in a far more efficient package.
Technically, since GARDIAN referred to a weapon type and not one weapon in particular it seemed perhaps incorrect of me to call it an 'improved GARDIAN' but… well, that's what it was. A GARDIAN-II. I'd have to think of a snappier name for that.
Hm. Maybe another acronym/backronym. Meh.
On top of the weapons, the ship was powered and protected by both my own systems, in the form of a single Generator and a high-strength Marauder Shield, and Element Zero systems, taking the form of a more 'traditional' Eezo core and kinetic barrier system. Backing up the Eezo FTL system was one of my own Phase FTL drives, just in case I ever needed to actually get anywhere in a respectable period of time.
I mean, seriously. Fifteen lightyears a day? I could do that in
seconds. Amateurs.
The larger of the two ships was the
Rowan Cruiser, more heavily armed and armoured than its smaller counterpart, but with a comparatively lower speed. At five thirty metres, it was more than capable of going toe-to-toe with other ships in its weight class - such as the still-oblivious Batarian Cruiser, now heading towards the edge of the system.
In addition to carrying their own weapons, both ships were capable of carrying a number of automated drones, and the Rowan could also carry a small number of 'manned' fighter craft. Currently, I only had one design I actively used that met that criteria, but I made each docking bay a little bigger, in case I ever wanted to make something heavier than the Gagea.
Which, to be honest, was probably already in the works. Hope seemed… somewhat more efficient than me when it came to that sort of thing. Which led to some interesting implications, but I had no intentions of walking
thatpath.
The third - or, perhaps, the second-and-a-half, depending on how you counted, - of my new vessels was nothing more than a modification to the Rowan Cruiser design, stripping away a significant number of the turrets and missile pods to increase the amount of free space inside the vessel. Free space that was immediately occupied with other things - operations centers filled with dozens and dozens of computer terminals, additional crew bunks and recreation areas, an expanded armoury, additional supply space, a larger drone/fighter hangar, and the addition of a vehicle loading bay attached to said hangar.
Where the Rowan was designed to engage in traditional slug-fest fleet battles and blast apart targets with the heavy spinal cannons, the Juniper-variant was a command/control and logistics vessel, designed to serve effectively as a mobile base of operations.
I mean, the whole thing was entirely pointless for me - the metal tide feeds on no flesh, and all that, - but since I intended to pose as a totally normal group of totally normal humans, it made sense to have them. Well, maybe. I wasn't exactly versed in military paradigms - of the Mass Effect universe or my own, - so it was a bit of a blind spot for me. But it made sense to me as a thing that might plausibly need to exist at some point, and thus I made it exist.
Besides, I doubted anyone would particularly care either way. It wasn't like I was
required to explain to anyone what it was - most people would probably just assume it was another Cruiser. That was good enough for me.
I queued up construction orders for all three - five Birches, five Rowans, and a single Juniper, - although I only intended to use one ship at present. I didn't want to give C-Sec a heart attack, after all. Whilst my Orbital Shipyards warmed up to begin construction, I turned my own attention to the affairs of my other facilities.
All were by now rather rapidly expanding through their respective planetary crusts, leaving enormous webs of tunnels spreading further and further from the initial sites. On the planet I'd initially landed on - according to the maps I'd stolen from the
Chubaru, it was named Jartar, making the star Dis, - the tunnels now stretched several dozen kilometres away from my base, as my Mining Fabricators tore through the earth in search of more valuable metal deposits. The mining tunnel networks on the other planets in-system weren't far behind.
Given I'd been here about an hour - not counting the ten or so minutes of downtime after I crash landed, - and I already had several bases, each the size of a small city, I thought that was kind of ridiculous. Commanders are absolutely insane.
My asteroid base was doing almost as well itself, although the name was now somewhat of a misnomer - the number of shipyards was now at eighteen, which was more than enough for my purposes. All eighteen together were formed into a roughly hexagonal shape, three to a side, and in the center of that hexagonal cell of factories was the remains of the asteroid base. And by that, I mean the base. No asteroid.
Where previously eight Orbital Factories had been anchored to a random chunk of rock, now they were anchored to a single solid mass, a cluster of resource storage facilities protected by a shield array and a few dozen point defence guns. From a distance, it looked slightly strange - six of the factories were anchored horizontally, with one each above and below.
The asymmetry was kind of off-putting, to be honest. I made a note to build a few more Orbital Factories there, and neaten things up.
A couple of idling Orbital Fabricators moved over to the factory cluster to start neatening things up, but I turned away before they finished, my attention stolen by something else.
I mentally pulled back from the command network, returning to my original Commander body, still hidden away beneath the surface of Jartar.
The Dimensional Gate cast a blue glow over the heart of my base as Hope's Osiris body stepped through, and I noted that it actually appeared slightly different to mine - where mine was once-bright green, dulled by dust and sand and the heat of orbital reentry, hers was a more pale, subdued green, and where my own possessed dark grey stripes, hers had white.
Not that I was going to complain about something as miniscule and irrelevant as a colour scheme, but it was certainly interesting.
The other main difference between her Osiris and mine was that hers had a NeoAvatar sat upon one of its mandibles, legs swinging idly. The NeoAvatar looked at me and waved, sliding forwards off the Commander's head and dropping fifteen metres to the ground.
Rather than landing with a 'splat' - or rather, a metallic crunch, since there wasn't really that much squishy flesh in the NeoAvatars, - her body began to glow blue, its rate of descent slowing until she touched the floor gently.
"So I figured out how to Eezo."
---
The modifications Hope had made to her NeoAvatar to allow for the use of an Eezo core unfortunately stripped away a fair amount of the unit's utilities - sensors and resource storage both suffered for the presence of the device. She'd also had to swap out the Progenitor alloys for the much lighter alloys the Bright Foundation had used for their Elysion Core Guardian armour, but since it was still significantly stronger than a regular human body that wasn't much of a trade-off.
"That said, I still wouldn't use these openly. They're kind of suspicious."
"Alright, yeah, fair enough. I'm sure we can find a use for it somewhere."
"Actually, I'm already on it," Hope countered. "I'm thinking of making another Avatar-type unit - same use of Elysion Alloys for the body, and same restrictions to the storage capacity, but if we give the unit a bulkier back unit, we can fit a sufficiently large Eezo core and the sensors."
"Okay, so, like, a power armoured unit."
"Yeah, kinda, I guess. Or, what I originally had planned was… well, since we have a bulky back unit, we stick on a few of those Bright Foundation microthrusters - the ones that let Core Guardians double jump, and that they use for the hover towers, - and boom, jetpack infantry. That's just an idea, though. I'll need to go through a few prototypes before that goes anywhere."
"Yeah, fair enough. Now, if my super-computer enhanced sense of timing is correct, our new battle fleet should be finishing up right about now. Want to head out, give it a look?"
---
The two of us teleported our Avatars onto the currently-empty bridge of the Juniper, and immediately noticed something amiss.
"Wow," Hope sighed, almost immediately. "I cannot believe you."
I took solace in the fact that, courtesy of the highly advanced Progenitor-grade optics the Avatars used as eyes, Hope was more than capable of seeing me flip her off in the dark.
---
After taking a few moments to alter the designs - for all three ships, because my forgetfulness ran deep, - and install proper lighting, I activated the shipyard's fabricators once more, and a storm of glowing green descended upon the vessel.
The vast quantity of nanomachines worked quickly, and in less than seven seconds the entire ship's interior was illuminated, dozens of ceiling lights shining brightly on the smooth metal. On the now-illuminated bridge, I turned back to Hope. "Alright, I think that was the last of the stupid mistakes."
Hope smiled. "Good. Are we ready to go?"
"Yeah, I guess." Turning rather pointlessly to the nearby command console, I reached out to start pushing buttons. "To the Citadel!"
Hope shifted behind me. "Uh…"
"What?" I called back over my shoulder as I flipped a row of ornamental switches.
"Well, I was just thinking. I get that going to the Citadel is the next step in our diabolical plan to conquer the galaxy, but maybe it would be smart to head somewhere else first, like, say, Omega. I mean, dealing with Aria wouldn't really be dangerous and it's Omega, so no one would ask too many questions. We could do some info dealing, get the lay of the land."
I looked at my clone and tapped my chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess I get what you're saying, but at the same time… why? There shouldn't be any trouble - if nothing else, I'm confident in my ability to hack the Citadel's network and back-date some boarding passes. Might be a few raised eyebrows, but we can wave that off."
After a couple of moments of consideration, Hope sighed and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Fuck it, let's save the hive of scum and villainy for another day."
"Agreed," I said, turning back to the forward window of the bridge. "Anything else you want to complain about?"
"Uh… nah. Nothing jumps to mind. I'll think of something shortly though."
Nodding, I reached down and tapped one of the several dozen ornamental buttons on the console. Ahead of us, at the end of the shipyard's long spindly arms, a number of red lights began flashing, marking the way out.
The ship shuddered momentarily as all systems were brought online, a number of automated checks quickly confirming that the ship was in good condition. Engines flared and the ship began to ease forwards, slipping free of the docking clamps and drifting down the length of the shipyard.
The ship's sensors and communications quickly tapped into my greater network, and the screens and holomaps filling the bridge lit up immediately, projecting images of nearby planets, random bar graphs, and other nonsense that would mean nothing if anyone actually looked at it.
Not like anyone would ever get the chance to actually
do that. Besides, it looked cool. Points for style, and all that.
"All systems green. The
FFV Jacob Keyes is ready to launch. Next stop, the Citadel."
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Hey, remember when I told you to wait for it? Well... you're going to have to wait a
little longer.
...
...
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PS: I'm away next week, so there won't be any updates in that time, meaning the next chapter will be over a week away. To make it up to you, though, I'll release it a day or two early.
Maybe.
If you behave.
Drich
.