Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

Marked Effect (AFF Edition)	By : unrealuniverse Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 22185 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Mass Effect characters, species, locations and the universal setting are owned by Bioware and not myself. Any other brand names mentioned are property of their respective owners. This work is and always will be free for anyone to read.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Chapter 3 - Enlightening Space
12th March 2012
-----
The Enlighten had left the Citadel after spending a night to receive supplies. The crew had decided over breakfast to start nearest to Krogan home world and work towards the Exodus Cluster in a meandering sort of pattern.
"Well say goodbye to the Citadel as you will not be seeing it for a while." Adastra voiced aloud as the ship approaches the relay to head to Tuchanka.
"I am quite looking forward to going in to the unknown."
"Well that is one of us Tahomi. What about you Fosanta?"
"I wish to reserve judgement for a month or two as it could either be deadly boring or quite exiting." Adastra nodded in agreement before she received the green light to approach the relay. "Sending mass and destination to the relay." Fosanta kept an eye on her screen for the acceptance signal. "Relay is open Adastra." Tahomi provided the vector for Adastra to hit before she sat back to watch the jump. The Enlighten smoothly arced around to travel down the length of the relay before disappearing.
"I really dislike relay jumping." Tahomi held her head once they had reappeared on the other side as if she was a little dizzy.
"Why did you become a pilot then Tahomi?" Fosanta seemed to be concentrating more on the screen in front of her instead of being genuinely interested in the answer.
"I like flying Fosanta. I just dislike relay jumping as I do not like how it makes me feel funny."
"Fair enough." Fosanta did not seem to have taken any of the reply on-board. "Sorry Tahomi. I was not really concentrating as I was attempting to work out where we are to go next. Adastra we have a system twenty three light years away just off our chosen path."
"I see it, Tahomi can you get me a destination." Tahomi ran some quick calculations working from known positions of planets and stars before delivering the flight path to Adastra. "Welcome to seven days of sitting around doing nothing." Adastra announced in an overly sarcastic voice after she has received the target co-ordinates.
"It gives us all time to get to know each other better." Kriana noted as she had reappeared in the doorway.
"I would rather try and keep myself to myself if you do not mind Kriana."
"Fair enough Adastra. When are we setting off?"
"Whenever you say so Kriana since you are here."
"We may as well be actually going somewhere than sitting around doing nothing." Adastra quickly programmed the autopilot with the co-ordinates before pressing the go button. She then sat back as the ship began to accelerate towards the speed of light.
"To be fair I am now sitting around doing nothing." Kriana wondered if Adastra was going to stay this difficult for the whole five years or would she eventually lighten up a little.
------
2nd December 2016
------
The Enlighten had met a Turian freighter near to a known mass relay to replenish stock and to receive any spares that were needed.
"I hope they are loading something good this time as I hated the last lot of food. Did you remember to voice my opinion Fosanta?" Fosanta just sighed.
"Yes Adastra." This was probably the thousandth time of her asking over the last three months. "Please remember that I was not keen on it either but unfortunately I can only provide recommendations."
"Still it tasted awful. I do not want some Salarian packed meals just because they have all the right nutrients." Adastra turned to the console and tried and take her mind off the meals that looked and tasted like packed vomit. "So it is just these two systems we are interested in that we want to do a detailed scan of before heading home?"
"Yes Adastra." Fosanta was beginning to wonder if she should record herself saying that and just play it each time Adastra said something.
"Tahomi, can you get me destination co-ordinates so we can get out of here as soon as we have finished loading." Tahomi nodded and began to work out the required co-ordinates.
------
Kriana was carefully checking the manifest as the cargo hold was gradually filled. As she scrolled down she noticed the packing code for the food was different this time. A smile came across her face when she checked the code on the extranet to find it was produced on Illium instead of Sur'Kesh.
It was not long before the cargo hold was fully stocked and they were ready to leave. Kriana signs the manifest before heading to the top deck.
------
"So while we are waiting I wish to clear something up. Is it now three habitable planets and two hundred and fifty which have a large amount of extractable resources?" Adastra seemed so bored that inane chatter is about all she could manage.
"No, two hundred and fifty two resource rich planets." Fosanta corrected Adastra.
"Sorry for missing the two. I think it has been worthwhile even if it has been busy one week, nothing to do the next constantly."
"I personally did not mind that as it gave us all a break and some of the crew are really great people to spend time with. I could tell you got bored at times given the amount of pranks tended to increase whilst travelling."
"Some were really funny though." Adastra laughed at her memories before hearing a cough behind her. She looked around to see Kriana standing behind her. "Are we good to go?"
"Some of the pranks were deplorable and insulting as well. How you could find them funny I have no idea." Kriana wanted to get her point across yet again for her to stop. She knew it was futile however.
"I thought you found the fire breathing taps funny?" Adastra remembering back to when she added hydrogen gas to the ships water and the electronic valve lit the stream of water as it came out.
"Until someone nearly set themselves on fire, then it was not so funny. Anyway yes we are fully loaded with food from Illium and ready to leave when you are." Kriana had a slight smile on her face for once.
"I am so glad to hear that Kriana. Adastra has been bugging me for weeks."
"You are ok now Fosanta until something else happens." Kriana knew there will be something else if it was not the food. Fosanta nodded in agreement knowing the same thing. Adastra set the ship on auto-pilot to travel the twenty nine and a half light years to the next system to be thoroughly mapped.
------
11th December 2016
------
"Captain we are just about to drop out of FTL." Adastra announced over the intercom before turning to the co pilots chair to her left. "Would you like to drop us out of FTL Emala before the core discharge does it for us?"
"Sure." Emala looked to Adastra with a small smile on her face. Emala had been sitting in for Tahomi as the co-pilot for the last nine days since it was not like there was much to do when the ship was in FTL travel. Adastra had been a patient teacher going through the basics of flight control with the younger one who certainly seemed to have a bit of a knack for the technical bits.
Shiala and the captain had rolled up at the same time to the cockpit with Shiala took a seat in the communications chair to Adastra's right and Kriana stood in the small space between Adastra and her daughter who seemed to be doing all the work under a careful eye. Adastra turned and noticed Shiala in the comms seat and smiled. Fosanta had actually seemed fairly happy with Shiala doing this job when she was unable to over the last few months. Whether that was down to them sleeping together Adastra did not want to speculate.
Shiala opened the intercom to the ship. "Dropping out of FTL in 10... 5... 3, 2, 1." The ship jerked slightly and with that a smile appeared on Emala's face as she turned around to face Kriana, "That was all me." She beamed unable to hold back the feeling of achievement.
"I know Emala, I was watching the whole time."
Shiala suddenly got a shocked look from the console displaying preliminary sensor readings. "Captain, Adastra, it seems a couple of these planets are being mined for helium-3 and are fortified with what looks like mass accelerator cannons but its difficult for me to be sure."
"Is there a suitable planet to discharge the mass effect core on where we will not be seen?" Adastra expressed her slight concern in her tone of voice.
"There is one but a Batarian cruiser is closing in on us fast."
"Can we stay out of its range without going to FTL Adastra?" The captain added, a slight concern started to enter her voice as well.
"I will try but the Goddess will have to be smiling upon us." Adastra's usually calm demeanour showing the first signs of cracks appearing as the ship forcefully accelerates.
The ship jolts for a second but still continues accelerating hard. "Shields took a heavy hit captain, seventy one percent another three..." The ship jolts again. "Another two hits would be about all we can take." Shiala said in a very composed manner given the gravity of the situation.
Kriana leant over and opened the intercom, "All crew evacuate using the shuttles, Now!" She looked down and to her left. "That includes you Emala."
Emala's determination meant she had no intention of leaving. Instead she was composing a quick message to send using low bit rate FTL communications.
ASL-Enlighten is under attack by Batarians at the co-ordinates attached to this message. Crew are in escape shuttles. Help.
Once it had been sent she went back to trying to hold the shields together while Adastra concentrated on propulsion and Shiala on navigating.
Another hit on the shields came and the hit was clearly felt as the shields were fading and the hull of the ship was getting damaged. Fosanta appeared in the cockpit to stand behind Shiala.
"We need to go to FTL, is there any chance of the ship surviving a discharge." The captain now thinking it was everything or nothing.
"I have a possible idea. Just to warn you captain, there is no time for anyone here to evacuate if we are to try this." Adastra leaned around to look at the captain. The captain looked at Emala, torn as to what to do. It was this or possible suffering in the hands of the Batarians. She could not let that happen to her daughter.
"I hope the Goddess likes your idea Adastra."
"Shiala, tell me as soon as the last shuttle has left." Adastra seemed taking over the role of captain now it was her idea on the line.
"So are you going to spread your wisdom as to your plan Adastra?" Kriana just about managing to stay composed.
"I am going to seal off the cockpit then vent the whole ship to prevent fires starting due to shorts and the heat. Then once that is done, discharge the mass effect core capacitors into the four smaller thrusters to reduce the size of the discharge and go to FTL. I prey to the Goddess this works."
"Adastra, the last shuttle has just left and I have plotted a course away from here."
Adastra leaned over to her right to seals off the cockpit from the rest of the ship. "Emala try and protect as much of the ship as possible by sacrificing non-essentials." Adastra vented the hull as she was speaking. She took one deep breath she hit the FTL button on the console. Four large explosions could be heard and felt at the back of the ship as the plasma thrusters overloaded and failed. The overhead lighting and most of the ancillary equipment died seconds later before the mass effect core kicked the Enlighten into FTL.
"We need to keep the hull temperature down." Adastra was now bathed in the orange glow of the console which was now the sole lighting in the room. "Emala, repressurise the hull to twice atmospheric pressure and vent to standard pressure once the temperature exceeds three hundred and fifty Kelvin. Keep cycling until we have ten percent nitrogen left in the tank."
Shiala was digging up as much data as possible from any working sensors that were left. "Captain, the long range sensors are fried along with the FTL communications array and it seems like the standard array is damaged. We also only have stored hydrogen and oxygen now as the electrolysis unit's wiring is fried. That will get us to our destination and give us about another week of oxygen to perform repairs."
Kriana took a seat on a small seat at the back of the cockpit. She closed her eyes and whispered to herself, "Goddess, this is not over yet but thank you."
-----
Notes.
I know some people may ask why I omitted four and a half years, did not fully look around the ship and have not had any discussions with the rest of the crew. I did not want the last three chapters to turn in to twenty seven and given most of the crew have now evacuated I felt it was fairly pointless writing them in. I may well write some parts into future chapters to flesh out the missing time.
I welcome all constructive feedback whether negative or positive.
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Marked Effect (AFF Edition)