Chapter Text
The Dolorous Heart was, outwardly, a sleek, agile Salarian merchant cutter, somewhat larger than a Union corvette, less well armed, but equipped to mate to Citadel Standard vacuum-rated cargo containers and haul a significant number at not insignificant speed with decent defense en route.
A sleek, almost ray-like form had engine nacelles that projected from either side creating a sleek winglike shape with the seamless extension of the body into the nacelles, and an unusual central eezo core creating a spherical zone in the center of the otherwise sleek triangular profile of the vessel, and a jarring rectangular cutout on the stern, with two cargo containers latched in a chain to it.
Even more jarring were the obvious structural supports added to link the first container permanently to the vessel, welded to the dorsal and ventral surface and overlaid with scrap ship plating, and the red glowing radiator panels bolted along the dorsal and ventral hull of the wings.
On the inside, however, the Dolorous Heart was cramped, with exposed lines bolted to ceilings, entire areas missing internal plating, additional computers and other hardware. The sign of a Migrant Fleet special project. Or a Migrant Fleet refurbishment.
It’s key differences however were in what had necessitated the permanent attachment of the shipping container to the pressurized volume of the vessel.
An excessively miniaturized Xen-Rhota Dimensional Fold, or Jump drive.
The main rods of the system, built into the cargo container, terminated almost in the containment vessel of the freighter’s eezo core, currently at low output as the quarian pilot and engineer made final checks.
Admiral Zaal’Koris, currently vaas QuibQuib, stood at the back of the cockpit as the pilots worked.
[]
“You alright sir?” Commander Joset’Reegar vaas QuibQuib asked. He was currently observing the activity of the pilots and engineers from the main weapons station, leaned back in a casual attitude.
“I’m fine commander.” Koris said quietly.
The marine commander nodded.
“Sir, we’re good.” the captain of the Dolorous Heart said. She was stood at a jury-rigged touch screen behind the pilot’s station. “the heart is ready for transit.”
She glanced over the screen. “we do have clearance for this right? I understand the Alliance is uh… very trigger-happy.”
“We’re expected, captain. Using the Jump Drive is for both secrecy and as a show of faith.”
“Alright sir. By your command?”
“Do it.”
The Manta ray-shaped cargo vessel sat for a moment, then the void rippled around her, twisting and refracting the light, and the ship seemed suddenly to collapse into a single bright point then vanish entirely.
[]
In a carefully cleared space at the edge of Arcturus a point of light flickered into existence then, in a flash of light and dismembered hydrogen, the Dolorous Heart flickered into existence.
There was a brief exchange of confirmation codes, and the vessel turned, falling into formation with a couple of Alliance corvettes.
Despite being corvettes, their displacement was almost double that of the refitted cargo vessel. A brief hop into standard Mass Effect FTL brought them further into the system, hopping out into the regimented traffic lanes around the massive stack of conjoined rotary disc habitats that was New Philadelphia.
The docking bay they were directed to was enormous, and currently empty save for the corvettes looming a few kilometers off of the bay.
Zall’Koris was accompanied by Joset’Reegar and five marines, and met on the dock by a small contingent of Alliance soldiers in grey body armor and a grey-haired human man with a scar along one side of his face.
“Admiral Koris?” he asked, extending a hand.
“That’s me.” Admiral Koris said, returning the handshake.
“I am Admiral Steven Hackett of the Systems Defense Initiative. We’re happy the fleet has chosen to open dialogue.”
“It’s rather more complicated than that, admiral.”
“I know the feeling.” Hackett said as they walked to a fairly large groundcar parked near the immense quay.
Admiral Koris was hard-pressed not to gawk at the immensity of the construct. He had seen the citadel before but despite being smaller, he knew well what sort of engineering and sheer mass of metal had to go into this and was shocked.
“I expected they would have sent a diplomat or some such.” Koris said as they climbed into the limo, while their honor guard filtered into a massive six-wheeled APC behind them.
“The Director General decided that it might be more efficient if they asked me to handle the initial discussion, admiral to admiral, so to speak. Cut through the bullshit, keep things straightforwards, at least for this. We’re asking for a lot and we are prepared to offer a lot as well.”
The car pulled away from the dock and began following a literal highway built into the space station.
“I will admit, as flattering as the Alliance’s philanthropic and diplomatic outreach has been to us, the Admiralty board is suspicious as to the Alliance’s motivations. Especially in light of your nation’s historical treatment of the Forgotten. In light of our treatment by the Council, you understand why we’d be concerned?”
“It has bitten us in the ass more than once, especially since offworld colonization opened up. I’ll get into the nitty-gritty of it once we get to headquarters, but the short version is, this side of the galaxy is in significant danger and we’re trying to at least mitigate that danger.”
[]
The car stopped off at a habitat segment that reminded the Admiral of the Citadel Presidium, the few times he’d been there, but with transparent glass, geometric shapes, and high-contrast trim in brass and dark stone in geometric shapes and highly stylized animals.
The walkways and even the office they entered were heavily green with potted plants of a great many varieties, and lit with very white light. The walls and floors were done in pale earth tones like the interior of many of the liveships.
The guard was asked to stick around with their opposite numbers at the guard station one level down from their destination, save for Joset, and the commander of the other group, who accompanied their respective VIPs into a well-appointed boardroom with a real wooden table.
[]
A holographic woman flickered into existence next to the table.
“Admiral Hackett.” she saluted. “At ease, Eva. Admiral Koris, may I introduce Captain NP-EVA, or Eva for short, the Electronic Video Agent for SDI operations here in New Philadelphia.”
“Captain?” Admiral Koris asked.
“Indeed. I hold a commission within the SDI, and receive a salary reflective of that rank. All Eva systems have a commission rank relative to the work they do, as part of our security and stability rules.” Eva answered. “In addition, all sophont AI are citizens under the Alliance charter of sophont rights. It’s a security thing.”
Koris stared first at Eva, then at admiral Hackett. Then shrugged.
“I will be blunt with you.” he said finally. “There are many, especially on the admiralty board, that find my politics distasteful at best. I was sent here as one of the only members of the board deemed ‘disposable’ though they are unlikely to admit to it out of closed doors.
In public they will only admit to the fact that I am part of an unpopular political faction that does not hold Anti-AI sentiment and thus the only member of the board willing to come here.”
“Then it sounds like you are exactly the person we need to talk to.” Admiral Hackett said, grinning.
[Codex]
The Xen-Rhota Dimensional Fold Drive
Often referred to as a Jump drive, or “oh keelah no, not that thing” or local variations thereof by ftl engineers.
The popular explanation of the X-R drive goes like this:
If the Alliance Graviton Catapult and its concomitant Warp Sustain drive is the Steam Engine of FTL technologies,
and the Mass Effect Drive is an efficient electric engine,
the Jump Drive is like strapping a hydrogen peroxide rocket to a motorboat.
You will get where you’re going, but ancestors only know how many pieces you’ll be in when you get there.
To be dangerously reductive, it’s an extraordinarily powerful gravitational warp drive that doesn’t use element zero. Practically a pocket mass relay.
Tikkun has the misfortune to be well out of the Element-Zero forming band in the Milky Way, and like many systems on the outer edge, is entirely devoid of the stuff. The Quarians had two choices: expand the long slow way, or do something crazy. As per usual with the Xen clan and the now extinct Rhota clan, the united efforts of Rannoch’s two preeminent mad scientists of their era created a technology as powerful as it is potentially lethal.
A long pair of indium rods form an engine frame, with a manifold comprised of layers of etched rare-earth minerals placed off-center between them. A micron-wide gap in the manifold at the heart of the engine, surrounded by eight or more depleted uranium rods, is charged with a powerful electrical field, a megawatt per kilo of mass, though the few iterations made before the Quarians adopted mass-effect technology did manage to squeeze a bit more efficiency out of it.
Then you shoot a few positrons in. the result, if you’ve done this correctly, is a gravitational lensing effect that creates a short-lived, highly folded warp bubble and kicks it in the direction of the longer pair of drive rods at enormous ftl speeds.
This is what is known as a rupture, though spacetime cannot tear, it’s just about the same thing.
Fuck it up, misalign the rods or provide too little energy? The bubble will be misaligned and anything outside gets sheered, tearing the craft apart from that location.
There are some conspiracists who believe that the X-R Drive was the target of an Asari plot to keep the galaxy dependent on element zero.
Anyone who has ever worked with one will tell you that the technology should have been chucked into Tikkun and forgotten.