Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Your Character and their story

A tall Chiss stood idly at the docking bay of Telmori Station, a satellite facility belonging to the Loronar Corporation primarily concerned with emergent bio-engineering, his red eyes stared blankly through the opened moon roof gazing implacably upon the stars above. Beside him a human paced anxiously, casting furtive glances at a readout display which tracked the progress of a ship en route to the station.
‘What if something goes wrong?’
Fallon waited for the panic which inevitably accompanied such a question, the naked fear which it had inspired every time he had asked it of himself over the past several hours after learning of the Empire’s interest in his little project. When it failed to appear he afforded himself a moment to bask in relief, only then realizing how tense he’d become as he forced himself to relax. Tearing his eyes from the impenetrable darkness he turned to face the man who’d spoke.
The question had occurred to his assistant too late, in less than an hour’s time the delegation would disembark and then talks would begin. An hour after that he and Sylas would both be dead and the question would be moot. An IPV-1 was already within orbit of Esseles and had but to land.
‘You don’t understand Sylas, things have gone wrong. The Empire doesn’t negotiate, they aren’t coming here to make an offer so we can entertain competing bids. They aren’t going to entice us with a commission or ask us to head up an R and D department. They are coming to claim our property and in all likelihood end our lives since our usefulness will be at an end and all we could possibly be is a liability in the future.’
‘So. . .Why are we agreeing to meet them?’
‘What other choice have we? We might run, but I doubt we would make it far. We could fight, but not particularly well and not for very long. No, there is no happy ending in this for us, no scenario which will not end in our deaths.’
Fallon smiled at his assistant then, feeling pity for the man but none for himself, and rested a consoling hand upon his shoulder: ‘It will all be over soon.’
‘But we can fight -their ship can only hold a dozen crewmen and may be handled by as few as four. There are dozens of technicians, scientists and engineers here, and more than enough weapons. Loronar has seen to that!’
The Chiss merely shook his head in silence. He knew defiance wouldn’t go unremarked or unremembered. The Empire would return and exact payment for such insolence by enslaving the government for harboring terrorists, a government which had until that point remained neutral in the galactic civil war but would not be able to claim so after. The surviving staff of Telmori Station would be hunted down and extinguished along with their family in addition to anyone whom granted them aide or succor, as well as anyone unfortunate enough to get in the Imperial’s way. For all his talk of fighting, Fallon knew Sylas was a coward whom would gladly trade a dozen lives for the chance at saving his own.
Before Fallon could say anything, the computer console behind him began chirping its proximity alarm indicating the IPV was on an approach vector. Calmly, Fallon acknowledge the computer and replied to it with orders of his own.
‘Initiate lockdown protocols and maintain functionality: mark red seven and purge.’
Fallon noted the evident confusion written upon Sylas’ features but chose to ignore him while striding towards the 1MC to make a station wide announcement as the moon roof above him disappeared behind a blaster shield. He eyed the ship’s calculated time of arrival and noted it: Three minutes. It must have been wishful thinking which lead him to believe he had another hour to live.
No matter now.
‘This is Commander Hannibal Fallon speaking. It has been my pleasure to oversee your efforts these past five years. I decided shortly after coming to Esseles that I would live out my remaining days on this planet. It’s people, it’s culture, it’s pleasures and struggles have all become my own. There is no pleasure in what I do today, however. I learned this morning that our ARC program has gained the interest of the Galactic Empire. Shortly after I finish speaking, we will be boarded by Imperial agents seeking to seize all records and associated technologies. These next few minutes will be our last, do not squander in futile endeavors or attempts to escape the facility –I have secured all laboratories, chambers and cells so that each of you will be able to meet your ends with dignity. Communication channels remain open, so I suggest you call your loved ones and seek what solace you can in their company. Fallon out.’
Swiveling about in his chair, Fallon turned to face Sylas, who stood in shock at the news. ‘We’re all going to die,’ he managed to croak almost inaudibly and then, with a very audible scream, threw himself down the hall in search of some overlooked exit. The echo of his frantic shouts were soon stifled by the sound of the IPV entering the docking bay, a electrified blue containment shield sealing it in as it landed.
Rising from his seat Fallon walked briskly forward to meet the contingent within. He did not have to wait long before a rear hatch opened and a sub-Lieutenant emerged at the head of three other junior officers and a full dozen Stormtroopers. The soldiers ran past him and immediately began breaching maneuvers to secure the facility as the officers surrounded him, addressing Fallon without looking at him.
‘Where is the Artificial Replicant Cybernetics system?’
‘Fuck you,’ Fallon growled.
A scowl played over the sub-Lieutenant’s mouth which opened as if to speak, but was immediately silenced by the sound of klaxons blaring from every corner of the compound. Under normal circumstances the sound was supposed to signal egress, today it served no purpose. It was already too late to escape. Anger replaced annoyance upon the young officer’s face as it became bathed in the saturating crimson glow which accompanied the alarm. One of the officers, a mid-Shipman ran toward the facility’s computer arrays, another to the helm of the ship which they had arrived on.
Neither made it.
Taking a deep breath, Fallon steadied himself –it would be his last. Trace amounts of the nerve toxin FEX-m3 had been released into the station’s atmospheric circulation system with the first siren even as the computer began an exhaustive information purge to delete all locally stored information, registries and associated files including the core kernel of the network. Fallon’s spine arched violently backwards, breaking his vertebra in seventeen different places. His head hit the ground with so much momentum that his skull was split on impact, emptying its contents in a Rorschach splatter across the docking bay floor. Agonizing death came for everyone aboard the ill-fated Telmori Station, the only mercy was that it came swiftly.
The computer faithfully finished its task of deleting all drives than finally even the programming which governed its functionality, joining the others in a silent repose it would never awaken from. Without it, the life support systems shut down one by one, the lights powered off and the compound became a mausoleum.

From out of the darkness, stillness, and silence, a single figure emerged. Confused, cold and uncoordinated, it crawled over the corpses of its creators and sought to escape the crypt it had been birthed in, leaving a trail of blood and wreckage in its wake. It would be a trail followed by bounty hunters, Loromar, even the Empire itself, and would only get bloodier the further it went.

Veri Orion

Imperials.

The impact of the words left Veri stunned, totally incapable of thought or action, as the sound of it reverberated off the staccato walls of her mind. She stood up from the alabaster computer console in a daze, her eyes staring blankly ahead of her registering nothing her steps heavy, slow, and blunt. The air parted around her like water, she felt languid and weightless as she maneuvered about the small compartment. Veri knew she had to combat the terror which threatened to overwhelm her. Nothing in her past or her studies had prepared her for this. All of her previous experience was academic in nature. This station was her first real foray into the galaxy. She had only just graduated from the Carosi XII Academy of Medicine, and in fact, the internship had been a requirement for one of the scholarships which funded her education.

War had always seemed so far away, such a remote thing, and nothing to do with her.

Veri narrowed her eyes as her vision focused, her breathing calmed as she drew out her breaths. Before long her heart slowed its racing rhythms approximating something approaching calm, but she could not summon any useful insight which might assist her. Veri gripped the back of her chair with hands which were no longer shaking, but could not get a grip on the situation she found herself in. No ideas were forthcoming, no possibilities, only anxiety barely constrained. The lighting suddenly seemed to her too bright, the sharp scent of antibiotic disinfectants overwhelmingly acrid. She needed air. She needed out. She needed…

Escape!

Veri moved toward the exit and was not at all surprised to find it unresponsive. She took stock of her surroundings wondering if anything could be of use… But found little. That entire wing was dedicated to the medcenter staff so they could deal with any injury or incident which might arise without having to solicit aide elsewhere. Unfortunately, everything was compartmentalized according to specialization. There were lasers in the surgical bay which might have been capable of cutting through the doors with sufficient time and calibration, but there were none with her there. There were durasteel saws and ceramic scalpels across the hall where autopsies might be performed if ever a casualty occurred, but they may as well have been on the far side of the galactic rim for all their proximity afforded her. Flight denied and the ability to escape deprived, her options were shrinking alongside her time to…

Hide.

Veri couldn’t have chosen a worse place to become imprisoned, but then chance had had as much to do with the decision as she. If the Imperials had struck a few second sooner or a few second later she would have been caught in the hall. Instead she was in the Serology clinic, little more than a diagnostic closet decorated with an robust variety of spectrum analysis equipment and computer consoles. The center of the room was dominated by a large bacta fed rejuvenation tank. There was also a GH-7 medical droid hung in a charging station, deactivated. It had been sold to them for next to nothing she’d been told with some regret, only too late did they discover why: It had been responsible for the death of some minor royal personage during childbirth. None of them trusted it’s programming enough to activate it, nor did she consider doing so now.

The bacta tank was currently unoccupied, to her knowledge it had never actually been used, bacta being as rare as it was expensive but not for long. As hiding places went it was far from ideal. For one it was transparent, for another, once inside she was truly trapped, however, where she could not possibly go unnoticed she might at least be ignored.

After all, what possible concern could such an individual in that state be? It didn’t occur to Veri that was no real reason for the Empire to have an interest in Temori Station in the first place.

Quickly stripping out of her clothing, Veri did her best to hide them behind the droid as she prepared the tank to accept immersion. It required a bit of a scramble to get over the walls of the tank, but she managed to do so with just enough time to fix the respiratory mask over her face before it re-sealed. Faintly, through the viscous fluid and the sound distorting glass she thought she could hear the sounds of alarms. Sedatives were joined with her oxygen and she breathed them in greedily. The regenerative process was supposed to be incredibly painful, newly formed nerves and rapidly re-knitting tissue could be incredibly sensitive. As sleep washed over her she glimpsed just for a moment the Serology clinic being bathed in a crimson haze, and then darkness claimed her.

Veri slept the sleep of the just, innocent and unafraid. Outside of the tank death stalked the halls of the facility. It claimed the living first, the artificial next and the facility itself last.

Telmori had been designed with failsafe protocols to ensure it could not be compromised to competitors. The Loronar Corporation, which had financed and overseen the construction of the station, operated under the assumption that due to the sensitive nature of the work which was scheduled to take place there, it would be more responsible to destroy everyone and all records within rather than risk them falling into hostile hands. It was meant to be a final solution, an option which only the station’s commander would be aware of or have control over.

So too would the girl in the bacta tank have followed the others into oblivion, but for the idle mischief of a single engineer charged with the facilities maintenance. His duties had been primarily concerned with preventative measures, but there was little in the way of real work to occupy his time. So he created some. Realizing the station’s electrical grid had no redundancy to accommodate the medical facilities in the event of a systems failure, he created a back-up battery relay which would ensure its operation in an emergency.

So the girl in the tank would live, but not as she had ever hoped or even suspected. The girl would climb out of the rejuvenation chamber, but a part of her would be left in there forever, such as her innocence and naïvete. It remained to be seen what would replace it.