Part One: The Beginning of the End
"We fought the reapers, but we failed to stop them. We did everything we could as the apex race, but it wasn't enough. I only hope the information within this capsule is enough to help you before it's too late. I am the last queen of the Mantis Empire, herein lies the recounting of the final days in my race's struggle against the reapers..." - Queen Minerva
Almost without warning, the reapers arrived. Numbering in the mere twenties, we failed to realize the magnitude of the threat, a mistake we only recognized when it was too late. Within hours of the first contact, the fleets dispatched to subdue the threat returned as enemies, and with them sector after sector fell to the corruption of these monsters. It was not long before the Hive of the Five Queens - a massive five-armed space colony, the center of our empire, the pride of our civilization, was lost to these enigmatic invaders. Fifty million lives were lost when the Hive went silent, those who lived the initial onslaught were captured and remade in the image of the reapers, forever enthralled to their will - beings we eventually named "Keepers."
I am Queen Minerva, and I once ruled a vast domain in the corner of our mighty Empire, yet even we were not spared from the onslaught. Ten years since initial contact, with one hive after another lost to this plague, the reapers' forces descended upon my domain. At its vanguard was the once-beautiful flagship of the Imperial Fleet, the Pride of Manti.
Faced with overwhelming odds, my children resisted valiantly, yet the never-ending torrent of Keepers made it painfully obvious that this was a war we cannot win. Holding onto years of research into an effective weapon against the reaper and with my trusted knight Scimitar at my side, I left my domain for the only remaining stronghold of the Mantis in my new prototype cruiser, the Leviathan.
The Leviathan was still not complete when we left my domain, no armaments were installed and many of the systems were still in its preliminary design. If we were to successfully evade the unrelenting pursuit of the reapers, we need to gather material and upgrade its systems along the way. I opened up the galactic map, engaged the FLT drive, and plotted a course to the nearest mass relay.
To avoid the reaper's detection, the course was to journey through several dense nebula, among which was the Aphida Nebula. Rumors spoke of the fifth federation fleet stationed within the vicinity, from which I hoped to have my ship upgraded to its full potential. Yet, upon arrival, sensors picked up no signs of life.
Just before I finally gave up hope and ordered the Leviathan to activate its FTL drives, a single blip on the sensors gave me pause. Before they vanished into the clouds, I activated the teleporter to lock on to the only life-sign and beamed it aboard.
The soldier, half-frozen and severely hurt, told me her name was Sophia, and she was the engine technician and last surviving crew member of the cruiser Ave Aphida, before passing out. When she recovered, she indicated her interest in serving aboard the Leviathan, despite having a different broodmother. As the Leviathan was severely short-handed in our hasty launch, I welcomed her aboard.
As luck would have it, a refueling station was left intact deep in keeper territory. We cautiously approached the station and the docked cruiser, with our guns locked on in fear of ambush. Up close, we saw that the station was severely crippled, with its docking arm effectively preventing the cruiser from disengaging. Additionally, the station was in a descending orbit to the nearby planet. Wasting little time, we quickly worked to scavenge what we can from the cruiser, though costing some of our precious material, we managed to obtain the coveted Burst Laser Mark II, an experimental multi-burst gun developed late in the reaper war, installed only on a few select cruisers with the production infrastructure in tatters.
While uninstalling the gun, we managed to pick up life signs deep within the station, location that Leviathan's teleporter cannot lock on. Taking great care not to collapse the structure, we dug through many of the levels and found two trapped Mantises, who more than happily joined the crew of the Leviathan. As the station continued to descend onto the planet and the reapers in close pursuit, we made haste to the nearby mass relay and departed for the Slug territory, ruled by one of our client races, the Slugs - a conniving race who was only kept in line with the military might of the Mantis Empire, from whom little is heard since the fall of the Hive.
Chapter One, Appendix A: Active Dossier
Queen Minerva: Alive
Lord Scimitar: Alive
Sophia: Alive
Maria: Alive
Tomas: Alive
ooc: For those who are wondering, I do jettison all crew member who isn't a mantis. As I only entertain the story around the actual Mantises.