Tears
"Earth is the cradle of humanity. But one cannot remain in the cradle forever."
"What was that chief?"
"Forget it lieutenant. It's beyond your pay grade."
That, thought Lieutenant Tam, was a bit uncalled for. Yes, he was essentially a Navy newbie. Yes, he'd only just graduated from hostile environment training on Titan. Yes, flushing out South American rebels on Earth was essentially a milk run compared to what awaited humanity in the depths of space. But that didn't mean Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams should give him flak over it, especially since she'd only been deployed planetside as far as he could tell.
Patience, Tam. Just climb the ladder...
Well, maybe that was a bit cutthroat. One lesson he'd picked up over the last few years was that being a people person was good. Sure, being all chummy with your squad mates (or hell, maybe even a ship if he got lucky) might be irritating, but when you were facing some hard-line batarian or a bigoted turian out in the real world, some charm could go a long way. So, with that being said, he'd made an effort to connect with all the other marines deployed in the last fertile continent on Earth and apart from Williams, had succeeded.
"So..." began the CO slowly, adjusting his posture against the Grizzly as he took note of the darkening sky above him. "What's next for you chief?"
"Pardon?" Williams asked, clearly not paying attention.
"I asked what's next for you," the lieutenant repeated. "You know, you going to remain on Earth? Or will you go shipside and-..."
"Eden Prime."
"Oh...I see."
Actually, Tam didn't see at all. He didn't know why all of the gunnery chief's service record was filled with terrestrial deployments, and the only answer he'd got as to why was "family connections." Possibly someone high up was keeping her in safe zones, but somehow that didn't seem likely. Williams had taken point in their Amazon raid and had almost single-handedly defeated the Forest Fist. If anyone was cowards, those terrorists were...
"What about you, el-tee?" the gunnery chief asked, her gaze still fixed on the natives being herded towards a Kodiak. "What's next for you?"
Tam shrugged, a simple gesture that didn't convey the pleasure of being able to connect to every member of his squad, however briefly. "I dunno. If I'm lucky, the boys at Arcturus might give me some credit for hauling in those savages-..."
"Savages?" Williams asked, her gaze immediately switching to her superior's. "That's a bit bigoted, isn't it?"
Tam scowled. It seemed a bit much to call him "bigoted" when the NCO was, as far as he could tell, sympathetic to groups such as Terra Firma. Everyone knew that mankind's destiny was out there, through integration, and racial slurs weren't going to help. Nor were terrorist attacks on visiting dignitaries. Which were what the natives had done, hence wasting the Alliance's time, money and face in the process of neutralizing them and presumably transporting them to one of the many jails in Rio.
Good riddance.
"Lieutenant, did you ever stop to consider why these people took it upon themselves to stop a coffee shipment to Thessia?" Williams asked, turning her gaze to the Kodiak's pilot who was in the midst of taking questions from a mostly alien press. "Why it came to this?"
"Chief, the group are terrorists and extremists who think that killing innocents is going to change...well, whatever they want to change."
"And what do they want to change?"
Tam opened his mouth...then closed it. Truth be told, he didn't know. Heck, he hadn't even heard of the group until a few hours ago. Nor had he even been on this continent.
"Lieutenant, if there's one thing I've learned from colonial interactions, it's that there's always a reason for unrest. Sometimes, it's a stupid reason. Other times, there's an understandable, even sympathetic one behind it. And being where we are, I think it may be a case of the latter."
"Um...a coffee plantation?"
If looks could kill, Tam knew he'd have gone the way of the bison right now.
"Where we are, el-tee, is where a tract of the Amazon Rainforest once stood," Williams began. "Despite South America being the last continent on Earth where agriculture had any future, we still managed to preserve it. But now that we're all chummy with our Citadel friends, part of our bargain is that we provide cash crops that are only found on our planet. So, if we have to tear up even more of the natural world to meet such demand, then so be it. If people lose their homes for the sake of galactic commerce, then so be it. And if we have to clamp down on protests that have become violent by necessity, then so be it."
"Very nice," Tam scowled, remembering a manifesto he studied in college by an Illusive Man or something. "Glad to see that xenophobia is alive and well in my men."
"Xenophobia?" Williams asked. "Think what you want, sir, but I'm not scared of aliens. I'm not even scared of selling products to them. What I am scared about is what we're willing to do to our own people to keep aliens happy. And why no-one is concerned about helping Earth just because we have extra-solar colonies to worry about as well."
Tam knew he was in charge of this operation. But right now, it was clear that the conversation was over. Williams had seen to that, and with the heavens finally opening and releasing their payload of H2O, getting under cover seemed like the more important course of action right now.
"Um...want to get under cover, gunny?" the lieutenant asked Williams. "Rain's coming down."
"It's not rain," the marine murmured, gazing to the west where the remnants of the Amazon lay. Gazing right until she returned the gaze to her superior...
"It's tears."