The War is Over, Garrus
The Vesta didn't put in to port until nearly two years later, and only then because their mobile morgue was full. It wasn't their first run in to Palaven, where they had gone a half dozen times already to deliver their salvage to the orbital smelter that was churning out structural beams as fast as it could. Down below the L1 station, were the three geostationary drydocks, where crews were working around the clock on building six new dreadnoughts. Rumor was they would be building six more, once these were done. Using Vesta's telescope, you could see the flashes from the welding lasers.
This time was different. Instead of pulling into L1 to simply offload, the Vesta descended to low orbit, where they docked at the orbital transfer station. An order went out before arrival that everyone was to put on a clean uniform, and on docking Ashana understood why.
She was standing in the rank directly behind Shen and the rest of the command deck crew. On the other side of the airlock, were two dozen turians, representing different branches of the military, the various colonial militias, merchant marine, and several important members of the Heirarchy. To her left was a vice admiral, and on her right was a man who said he was the Chancellor of the turian navy's fighter corps. All of them were eager to shake everyone's hand, and afterward there was a reception—the turians always having felt something of a kinship with the quarians, despite their vast cultural differences—in a gallery with a massive rank of windows on the right, all of them looking down onto the night side of Palaven.
One of the turians came up to Ashana, once the lengthy formalities were over, and put his big turian hand on her shoulder. He pointed at a particular bright spot in the northern hemisphere. "Cipritine," he said. "I do hope you're planning on enjoying a bit of our hospitality."
"It would be nice," she said. "I haven't been off ship for over a year."
"It's always nice to simply step outside, and look up and up," the man said. He smiled his turian smile. The markings on his face looked, she thought, too much like the illustrations of a devil from a book of stories she'd read as a child. The hand on her shoulder was too much. She shrugged, and it slipped off. The turian, his name escaped her, but he was in uniform, so it was likely admiral something or another, turned to face the windows. "Imagine what it must have been like," he said. "We all began somewhere, on the surface of a planet. All we could do was look up and wonder about what was out here. But the more time I spend out here, the more I find myself looking down, thinking about what's going back at home. We can't let our homes become a mystery to us, don't you think?"
Ashana had stopped listening about halfway through his speech. She suspected he gave it often, and so she simply said, "Yes."
The admiral of whatever smiled, a gentle spreading of his mandibles, and baring of his teeth. It was an unnerving gesture for the uninitiated. Ashana wondered whether the war the turians had fought with humans on their first meeting might have started over something this small.
"I'm sure I'll only have a day or two," she said. "Is there anything I must see?"
"The war memorial," he said. "Everyone—everyone goes there. Say hello to Garrus for me." He patted her again, and took his leave, shuffling a little, and likely a bit drunk. As he left, he thanked her service to the families of the long dead. The hierarchy would remember.
#
A few hours later, they were on a shuttle carrying them down to the spaceport at Cipritine, still shrouded in night. The entire crew was drunk, even Shen, who usually didn't have more than a sip or two. Stepping out onto the landing pad, hot—the heat came as a real shock—and into a downpour, he grabbed her waist, and pulled her close.
"Stop," she said. "They'll see."
"I don't even care," he said. Neither did she but she worried that it was going to make things difficult. For nearly two years, Shen had kept a cabin with Lini, one of the ops chiefs, who often shared long watches with him on the command deck. They'd split up, and still got on well enough to work together, it seemed, though things were sometimes strained. Lini wasn't supposed to know about her. Not until Shen was ready to let her know.
Everyone knew, of course, about the two of them. And they didn't really seem to care, not even Lini, thought it was clear they weren't going to ever be friends.
It was late and under the rain the crew scattered quickly into the portside bars and hotels. Ashana and Shen found a room, but he was too drunk—tired, he said—to perform, so they simply lay side by side, their geth communing through the nodes on each others' wrists.
The things he had seen! Shen was in his late thirties, and it seemed he'd been everywhere. Thessia, the Citadel, Earth, most of the colonies. He'd survived the violent decompression of his vessel, while half of his comrades had died. In his memories, she watched him placing his crewmates in bags to be shipped home. At length he rolled toward her and said, "Your father's right, you know."
"What?"
"About getting involved with your ship's captain."
"Someone should have told Lini."
Shen smiled. His hair had grown shaggy in the year they'd been in space. Like most quarians, it grew in thick, springy curls that turned to frizz in humid weather, as they did now.
"It's true, though."
"Are you trying to end this?"
"No," he said, though he sounded like perhaps he was. He stretched, and they talked about other things for a while. He got up to use the shower, and Ashana fell asleep watching a turian documentary on the Relay 314 Incident. During what was left of the night, she felt Shen next to her, then they were together though it was so gentle it seemed like she was dreaming, and when she woke at dawn she was alone.
He had gone to the trouble of ordering breakfast for her, though, and left a message that said he'd been called away on urgent ship business. She sat on the edge of the bed, eating the smoked fish and drinking the tea that the turians loved, and about which she was considerably less convinced, while trying to reassure herself that urgent ship business did not mean another girl, especially not Lini.
#
Shoreleave!
Shen had given the crew five full rotations planetside. No orders. No one to bother her, unless Shen pinged, to say he was returning to the hotel. After an hour, she hadn't heard from him, and so she had packed her things, and boarded the maglev headed for the city center, her things in a knapsack slung over her shoulder. She'd find a place to stay later.
During the ride down from orbit, she'd caught a glimpse of Cipritine, the threads of golden light from the highest towers burning up at them through the clouds, and she had seen the same buildings from much closer on final approach. Still she couldn't appreciate the scale until she was really in it. The train was full to bursting: children in school uniforms, shouting and laughing, older turians also uniform or dressed for business.
From some of the aboveground stops, Ashana caught a glimpse of some of the ruins that had been left standing, the jagged remnants of massive towers the reapers had torn to pieces. A city that had taken ages to build, torn down in a matter of a few short hours. Turians called them the spirit grounds. They drew closer and she caught a better view. A thin haze of dust hovered over the shattered walls. There was always something collapsing within the ruins, they said, and then the train passed over a tall bridge and over through the Spirit Grounds. There were cooking fires burning there, little clusters of people living under crude shelters. Some turned to watch the train pass, while others appeared not even to notice.
The children all got out at a stop marked Himeris, an expensive private school for some of the higher castes, before plunging into the depths of city center, where train disappeared into a series of tunnels. Even when they came above ground about a kilometer before the main commuter station, the daylight was crowded out by the massive structures surrounding the tracks. Ashana got off with everyone else. A thronging mass of tired looking male and female turians shuffled off the train, only to be absorbed by the many office towers and ministry buildings that surrounded the transport hub. Even then, the station's passageways were bustling, as was the plaza outside. Air traffic zipped low overhead.
The main pedestrian level was a dozen meters or so above the actual ground. Below the walkways, dark water ran through dozens of canals, the city having been built on the delta formed at the place where the Legna and Apion rivers met and collectively flowed into a wide, shallow bay. Five thousand years ago, a small group of turian fishermen had built the first settlements on a high rock outcrop surrounded by the current. The towers blocked out the light, and the passages wended their ways both around the structures' wide bases and through their lower levels. There was almost no light from above, and instead artificial lighting and the glow of advertisements replaced the day. It reminded Ashana of the pictures she'd seen of the Citadel.
After two hours of walking, she reached the water's edge. To the south stood the old harbor, the engine that had oince driven Cipritine's wealth, until space traffic had supplanted waterborne commerce. They'd torn down it nearly a thousand years ago, as the turians began seeking—and finding—their fortune beyond Palaven. Overhead, there were trails of ships entering the atmosphere, and far out over the water, a massive freighter of human design coasted at low altitude toward the northern end of the bay.
Whatever Cipritine had been once, it wasn't like that any more. The invasion had destroyed most of the old city, which by then had been torn down and rebuilt a dozen times already. Now the contstruction that ranged along the southern shore, rising along the thousand-year old terraces that had once been part of the harbor district spoke of newness: a new society, with new ideas, and new money. The tall residences crowded against one another like saplings struggling toward the light, only here instead of light, they reached for the coveted views. Views whose value easily translated into price per square meter. And it filled her with more than a little indignation that the view that one paid for so dearly was of Far Point island, home to Shepard's Field, the rolling meadow with its wild-growing flowers and clutches of standing stones, land that had been bought with more than money.
Just beyond Shepard's Field, on the high parapet overlooking the bay was the Vakarian Monument. It was an oddly humble memorial, a small square, ringed with trees, and overlooking Shepard's field below. Seated on the railing of the high parapet was a bronze statue of Garrus Vakarian, positioned so that he was facing away from the square and looking out over the precipice, down toward Shepard's field and the sea. His helmet was off, and placed on the stone ledge beside him, his long rifle leaned against railing, within arm's reach. The bronze was deeply weathered, by there was a small spot on his left shoulder that was polished so the metal shone through. From the images Ashana had seen of him, it seemed an accurate likeness, both as big and as small as he had been in real life, but still imposing even though seated. In turian iconography, the helmet placed to the left side of the body meant the person had gone missing in combat. Which was true.
Ten years after the invasion, Vakarian had been riding in a gunship that was shot down during a covert operation on a colony world in the Traverse. Well, one supposed he had gone missing. There were any number of conspiracy theories that suggested the Hierarchy had faked Vakarian's death both to allow the man to enjoy the remainder of his life in peace, and as a means of sidelining him from becoming more fully involved in Hierarchy politics.
Whatever else was true, it was tradition for visitors to Cipritine, in particular space-faring folk, to visit the monument, put one's arm around the statue, and whisper, The war is over, Garrus. The gesture was supposed to be good luck, and for nearly two hundred years, people had been coming here for the opportunity. The polished spot on the statue's left pauldron was testament to that.
That morning, perhaps because the weather was still bad, there was only one other person there, waiting for a drone to take his picture. Ashana waited her turn and took her own picture. Then, stepping away from the statue and unzipping her uniform to show what she considered an appealing, though not indecent, amount of cleavage, sent both images to Shen, thinking he might respond.
Nothing. Not even after ten minutes. And an hour later, still nothing.
A day went by. She and some of the crew had convened to discuss where Shen might have gone. Lini was there, which was reassuring, but the XO and the ops chief were both gone. Which made everyone restless. They put it to bed by drinking too much, and gorging on turian barbecue. The mix of drink and fatty protein, after months of ship's rations left most of the crew sick, and they retired to their respective shelters, only to emerge late the following morning, all looking worse for wear.
Still nothing from Shen, or the XO or ops chief. Ashana was now truly worried, and before long they were paging the comms officer, who had remained behind on the Vesta, and told them to fuck off for rubbing it in his face that they were living it up planetside. A few hours later they were checking with local hospitals, and then with the infirmary on the orbital transfer station.
No one had seen them.
And now Menari was missing, too. She wasn't the most sociable of the group, so no one had noticed at first. No one was even sure whether she'd been with the rest of the crew to begin with. The last anyone had seen her was during the reception. Someone suggested that maybe she'd gone to Menae, Palaven's moon, where there was a low-g retreat for people who liked to meditate.
"She doesn't seem the type," Lini said.
The crew began maintaining a watch on the central police headquarters, several of the major hotels, and the spaceport. Two more days went by this way. Finally, on their last day of shoreleave, the crew returned to the spaceport, looking to board a shuttle back to the orbital transfer station.
They passed through the ticketing office, and then on to customs, where the officials went through their gear more closely than Ashana had expected. Beyond the inspection station, a young turian in an official looking uniform ushered them all into a room off to the side, where they found Shen, the XO and the ops chief sitting at a table and looking the worse for wear.
"I'll let you tell them," the official said. She turned quickly and left, but then stopped at the door, and said, "Your service to the Hierarchy is noted, but you will not be forgiven for this."
After she'd gone everyone began shouting questions, while the XO and ops chief responded by yelling for everyone to be quiet. The noise rose to a crescendo, and finally Shen put up a hand and silenced them all. A second gesture seemed to suggest that he understood why everyone was upset over his disappearance.
"I could make a speech," he began. The more Ashana looked at his eyes, the angrier she thought he might be. "I won't do that. I'm only here to let you all know that we've been asked to leave not only the Trebia system, but Hierarchy space altogether. If you're wondering why, well, I'll tell you." He glared again, at all of them, pausing when his gaze fell on Ashana. "You'll notice that Menari is missing. She's been sent home, to Rannoch, ahead of us." He paused again and gave everyone another hard look. "It—I just can't even fathom someone—someone stealing patches off of dead turian sailors, much less selling them as goddamned memorabilia. Menari won't be flying again, with anyone. She's going home, her pilgrimage unfulfilled. I'd like all of you to think on that, next time you consider pulling dumb shit like this."
Stunned silence. When no one moved, the XO shouted, "Fall out," and everyone made for the ship.
#
Ten days later, the Vesta was parked in orbit near Omega. There was plenty of metal to go after around here, Shen had said, and right now they were just waiting for the right contract to come through. When Ashana's watch ended, she went up to Shen's cabin, where she found him sitting at his desk, staring at a long registry of ships that had been lost in the surrounding systems.
She sat on the edge of his bunk and waited for him to come to her, which he did, about an hour later.
"Lots of metal out there," he said again, as he had about a dozen times over the past week.
"I know," she said. He was quiet. She asked, "What will happen to Menari, now?"
He shrugged, which seemed to mean nothing good. "Depends on her family," he said. He seemed upset about something, but Ashana couldn't tell what. She reached for him and he avoided her touch.
What he meant was, What value would a family place on a girl with an unfinished pilgrimage. Ashana sighed and shook her head. After the quarians had finally come home after the long wandering, there had been a population boom, partly related to a loosening of sexual morals, followed by a near planet wide insistence that a woman's duty was to stay home and bear children.
In the decades following a complex system had evolved. Women were expected to complete their pilgrimage as a means of showing their worth. But once they returned, their duties were more strictly controlled. Husband, hearth, home. Children and family.
Conservative families still placed more importance on their daughters completing their pilgrimages than more relaxed ones did, because it meant they were worth more in marriage. In Ashana's mother's time, it had been that a girl who came home unfinished, as they said, was doomed to never leave home again. You saw them, she said, looking over a wall into another family's courtyard, their heads covered and doing menial work. No one spoke of them. A visitor to the home never saw them, but for a flash of dull-colored fabric, a whisper in a corridor, foosteps without a body attached passing in another room. And those were the lucky ones. Others ended up as outcasts. Shunned by family and friends, and forced to make their way, somehow.
"At least we paid her passage home," Shen said. "She's already cost us so much, why not give that little more?"
Ashana lay back on the bed and stretched her arms. "It's stupid," she said. "But when you told me you were going away on ship business, I thought you were with her."
Shen didn't smile. He didn't lean back to kiss her the way she had expected he would. He seemed uncomfortable that she was there. He took off the cloth cap he always wore when he was on duty and threw it onto his desk. "No," he said. "They were sweating me and the other two. For three days it was jut me, a windowless room and a bunch of angry turians."
"I saw her take the patch," Ashana said. "I should have told her to stop."
"That's kind of you," Shen said. "It wasn't about the patch."
"How do you know?"
"None of the angry turians wanted to know about some damned missing insignia. They were much more worked about a data core taken from the carrier."
"What did you tell them?" Ashana asked.
"Nothing," he said. "I told them if their ship's data is really that important they can do their own salvage. So they said, 'All right,' and sent us on our way. After a while." Shen was quiet for a moment. Then he added, "And anyhow, I've been selling Seventh Fleet patches to collectors for years. The turians haven't ever bothered me about it before."
Ashana rubbed Shen's back, but he remained sitting. He said, "You know your first time on a wreck."
"I'll never forget it," she said.
"You and Menari both passed through that part of the ship, the ready deck and the CIC were both situated along the same spar. Menari swore up and down that she hadn't even been in the CIC." He got up off the bed and moved over to his terminal. A message had come in. He looked at it and called the bridge. "We've got orders. Batalla system. Departure, zero-zero-zero. All crew secure for FTL run."
An alarm sounded in the ship, and not long after there was a steady hum rolling through the hull.
When he turned around, Shen looked angry. "If I weren't already short-handed, I'd leave you here, too."
Ashana sat up. "What? Why?"
"I know it was you that took the data core. I don't know why you didn't tell me about it, or why the turians want it back, but I know you have it."
Ashana didn't say anything. It was true. She had taken it. "And if I give it back?"
Shen said, "I knew it was you, even when they were sweating us. I decided to keep it quiet. Because I—I care about you. But you screwed it all up, didn't you? I want you to know that next time we put into port, you're off the ship. Do you understand?"
Ashana began to say something, but Shen glared and that silenced her. He opened the hatch to his quarters.
"Get out," he said.
