Chapter Seven: Interrogation

"About time you woke up." Miranda sat at a small and rusty iron table, her arms clasped in front of her mouth, a calculating and patient look on her face save for a raised brow, and her ice blue eyes locked with the asari on the other side. They sat inside one of the many crew barracks on a Fate Breakers Battle Barge, repurposed by Miranda for her own strange tasks. Kelanya came to her senses and struggled briefly before realizing her hands were bound behind the chair she sat in. Sweat slowly dripped down her face as they stared each other down with ruthless expressions.

"I should be dead by now, human. Aren't you trained to shoot aliens on sight?" Kelanya asked. Miranda rose from the table and slowly circled the table. Each step of her high heeled shoes on the steel plating floor made a high pitched click, each breath was almost like a sigh. Miranda took one finger to the back of Kelanya's chair and pushed it back and forth for a moment, letting the chair wobble on its uneven legs. The lights above them flickered frequently, but only the asari seemed to mind.

"Who said I was one of them?" Miranda asked, continuing her walk but silencing her loud breathing. She took her seat back in her chair, crossed her arms and locked gazes with Kelanya once again.

"Bitch, you are going to have to do better than some theatrics and a cold stare to get me scared. I command the most ruthless Tau Cadre in the Damocles Gulf." The asari stated.

"Not anymore." Miranda smirked and pointed one finger at the table. "In this room, you have no power." She paused, studying every one of Kelanya's slightest moves. "Now I'm going to ask you politely, to answer a few simple questions. Now first I'm trying it the easy way, if you don't cooperate it simply won't end well. Mainly for me, since I'll have to clean your blood off the floor."

"Fuck you."

Miranda quickly reached for Kelanya's tentacle hair and violently pulled her head down until it connected with the table. The asari pulled away, obviously in great pain but never letting out a groan or a scream. Purple blood trickled down her nose as Miranda waited for her to say something else that would incite another attack. "Why has humanity separated from the Citadel races?" Miranda calmly asked.

"Heh, what rock have you been under for the past ten thousand years?"

"I am a time traveler, using the same device you've been looking for." Kelanya's eyes widened, "Yes, we've tapped into your communications network. The encryption levels looked like they were written by a child."

"Those transmissions were in Tau language. Current human translators can barely keep up with us."

"And how about UT's from 2185?"

"Damn bitch, didn't think you were that old. Still fretting over the Reapers?"

"Answer the question or I break more than your nose. Why did humanity secede from the Citadel?"

"We live for a thousand years, not ten, I wasn't around back then. But I do know that 'God-Emperor' caused all of this bullshit. Supposedly he rallied all of humanity in some 'Great Crusade' and stormed off the Citadel. Damn good television I say." Miranda slammed Kelanya's face into the table again. "You know I was cooperating."

"Next question. What happened to the Mass Relays and the Citadel?"

"After the Reapers or after the Crusade?"

"Both."

"The Eldar, if you don't know who they are it's best not to ask, allied with the Citadel and cloaked the Mass Relay network about ten thousand years ago. It took us seventeen god damn years until we figured out how to use them.

Miranda pulled her Carnifex hand cannon from her hip and pointed it at Kelanya's forehead. "Tell me how and give me the location of the nearest Mass Relay."

"I've already resigned myself to my fate. A bullet to the brain means nothing to me anymore. Just pull the trigger and then go fuck yourself."

"You have no idea who's on the other side of that door, do you?" Miranda pulled her gun away, "Until now, the Imperium thought you asari were female Tau. Now Tau have four fingers, hoofed feet, and they don't have tentacles for hair. Now if I open that door and snap my fingers some deranged, hunchbacked, cackling scientists haul you off to some underground lab where they dissect you alive. Answer this last question and I hand you over to the Citadel where you will be put on trial and most likely get a life sentence in a cozy prison for your cooperation. Of course if the Citadel doesn't exist anymore or if you lied to me once that dissection table is always available."

Kelanya was silent for a long time, but Miranda was a patient woman. She was willing to wait as long as it took for the asari to make her decision. "It is in the same system as the human world known as Ophelia. When you enter the system, discharge your ships engines with a dark energy pulse. That will disengage the cloak for approximately sixty seconds."