A/N: Apologies if anyone got the email alert twice, there were some site issues when I first added the chapter. Enjoy.
"Initiative Court Hearing 159 is now in session, Chief Justice T'Sorah presiding. Case concerning Contact Incident H1-66, and the position of Kania Felix as the turian Pathfinder. I will first recount the facts provided in Pathfinder Felix's post-incident report, with additional information from the testimonies of witnesses Marcus Pertinax, Cabalite Lucia Trajan, and Pelessaria B'Sayle."
Natanus Arrival Day + 5 hours.
"ETA eight minutes."
"Not good enough, kid, I need you here now!"
"Well, if you let me paint the shuttle red…"
"Nobody is painting my shuttle red!"
"You're no fun at all, Peebee. What's Kania's condition?"
"I don't know. Lucia?"
"Severe burns to her arm. I've sent the scans on to the Natanus."
Fire was coursing through Kania, sending waves of pain flaring through her body with every breath. She leaned her head back against the pillar, and grit her teeth. Her right arm was smouldering, the stench of burned flesh filling her nostrils. From her left, she heard Marcus shouting orders to Peebee and Lucia. Kania struggled to her feet, fighting through the pain in her body with every inch of movement. She breathed deeply, and leaned against the pillar, waiting for the pain to subside. Curiously, her still-smoking arm felt completely free of pain.
At the next pillar, Kania saw Peebee peek her head out to survey the platform, then duck back as a blinding burst of red light flashed past. Kania saw one of the jellyfish-like things drifting slowly towards Peebee, its legs drifting lazily behind it. Burning with an intoxicating concoction of pain and rage, Kania flared her jumpjet, soaring across the platform. In her peripheral vision, she could see bursts of red and the flash of Lucia's biotic lances. As she struck the platform, Kania stumbled, regained her balance, then sprinted towards the jellyfish-thing encroaching on Peebee.
Just as the jellyfish-thing turned to face Kania, she collided with it with a crunch, and then a screech of metal on metal as Kania smashed it against the platform. The tentacles hammered wildly against Kania's armour as she beat against it with her blackened and smoking right arm in a frenzy of pain and rage, neither thinking nor caring about the fact that she was beating against a solid meta shell, and desiring only to inflict as much damage on the thing as possible. A flailing talon struck the side of Kania's head, spattering blood across the jellyfish-thing and the platform, drawing a cry of pain from the turian.
Kania burned with cold, icy rage as she saw her blood dripping onto the dented metal of the thing's underside. She grabbed the offending tentacle, stamped a boot onto the jellyfish to brace herself, then wrenched the tentacle from its socket. The thing let out a screech of static, as though it were screaming in pain. The tentacles swiped at the air more furiously than ever. Kania felt them hammering on her legs, but in her fury paid no attention to them.
With a shriek of pain and rage, Kania stamped down on its orb-like eye. The glass cracked, and Kania stamped down again and again, shattering the lens, and drawing out stuttering screeches of panic. The tentacles beating against her grew weaker, but Kania was in no mood to give this thing a slow death. She dropped to her knees and stabbed the talons of the tentacle into the underbelly of the thing. It gave out a last, shuddering scream of static, then the tentacles clanged limply to the platform. Kania took a deep, shaking breath, and looked around.
Peebee was staring at her, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Kania opened her mouth to say something, but the words stuck in her throat. She could see the astonishment, the accusation, the wariness and caution. Kania knew the look. Even her subordinates in the hastatim had given her that look on occasion. Kania swallowed heavily, and tried to speak again, but as before, nothing came out. A faint dripping noise broke the awkward silence, like the first drops of rain before a storm. Kania looked down, and saw dark blue blood pouring down around her feet.
"Kania!"
She spun on her heel, catching sight of Lucia struggling to hold up Marcus, and then a wave of pain crashed onto her. Kania fell to her hands and knees, a silent scream contorting her face into a grotesque imitation of its proud stoicism. Kania's anger was washed away as white-hot knives seem to stab into points all across her body. She felt something warm flowing down her face. A drop of blood fell from Kania's jaw, landing heavily on the sandy platform, and staining the pale sand a deep shade of blue.
"Lucia Trajan to Natanus MO," the biotic shouted from somewhere near Kania. "Update on Pathfinder Felix."
"Go ahead." Crackled the reply.
"Multiple lacerations," Lucia stated. Her voice was completely devoid of its whispering, timid nature. Instead it was harsh. Cold and clinical. Like a scalpel. "Applying one dose of military-issue Sirta Foundation medigel. Recommend blood transfusion."
"Copy that, prepping a blood pack."
"Peebee!" Lucia shouted, "Stop fucking staring and come here."
Kania's arms shook, and then collapsed beneath her. The sand covering the platform grew damp. Soothing coolness spread throughout her body, numbing the pain.
"I've applied medigel," Lucia said in the same oddly cold and clinical voice. "I need to go check on Marcus. Make sure she doesn't move before Geta gets here."
"I don't think that's going to be a problem." A small hand stroked at Kania's cheek. "Hey, don't go dying on me."
Kania's burned and blackened hand closed around Peebee's delicate one, holding it in place. Kania's initial reaction had been to move away the asari's hand, remove the contact, keep everything arms-length. Instead, she held it there, savouring the coolness. In the distance, Kania heard the roar of engines.
"Please state your –"
"Alexia Verus, PhD. I… I don't really know what rank I am, right now."
"But you are a member of the –"
"Pathfinder team? For now, anyway."
"Can you please describe the events of Natanus Arrival Day 0 –"
"Can you be more specific?"
"Perhaps if you let us finish –"
"We all know this about Kania, so just fucking get to the point."
"Alright. Let's start with Pathfinder Felix's mental con-"
"I'm not that kind of doctor."
"We're looking for more of a general impression. Did she seem... troubled?"
"Are you fucking serious? Did you read her medical report? Do you think anyone wouldn't get fucked up by that?"
Natanus Arrival Date + 9 hours.
"You suffered severe burns to much of your right arm. Some of your armour fused to your exoskeleton… we had to cut it away."
"…"
"The burns were severe enough to cause nerve damage. We've repaired the tissues as best we can with cybernetics, but it's unlikely you'll ever feel anything from your elbow-down. I'd advise you to be careful – you may not realise you've been injured until you see it.
"…"
"You also suffered multiple lacerations - seventeen, I believe, was the final number - but fortunately nothing vital was hit. We stitched them up, and the antibiotics in the medigel your medic applied should keep them from getting infected. We transfused some blood to replace what you lost."
"..."
"Depending on how quickly you recover, you'll be clear for active service in five to seven days."
"…"
"You're currently suffering from shock. That's expected, given what you went through. We'll keep you in here overnight, and then you'll be installed in your quarters tomorrow."
"…"
"Lieutenant Verus is stable for the time being – she might be up to talking. She's in the bed next to yours. Lieutenant Pertinax is currently in surgery."
"…"
The door snapped shut.
The noise was amplified by the silence.
Almost as loud as a gunshot.
A gunshot that hit its target 0.237248 seconds after it was fired.
A gunshot that its target heard 0.58309 seconds after it was fired.
The impact force of a bullet fired from a Black Widow sniper rifle is calculated through the following equation:
F = 2mv/t
The mass of a .50 calibre bullet is 42 grams, or 0.042kg.
The velocity of a bullet fired from a Black Widow sniper rifle is 853 metres per second.
A bullet spends less than 0.01 seconds passing through a turian's leg.
This equates to a force (F) of 7165.2 Newtons, or 7.1652 kilonewtons.
More than enough to shatter kinetic barriers, armour, muscle, and bone.
Kania felt an excruciating pain stab into her leg. Her mouth was pried open in a silent scream, as she clutched at her thigh. She rocked back on the thin bed, curling up into a ball. Everything was blocked out by the pain. Like pure alcohol, it burned through everything. Memories, thoughts, and feelings were swept away, like tears in the rain.
"Kania!"
A shout pierced the veil of pain. Kania's eyes snapped open. Alexia was sitting up in her bed, staring at her in shock, chest thickly bandaged, an IV drip feeding into her arm. Kania scrambled away, eyes rolling in their sockets. Her hand met thin air, and Kania found herself falling.
Falling into nothingness.
There was a certain bliss in it. An emptiness. No troubles or worries. No anything.
Then Kania struck the floor with a crunch of armour. Alexia snorted. The floor pressed against Kania's cheek was cool and comforting after the fiery pain in her leg. She breathed in deeply, and smelled blood. Kania opened her eyes. Dark blue blood was oozing from a deep cut across her hand. The gauze covering it was ripped and stained with blood. Kania had suffered her share of injuries. She knew which ones should leave her screaming in pain.
"Shit," Alexia muttered, leaning over to look at the wound as Kania threw her hand up onto the bed, splashing blood across the clean, white sheets. "We should get Doctor… whatever his name is."
Kania didn't say anything. She crossed to a cabinet at the far end of the hall, and fumbled for the drawer's handle. Her senseless fingers were clumsy – as though she were wearing a thick rubber glove. Blood dripped softly onto the cold, tiled floor beneath her, spattering Kania's boots. She wrenched open the drawer, prised open a small green box with a white cross emblazoned on it, and snatched out a thin roll of gauze. Pinching the end between her thumb and forefinger, Kania pulled the roll around her hand, but she pulled too tightly. The gauze slipped from between her finger and thumb and fell away.
From behind her, Alexia sighed. "Come here."
Kania's eyes flitted between the limp roll of gauze, and the blood oozing from her hand.
"Bring the first aid kit," Alexia said, the irritation evident in her voice. "And come here."
Kania threw the gauze back into the green box, snapped the lid shut, and took it over to Alexia. This was the first time Kania had ever seen her out of her armour. Without it, Alexia looked thin, even emaciated – it was as though she had been starved for weeks. She took the box, and pulled out an antibacterial wipe. Roughly taking Kania's hand, Alexia wiped away the dark, congealing blood. As Alexia cleaned the wound, Kania noticed dark blotches across her exposed hands and forearms.
Alexia followed Kania's gaze. "I used to work in a chemical processing plant. Sometimes the silver nitrate got under the gloves."
Kania nodded.
"My parents both worked there too. Mum died giving birth to me," Alexia went on, carefully threading a needle. "Dad died… later. Never forgave me for leaving. Never forgave me for anything." Alexia laughed harshly, then glanced up at Kania. "What about you?"
Kania shrugged.
"I heard Doctor… whatever his name is talking," Alexia nodded, pulling the needle through the wound. "Said you were in shock. Never thought I'd see the day you could actually keep your mouth shut."
Kania grimaced.
"Then again," Alexia muttered, "Never thought that shit would come back to bite me, but then..."
Kania looked enquiringly at her.
"It's…" Alexia stopped sewing, thinking hard, her cold, lifeless eyes averted. Then she sighed, and shook her head. "It's nothing. Ignore me."
She tied off the stitch, then clipped the thread with a small pair of scissors.
Kania nudged Alexia with her free hand.
"What?" Alexia snapped at her. "Why do you even care? It's not like it fucking matters!"
Kania shrugged. Alexia shook her head and stabbed the needle through the cut.
Kania nudged her again.
"What do you fucking want from me?" Alexia looked up at her. Her dead eyes locked with Kania's icy blue ones. Alexia sighed, and tied the last stitch. She stretched out a roll of gauze, brought it gently down across the cut, then wrapped it around Kania's hand. "I worked in the processing plant until my service with the 54th, went to study chemistry at Ilio T'Sanza, and stayed for my PhD. The 54th funded my fees there, on the condition I re-enrol as an officer afterwards."
Kania cocked her head inquiringly, motioning for her to continue.
A bemused smile crossed Alexia's face. She seemed to be more animated. "You want to know about my PhD?"
Kania nodded.
"I hold a masters in chemical engineering," Alexia said with barely contained enthusiasm, "My PhD research focused on alternatives to silver nitrate in explosives. Practically destroyed the entire industry in one paper."
Alexia's face suddenly grew stern and cold.
"Hold that," she said curtly. Kania pinned the loose end of the gauze with her opposite thumb, while Alexia cut a strip of zinc oxide tape and stuck the gauze in place. "Well, there you go. You can fuck off now."
"Name and rank, please?"
"Hosidius Geta. High-flying detective, all-round turian bad-boy, occasional pornographic actor, and –"
"I think that's enough. Can you confirm that you are, at this moment, a member of the Pathfinder team?"
"At this moment? Yeah."
"Can you tell us anything about the Pathfinder team in the days following her wounds?"
"Could you be just a little bit more vague?"
"The witness will refrain from asking impertinent questions!"
"To start, could you explain the reasoning behind your appointment to Acting Pathfinder?"
"Kania got a laser to her arm; Marcus got stabbed in the leg; Alexia got shot in the chest… we sort of ran out of people. The rest of us talked amongst ourselves, and agreed that I'd be the Acting Pathfinder."
"And what was your experience of the position?"
"Baptism by fire."
Natanus Arrival Date + 3 days, 8 hours.
"I've sent the scans of the colony over! No, I don't know about the fucking colonists! We were getting fucking shot at! FUCK YOU!"
"…"
"Fucking hell! I've got security hounding me about kett weaponry, anatomy, tactics; I've got research on my ass about soil samples, water samples, the structures – you fucking name it, they're fucking riding me about it; and Captain-Fucking-Janus-Shitting-Artorius is beating me around the fucking head with shit about Peebee, because nobody can fucking find her and she's the only fucking person that knows where the fucking Nexus is!"
"…"
"Sorry, Kania. All this shit… I needed to vent."
"…"
"Okay, I'm starting to get a little freaked out now. You didn't join a cult, did you?"
"…"
"That glare is even scarier when you don't speak…"
"…"
Geta sighed, tossed one of the two datapads he was holding onto the desk, and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. "Fuck, I need some sleep."
Kania gestured to the perfectly-made bed in the Pathfinder's quarters – her quarters, Kania corrected herself. She had moved in two days ago, and still felt uneasy. Too much of it felt like it still belonged to Vespasian. She glanced at the photographs on the bedside cabinet with what Kania presumed to be his family – two older turians, presumably Vespasian's parents, and three younger male turians, including Vespasian himself. Kania guessed the other two were his brothers. All of them were tall and stiff-backed, with gold-trimmed uniforms and rows of medals on their chests. She made a mental note to find an airlock to eject the photographs from.
"Yeah, like they'd leave me in peace for long enough," Geta smiled weakly. "You're officially off-duty for the next four days or so, so everything's landing on me. ."
Kania beckoned at the datapad in his hand.
"Kania, you're supposed to be off-duty…"
She snatched it from his hand, and skimmed through the information request. The Natanus security chief, Titus Cannae, was conveying – in an extremely patronising tone – exactly why he needed information on the kett tactics. Kania was getting pissed off just reading it. The Pathfinder team knew their shit – she'd made sure of that before they'd even left the Milky Way. Kania sized up Geta. The young turian was swaying slightly, apparently struggling to stay upright. His bloodshot eyes were unfocused, moving listlessly around the room. He was practically sleeping on his feet. Kania wondered how much sleep Geta had gotten in the last three days. Abruptly, she grabbed the turian by his collar.
"What the –" Geta had no time to complain as Kania marched him over to the bed, and tossed him onto the mattress. He made to get up, but Kania shot him an icy glare, and Geta reluctantly settled back down onto the bed. In seconds, faint snores were drifting up from his prone form.
Kania checked the second datapad. The Natanus' science team had reported the emergence of another structure in the centre of the lake, and had conducted preliminary investigations into the monoliths around it. With a faint smile, Kania left the datapad on the coffee table in the centre of the room. As she left the room, Kania heard the ensuite bathroom door slide open, and the pad of bare feet on the tiled floor. Glancing back over her shoulder, Kania caught a flash of blue, then the door slid shut.
She wound her way through the Natanus, brushing off anyone that attempted to approach her with sharp glares. She stalked through the medical wing, and headed for the intensive care unit. As she approached her destination, Kania heard the murmur of voices, punctuated by the faint beeping of monitors.
"Has he said anything about Kania?"
"Only that she hasn't spoken for the last… what, three days. Do you think we should –"
"There's nothing we can do, Marcus. She just needs to get through it."
The door slid open silently, and Kania stalked in. Alexia and Marcus jerked apart as they saw her. Marcus' shoulder was thickly bandaged and held in a sling. Kania had read the post-incident report – while she had been beating the shit out of the automaton threatening Peebee, Marcus had put himself between a second automaton and Lucia. It had nearly cut his arm off at the shoulder.
"Kania," Marcus smiled, his scars stretching tightly, and drawing half his face into a grimace. "Good to see you up and about."
Kania tossed the datapad over to him, and it landed neatly on his lap. Marcus looked at it, a troubled expression crossing his face. Alexia's pale, dead eyes were watching Kania. Combined with Alexia's emaciated, corpse-like body, it felt like a skeleton was staring at her. She shrugged off the feeling of being dissected and examined by casting a baleful glare at the sharpshooter. Alexia continued to stare. She didn't seem to need to blink. Marcus nodded, gripped his IV drip in his teeth, and yanked out the tube, then he started to pull off the pads stuck to his chest. The machines beside him let out a long, irritating tone. The door slid open again, and several nurses and a doctor ran in.
"What's going on?" The doctor shouted, as Marcus slid out of bed.
"I'm discharging myself," Marcus grinned at the doctor. "I can manage on my own, doc. This isn't my first rodeo."
"You've just had major surgery," the doctor argued. "You'll risk serious damage, and possibly infection!"
"Oh please," Marcus laughed, brushing away the nurses. "If you don't stop trying to keep me alive, I'll die of boredom!"
Alexia snorted with laughter. Kania briefly wondered if she had actually seen Alexia blink the entire time she'd been in the room.
"You almost lost your arm!" The doctor sighed. "You should be in bed. You need to recover!"
"And other people need these resources," Marcus snapped, gesturing at the IV drip. There was no warmth in his tone. It was harsh, and brusque. "We don't know when we'll find the Nexus, and we don't know how many casualties we'll be taking. Other people need this bed more than I do."
"Fine," the doctor threw up his arms in exasperation, "But I want daily check-ins."
"If we can spare the time," Marcus nodded.
"I will make time," the doctor said through gritted teeth. "I can assure you of that."
"You know," Alexia said, a little sourly. "I think I'm feeling good to go as well."
Kania let slip a rare smile.
