Mass Effect: Broken Angels
Chapter Seven – The Devil Hails From Palaven
-Month Six-
The seven boys sat motionless in the classroom. Behind the teacher's desk, Lola Veratryn stood erect with arms crossed behind her. There was no conversation. No awkward smiles or chuckles from the woman. Just silence and the knowledge that six of their classmates were gone, and there were only the grown-ups to blame.
Dante never broke his stare that burned into Miss Veratryn, his eyes displayed a ferocity that none of the other classmates wanted to even imagine crossing paths with. Occasionally, their teacher would look over and meet his gaze, but her emotions never shifted and she never gave off a sense of discomfort. When she looked away again, boredom seemed to be the only cause of it.
Aside from Dante and Miss Veratryn, the mood in the classroom was that of guilt, depression, and mourning. None of the boys had forgiven themselves for going out and enjoying their dessert while the young ones passed on under the weight of their own powers. It was tough for them to admit, but even tougher to forget.
William hadn't said a word since then. That is unless someone went out of their way to strike up the conversation with him, but that was a rarity as well, so the quietness continued for many days.
Kaidan dealt with it in his own way. He hit the training room every day, lifting weights—with both his arms and biotics—manipulating mass effect fields around different objects, and running in the extragravitational ring whenever it was unlocked to Blue Team. He would run until his muscles were numb and his mind got cloudy. He did anything he could to keep his mind away.
No matter their feelings, though, there was nothing to be said. The boys of Blue Team knew this all too well. They could accuse the woman of wrong doing. They could lay out their case of grievances and shout their way down the list until their mouths went dry. But that wouldn't change the fact that they were alone. There was no one around to help them, and those who had the power to help wouldn't care to try.
Finally, Lola coughed to clear her throat, as if she had been waiting for something. "As you no doubt may have found out, this classroom will be growing a bit more crowded. We are going to be merging Blue Team with Red Team momentarily. You may have met some of these young ladies before on your shuttle ride here, but I believe most of them arrived here later."
She motioned to the door into the classroom, her glossy, bright red nails flickering in the light. On cue, a line of seven young girls filed into the room, each of them walked to the nearest open desks and sat down quietly.
Kaidan took broke free from his trance caused by the Spanish poster on the wall, turning just in time to see the brown haired girl take a seat at the desk immediately to his left. As she dropped into the chair, the motion threw the scent of her through the air and right towards Kaidan. The sensation shocked his brain into recalling the few minutes he had shared with this girl. Their cramped elevator ride, and the promise he had failed to keep to her—that everything would be fine.
Rahna kept her eyes forward, her back stiff, and her hands gripped together on top of the desk. When Kaidan finally decided to look elsewhere, he discovered that all of the girls had sat themselves down in the exact same manner, as if all of them had just returned from etiquette classes.
Slowly, the rest of the seven boys came to life and examined the girls' dignified posture with questioning gazes.
"You hypnotized them," Felix said to Miss Veratryn, horrified.
"No," Lola replied, shaking her head. "They just didn't have a teacher that possessed my sense of leniency." She adjusted her glare to look out over the class. "And I'm afraid that will no longer be the case for you boys, either."
As the class contemplated the meaning of Miss Veratryn's words, they heard heavy footfalls coming from something out in the hallway. It was metal against metal clacking—almost perfectly paced, rivaling the sound of a metronome.
They saw his talons first as he stepped into the room, which frightened the students to their core. They thought it was a monster, something horrible that the Jump Zero staff had created to scare the kids into performing at their peak efficiency. Hundreds of different beasts were created in Blue Team's collective minds until the figure came into full view.
He was a turian, which put the students at relative ease. They were all completely aware of the alien species from various vids and the few who had settled on Earth in the spirit of diplomacy. Though, none of them had ever seen one in a corporeal sense.
He looked over the class, the mandibles on either side of his face slowly swaying as he did. His eyes were arctic blue color that almost seemed to glow, but held no noticeable emotion. Across the sides of his face were black markings that took the form of two symbols that resembled large "V"s, with their points aimed down towards his chin.
He shifted around in his black and red armor and sighed with what the children could only guess was frustration. When his "analysis" was complete, he turned to Lola and nodded. "I'll take it from here."
This was the first time that the children of Blue Team had ever seen Lola Veratryn nervous. She nodded quickly and walked to exit the room, her eyes blinking a mile-a-minute as she passed the turian. "They're all yours, Commander," she said. Then she was gone, leaving the class alone with this alien and his cold stare.
Casually, the turian paced in front of the class, sizing the kids up yet again. With each sweep he made of the room, his frustration visibly intensified.
"Your species…bleeds far too easily," he said, his warped baritone putting the students on edge. "You're soft like the salarians, though you haven't the intelligence. You're fragile like the asari, but you obviously lack the one talent they excel at." He picked up a datapad from the teacher's desk and flung it at William's head. It was so sudden, the boy had no time to react, and the pad bounced off his skull.
The turian appeared to gain some amusement from this. "The asari live for a thousand years. For the first seventy-five of those years, they are practically still in their adolescent stage, like the lot of you. But at ten years old, their powers over dark matter dwarf those of any other species."
He moved forward to the front row of desks, the students there sank back in their seats.
"So, if you do not possess the intelligence of the salarians, the tenacity of the turians, or the biotic strength of the asari, then just what is humanity good for in the grand scheme of things?" He paused as if expecting an answer. It lasted long enough for the boys and girls of Blue Team to become intimidated enough to think up answers, but they were far too afraid to give them.
"Silence?" he asked, feigning concern. "No, that's exactly right. Silence. That's what was around before Relay 314, and that what will still exist in humanity's wake, even as you become more and more entangled in Citadel Space. Though, I will give you credit for further stimulating the economy. The strength of our credits was becoming the topic of much discussion before you arrived.
"So here you all are. Sitting here just to exist, not unlike the krogans—to provide economic stimulus and an occasional war if it calls for it, but beyond that…silence. You're just the Citadel's pet that we throw a bone to so you'll keep quiet." He tapped one of his talons against his head. "Which brings me to why I'm here…"
He turned back to the teacher's desk and sat upon it. After his rant, he looked considerably relaxed. "Continuing on, true to your legacy, your Conatix Industries has provided monetary compensation in exchange for my services. But do not make the mistake of believing I am driven by reward. I treat every mission I accept with the utmost conviction, as if my own life depended on it...instead of yours.
"My name is Mathran Vyrnnus. Commander Vyrnnus to you—the name by which you will assign to your fear for the rest of your days. I will not need to know your names, as there will be no reason to call you aside for praise or otherwise. You either complete the task I've assigned you, or you don't. There is no middle ground, and you will know you have failed when you see me standing over you. It is my objective to break you all apart so that I might build you back up again, piece by piece.
"For your own sakes, you'd better not be as broken as your superiors made you out to be or you'll be dead before your second trial."
Kaidan made the mistake of making direct eye contact for too long, unable to control the fear nervousness within him. Vyrnnus saw this and strolled over to the boy, pushing desks out of his way even though some of them were occupied.
"You look nervous," Vyrnnus hissed. "Maybe it's rooted in anger, maybe fear. I doubt you've ever heard of me before this day, so you must know of the reputation my kind has developed around your planet." He leaned over, almost nose to nose with Kaidan, to look into the boy's eyes. "It is fear...What could have caused that, I wonder? Fear of suffering? Fear of loss?
"It's been, what, nine years since the Relay 314 Incident? Not too long to shoo away the memories of death." Vyrnnus' laugh was loud and, unlike those from Miss Veratryn, was most certainly not faked. "Your kind was vaporized from the frontlines during that conflict! Have you ever seen a full decompression of a starship take place? It's amazing really. One of the greatest chain-reactions one can witness…and it's slow. You can see it, deck by deck, bodies being flung out into the black and the continuing concussions pulverizing the corpses into chunks of ice.
"Most of us in the military call that 'shine-matter', because the frozen remains of a dead enemy shine in a very unique way under starlight. Lets us know when our job is done, and there was plenty of the stuff floating around by my command—my word. So you must know that I was at the helm of the dreadnought that killed your father."
Possible recruits for BAaT were made available by medical hospitals with military funding. The odds of being shipped off to Jump Zero without having a family member in the Navy or Marines was low indeed. Kaidan did in fact have a father in the Navy, but was never in a position to be sent off to assist in the First Contact War with the turians.
Kaidan grinned nervously, deciding he should correct his new teacher. "Mister Vyrnnus, sir, my father never served in the war…"
The boy regretted it immediately.
Vyrnnus' eyes welted with unadulterated wrath. His action was swift, calculated, and provoked restrained screams from a few of the girls in the room. With one arm he flipped Kaidan's desk over, sending the boy tumbling into the nearby wall.
Seeing this, some of the other boys, Dante and William included, stood up to help their friend, but another look from the turian sent them unwillingly back to their seats.
"You think you're special out here, human?" Vyrnnus' voice was deeper than ever, emanating from his throat like a growl. Kaidan was pressed up against the wall, tears spilling out of his eyes, and body trembling from fear. "You're out here because you were already dead! You've already proven that you are unworthy of the life you now possess! Remember that! Each day that you breathe through from this day forwards is borrowed!"
The turian commander stood to gather the classroom's undivided attention. He regained his calm in a skillful manner before speaking again. "If I might take a few words from your own kind's teachings. Your Buddhist monks refer to your growth and development as a torch—a fire is lit upon it at the dawn, and is snuffed out at dusk. The flame is different with each passing hour, but the light from it never changes. Well, that light in each of you is dim before my eyes. Under my guidance, your fires will be re-lit for a new dawn in your lives, and the light from it will be brighter than it's ever been."
Vyrnnus tilted his head forward and a smile stretched across his face, anticipating the journey ahead of him.
"I will never let you forget who keeps that fire burning within you. And you will never forget how easily I can snuff it out..."