Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 78 A sleep and a forgetting

All being blind

They caught up with Harkin at a Tayseri café, in the middle of his lunch. A liquid one. Harkin looked up as two shadows fell over his table.

"Crap, it's Tweedledum and Tweedledee."

"Funny man," said Bailey, "and if I see you with a drink again our deal is off."

"Fuck, you're a hard man."

"No harder than you were."

"That was twenty years ago."

"So get young. Stop this shit, Harkin, or you'll be looking to find vodka in Siberia."

Shepard picked up the bottle of so-called vodka and tipped it into the planter by his elbow, feeling a little guilty. He didn't know what biosphere that spiky tree came from, but he doubted White Lightning was good for it.

"Bloody hell, Shepard. Bailey? What gives? The galactic hero and the top cop on my case? What have I done now?"

"Take a wild guess."

"Oh no. No way."

"Yes way."

"But goddammit, Shepard, you told me to help her out last time!"

"That's why you're not rolling on the floor now."

"…If she's running from you, Shepard, I'm buggered if I'll tell you who she is."

"She's not running from me. Not really. She's running from my mom. Sort of. And me, a little bit. Crap, it's complicated. Harkin, I'm going to show you a picture."

Noise

"There has been a development, chief?" The tech did not look well.

"No, sir. Much the same. They are up to S on the list. Sir, may I request transfer back to my regiment?"

"What?! Why?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I just can't listen to that any more."

"I've seen the transcripts, Maria Ivanovna. Just get a grip."

"It's not what's on the transcripts, sir. Mostly. Please, sir, I can't take it any more."

Bread to the soul

Oriana carried the tea to Admiral Shepard, who had improved a little over the last couple of days. Chloe Michel had found time for a house call and was upset, muttering about CK and slightly elevated troponin.

Hannah had gone off to Huerta for a short time for a dose of streptokinase and a boatload of specialized nanites. She had tablets, now, too; old-fashioned aspirin, and GTN, and other stuff Oriana knew not what.

So Hannah no longer carried herself with a slow and shambling gait, but she seemed a little lacking in … gumption? She could smile though, when Felicia coo'd.

This evening, Felicia smiled back.

The meaning shows in the defeated thing

"I'm sorry your visit was not more profitable, Admiral."

"Don't worry, Madam Vice-President. We have the re-embarkation logs, and with those, EDI here can doubtless pick up a trail."

"Not a complete waste of time, then."

"Oh no," said EDI. "Not at all."

"Perhaps we can reciprocate your hospitality, Madam VP? And that of the President. I regret that Admiral and Captain Shepard were out of sorts and could not accompany us, but I'm sure we'll be glad to meet you on the Citadel quite soon."

"That would be most kind."

The little Alliance mission made its way back to the Citadel. It took nearly five hours, with all the diplomatic palaver. The moment they were in the Normandy's shuttle, Hackett woke his omni-tool to tell Shepard of progress, that "Felicia" had an ID in the name of Miranda Chambers.

"I already know that, Admiral. I'm with the ID fixer now. What I don't know, and really need, is her destination after the Citadel. She's vanished again."

Following this revelation, Hackett was of course a little disappointed, and fell to quiet rumination. Eventually, as they exited the shuttle, he cheered up a little:

"At least we introduced ourselves personally to the UNAS leadership. That should help with procurement."

EDI waited till they were in the elevator, by which time Normandy was safely en route to the Citadel at L1.

"I did procure something, Admiral. Can you please proceed to the conference room with Liara? I will need to speak with you both privately, but Ashley will expect to see my mobile in the co-pilot's seat."

Beauty, wisdom and passion

After his drink fed the plants Harkin had ordered lemon calamari rings for all three.

"I guess the money I'm using is yours, Shepard."

"Actually, it's partly Kelly's own. She signed up with some haute couture house, just before this blew up. She got more for one consultation than she made in six weeks on the Normandy. If she does that for a living she'll make twice what I do. Much more than she'd make if she went back for a doctorate."

"Damn. If those are our priorities, we're screwed," declared Harkin, unimpressed. Shepard forbore to mention that Lawson also paid Kelly an astonishing Companion's salary for Oriana, besides her consulting fees.

Bailey was a bit more philosophical: "I think vanity pays more than curiosity. "

Harkin shrugged: "So does greed. Even so, I don't know how much fancy clothes can help those who don't do them justice. Your friends Liara and Lawson come close, Shepard, but that babe…"

"She and her kid trail clouds of glory," agreed Bailey.

"God help us when the kid's grown. What's the name?"

"Felicia, of course. Look, I don't think Kelly cares about the money, so long as she thinks she's making headway on the journey."

"What journey?"

"Life? The Universe? Everything? Forty-two."

"Ha, ha, Shepard."

"You asked. Call it doing something while passing through. The motherhood spider web is only part of the journey. If that's all there is, she'll die a little. I will not let that happen."

"Alright, already. Sheesh."

"Anyway, her panic button got pressed when a bunch of people who should have known better got talking about the bit that involved aid and comfort to the enemy."

"… And it turns out she's doing the Alliance's bidding all along, huh? I seem to recall you were in a similar pickle. Didn't the brass disavow you? Oh how I laughed."

"Fine, Harkin, the worm turned. But I was legally dead, listed as killed in action, no less. Kelly's only excuse was she had to get in touch somehow. With me JAG had a whole bunch of problems with habeas corpus…"

"So they just sat on it and hoped the fuss would go away. Maybe there's hope for me yet."

"Maybe if you stay off the sauce, Harkin," Bailey grumped. "And I still want to hear the instant that bird Talid skips town."

"… Enough. Besides the procedural stuff, JAG also had to deal with the field day my defence lawyers would have had - "

"Yeah, I hear ya, so she felt more exposed. Even so, I can't see them bringing charges against that baby's mom. Granny would have gone apeshit, never mind you."

"Granny was part of the problem. Compartmentalisation. Also EDI especially got thoroughly alarmed at the potential security hole and did some very dodgy things without telling me…"

"Bet that made you happy. Who's Edie?"

"Normandy's AI. If you ever see a silvery sexbot, as Jack put it –"

"Saw one in Purgatory."

"That's her. She thought I'd been sorta kinda indoctrinated."

"But all women do that to their men. Mine did to me, anyway."

"This is EDI, Bailey, remember? There's no instinct for this, she's not hard-wired. How's she supposed to groove onto that, without either living it or programming?"

"Oh. Right."

"Finally. Look, back to business. Hackett's drawn a blank down there. Can you think of anything that might say where she'd go?"

"She was just wanting to get to Earth, Shepard. If the door slammed shut there, she'd have run straight back here while she thought about it."

That was an arresting thought.

"You think she's still here?"

"Betcha. If she's tired, I reckon she's found some hole to crawl into for a day or so."

Signal

At the end of the segment for Rodionov, Mikhailovich stirred: "Application to transfer back to the Guards declined, chief." The tech forced herself to not look down.

"However, you will not be required to monitor this audio stream further. I will find some clever Kazakh for such duties, and cut orders transferring Brooks to Limbo."

"I'm so very sorry, Admiral." Mikhailovich considered his tech chief a long moment.

"I would lay before you some of the evidence at Rodionov's drumhead trial, which had video as well as audio. But my negligence may have already damaged you."

"The fault was mine, sir. Not yours. I simply was not strong enough."

"It is not a matter of strength, chief, but of the best person for a given task. You were assigned for bilingualism and discernment, not strength. How would you feel about space operations on the new frigate?"

Next chapter: #79, "Bruises"

Sunday, August 9, 2015