The Siege of Shanxi
Chapter Thirty Six: No More Than Beasts
"Honour is the bedrock of the turian race. It is this way by necessity. The strong must be tempered by restraint and humility, or be no more than animals seeking to satisfy their base urges."-Councillor (Rtd) Indro Vorenus, Essays on the Common Good.
"Turians made up honour the same way most species conjur up morality. We were terrified of our own power, weakened by the fear of our own strength. And we fought the bloodiest civil war in the history of any species in the galaxy to enforce that concept of honour against both the expansionists and the regressives. Exterminated exactly one eighth of our own kind in the hope of a lasting peace. Hah, and we have the hide to call the krogan uncivilised." Spectre Saren Arterius. Quote given at the opening of the Unification War Memorial on Taetrus.
SSV McKINLEY, DETENTION CENTRE
EN ROUTE TO SHANXI FROM PINNACLE DEVICE
1300 HRS, SHIPBOARD CLOCK
The brig of the McKinley had only ever been used for training drills, emergency storage and once or twice to let a rowdy sailor sleep off his bender. Admiral Drescher had only ever been down here a few times, mostly just on her daily jog. She had never noticed how terribly cold this particular corner of the ship was before. She would have to speak to engineering about rigging up proper heating.
It would do not good to have their prisoners of war freeze to death down here.
There was a pair of Marines at the front of each cell, and another full section in full hardsuits standing by the main security console with the Master-at-Arms, a forbidding iron haired woman, favouring each of her charges with a barely restrained glare.
"Any trouble, Chief?" Kastanie received the woman's salute crisply.
"None, ma'am." The Master-at-Arms shifted her gaze toward the interrogation room. "They were a bit rowdy till we brought him in. But the second they saw him they all just went silent as the grave."
Kastanie grimaced. "We should have isolated him. Any breakout attempts could centre around his leadership. In the meantime I'll have another platoon of Marines detailed for riot control."
The Master-at-Arms gave her a relieved nod. "Thank you, ma'am."
"Carry on, Chief." Kastanie turned to the two young officers following her. "Miss Shepard, are you sure you wish to accompany me inside? I cannot guarantee that this will not become unpleasant."
Her aide didn't blink. Lieutenant Hannah Shepard had possessed her reputation for icy calm long before Kastanie had selected her as her personal aide. The admiral, as usual, was not disappointed in that choice.
"He will be securely restrained, ma'am." Hannah gestured to the other officer, a dark skinned young man in full armour. "And Lieutenant Anderson will be with us for security."
A brief look at the equally stoic Lieutenant Anderson saw him nod in silent agreement. Kastanie turned around and exhaled quietly, privately wondering if the two young officers were actually calmer than she was or if they were just better at hiding their nerves.
Ah well, old girl. You haven't gotten this far by being shy. Go say hello.
"Open her up, Chief. Let's meet our guest."
The door to the interrogation room hissed open. Kastanie and her makeshift escort entered the bare room quietly. As previously discussed, Hannah went to the far corner whilst Lieutenant Anderson took up a position in the rear corner behind the turian shackled to the table.
Kastanie sat down, folding her hands neatly in front of her. The turian was slumped in his seat, eyes drifting absent mindedly over his reflection in the mirrored steel surface. Kastanie quietly cleared her throat.
"Admiral Xiliatus? I am Admiral Kastanie Drescher. We…briefly exchanged words a few hours ago."
TSoS-
"…few hours ago. Admiral Xiliatus?"
The translator was so monotone that at first it did not shift Fautan from his reverie. But the voice behind the translator increased in urgency until it gradually brought him round. Shifting his gaze, Fautan looked up into the green eyes of his captor. "What?"
"I said you were lucky." The human shifted slightly in her seat, the artificial light reflecting harshly on the golden stripes on her sleeves and epaulettes. "I had ordered the Search and Rescue craft returned meer seconds before our ship found your command centre in the wreckage and detected a single life sign still sealed inside. Recovering you was a tricky business since you weren't wearing a pressure suit or even an oxygen mask."
Fautan could not remember being retrieved from the wreckage. He couldn't remember anything after the final broadsides from the human fleet had gutted the Fury under his feet and sent him flying from his command chair. When he had next regained consciousness it had been in the enemy's detention centre, stripped of his uniform and clothed in an extremely uncomfortable and rather itchy white shirt and trousers.
In the place of all those lost details, he supposed it would be polite to say something. "I…I thank your brave crew for the effort. I fear they were quite unnecessary."
There was a moment of silence as his words were translated. The human admiral cocked her head. "Unnecessary how?"
Fautan glanced between the admiral and her aide. He almost felt amused. This was an instructional period as much as it was an interrogation. Student following mentor to learn how the old and wise handled things. Perhaps this admiral was more worthy role model than he himself had been.
"I do not wish to continue living." It was the simplest answer.
The admiral, predictably, did not seem satisfied by it. "Because you lost your ship?"
"My ship was the last remnant of my honour. But I lost that particular item far before I lost my vessel."
There was silence again. Fautan was thankful for that small luxury. The admiral's eyes were calculating. Penetrating. The eyes of her escort standing behind him were, if possible, far more invasive. And the eyes of the admiral's aide seemed to be peering into his spirit.
When the admiral next spoke, her tone was distinctly less cold. She was attempting to put on a more friendly air, if her facial expressions were even remotely similar to that of an asari. It had no particular effect on Fautan but on an intellectual level he could appreciate the gesture.
"We're trying to figure out, my command team that is, the reasons for your species' assault on Shanxi."
Fautan split his mandibles diagonally, his curiosity slightly aroused. "You don't already know?"
"Our communications with the colony have been disrupted by a series of solar storms. We wouldn't have even known about the attack if a lone frigate hadn't fled your approach to warn us and call for reinforcements. All we know is that the colony has been under assault for weeks by now. That, and what limited information we could scrounge from your computers indicating that a fleet had surrounded the planet."
Fautan was surprised by his own eagerness to talk. But after hours of sitting by himself in a cell and in this room? He was ready to talk to anybody just to relieve the boredom. "Your information is out of date. When my ship departed planet the assault was almost over. The Seventh Legion and a few cruisers of the Far Watching Fleet are mopping up the stragglers now."
The soldier behind him radiated tension. Fautan relished the angry gaze boring through the back of his skull. It was better than the mixed pity and near patronising respect his fellow prisoners were offering him.
"So why was the 'Far Watching Fleet' surrounding the planet in the first place?" The admiral still had not broken eye contact with him.
There's an iron to these people. Soft on the outside, armour around the heart. I suppose every turian will have to learn that sooner or later.
"The fleet surrounded the world, bombarded it, overwhelmed it because of a lie." The truth came to his tongue all too easily after weeks of keeping it to himself. What was the harm? It wasn't as if the humans were about to lodge a formal complaint with the Citadel.
The admiral leaned forward till her hands were almost touching his shackles. "And what was that lie?"
"Oh, one for the history books to be sure." Fautan looked at the aide and gave a wry smile. "A few simple words that condemned thousands of innocents to death and tainted thousands more with the blood of those innocents."
There was a snort behind him. "Such a self indulgent son of a bitch. Admiral, he's hiding something."
Fautan twisted around to look at the soldier all in black with the red stripe down his arm. "You'd hide it too, if you knew what I knew. Had done what I have done."
"And what have you done?" It must have been the aide's turn to speak because her gentle voice interrupted him before he could continue to snarl at the soldier.
Fautan's eyes dropped back to his shackles. "More than that I do not wish to say."
"So you're brave enough charge a lone cruiser into a fleet." The admiral observed. "But not brave enough to tell us what you're hiding. What kind of honour is there in that course of action?"
"None at all. Which, as it happens, suits me perfectly. The only path to honour left to me is unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as the alternatives. Which is, as I said, why your rescue of me was somewhat unnecessary. There might have been redemption in dying by your fire, but I was cheated of that option. So instead I must die by my own hand. Perhaps my ancestors will look kindly on that decision."
"I don't understand." The admiral stood, frustration clouding her narrow features. "Why must you die? What did you do that was so terrible?"
The words slipped out before Fautan could stop them.
"Mine was the tongue that spoke the lie."
-TSoS-
SSV McKINLEY, OFFICER'S QUARTERS
2000 HOURS, SHIPBOARD TIME
It had long been Hannah's ritual to look at the photo before she went to sleep. More so now than it had been in the past. The still had been taken by a friend of hers back in the artificial gardens on Arcturus. The stars were shining behind the glass dome, the flowers were blooming and the child in her lap was laughing as Hannah held his favourite toy just in front of him.
Cross legged next to her, Mackenzie leaned over, an adoring smile stretched over his broad face. One hand was wrapped around Hannah's shoulders, the other tussled their son's deep black hair. It sometimes seemed to Hannah that little Mark had inherited the best of both their features. He had her raven hair, and his face was taking shape like hers had as a child, narrow and sharp. And Mack…well her husband was not a particularly handsome man. Nor a particularly brilliant one. Anyone who knew her well had often questioned why a woman with so much raw talent and ambition had married a man with so little of either.
They didn't see the best parts about him. The warmth in his heart…and those grey eyes that could burn or freeze with a glance. Mark had his eyes. She hoped he would have his father's heart as well.
Mark was back on Arcturus with her sister. Mack was on Shanxi, under attack by aliens (how ridiculous that sounded when she actually thought about it) And Hannah was coming to his rescue. Wasn't she? Wasn't that enough to make things right between them? Even after that last fight, the words they'd spoken so angrily, how he stormed out on the first available anti-piracy operation. It was a hope. A vague hope, but she…
The feel of a warm hand on her shoulder halted her chain of thought. A low, rumbling voice spoke from behind her. "Hannah…come back to bed."
Glancing over her shoulder, she was treated to the sight of David Anderson sprawled out on her bed, the sheets covering his lower half. The soft starlight seeping in from the viewport cast him in shadows, but she was still able to make out the sharp outline of his jaw and the crease of his nose.
"Hannah…?"
Her eyes flicked back to the still. "David, I think you should go."
He sat up. "What's wrong?"
She appreciated the concern in his voice. She truly did. But he was complicating things. "I need you to leave."
David's eyes shifted to her hands, then his head bowed as he saw the holo-frame. "I see."
She felt a spasm of guilt at the expression on his face. "David, no…"
"It's fine." His voice became curt as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, grabbing his uniform trousers from the floor and pulling them on. "I understand."
"No, it's not like that. I…"
"You know something?" Anderson turned his head back to her. "You've invited me up here almost every night we're not on duty since we left Terra Nova. And I didn't say no, but if you wanted to end it maybe you should have done it before we set out on a relief expedition to the same planet your husband's stationed on."
Hannah grabbed her discarded uniform jacket and covered herself. "What brought this on?"
The special forces lieutenant retrieved the rest of his fatigues. "It's been what, four months? You didn't tell me you were married. I had to find that out from the goddamn gossip in the officer's mess."
Hannah felt her hackles rise. "Well you didn't stop then, did you? And you didn't stop coming up here when I asked? What's the matter? Angry that I compromised your integrity? Angry that you compromised it yourself? Or just angry that I'm finally cutting you off?"
"Look I'm not denying what I should have done." Anderson turned back to her. "I just want to know why? Why me in the first place? If you love him…"
"I do love him." Hannah stood up, pacing the floor of her small room in short, frantic steps. "I love my husband, I love my son and I want my family back together. It was just…just a stupid fight and I stupidly ran into you. I never meant to hurt you."
Anderson reached for his beret resting on the side table. "You're going to get back together with him?"
She nodded, biting her lip slightly. "Yes."
"You really do love him?"
Another nod.
Anderson sighed. "Look. Maybe it's none of my business. In fact it's definitely none of my business. But you need to talk to your husband about this, about what went on between us. Make things right with him."
"I know. I will, I promise." Hannah pulled her jacket tighter around herself. "I just need to be alone. Please."
-TSoS-
Fautan awoke with a start, thrashing the thermal blanket away from him in his struggle to get free of it. He looked around, searching for the familiar walls of his own quarters and not finding them anywhere in the small enclosed cell the humans had confined him to.
"Can't sleep?"
He jerked his head in the direction of the door. The human admiral stood behind the thick glass, staring at him in what he supposed was an approximation of sympathy. "You've been tossing for a while now."
"Watching me sleep?" Fautan blinked back his exhaustion. "Is that an intimidation tactic native to your species?"
"Simply trying to know my enemy." Admiral Drescher folded her arm in front of her. "You said something earlier that quite intrigued me, after which you clammed up tighter than rusted hinge."
"Did I? Must have been some kind of mistake."
"I don't think it is." She did not budge. "We had a few interesting chats with your other crew members. To a man they all demonstrated a deep level of concern for you, for your mental wellbeing. Something is weighing on you. And I think it's the lie you mentioned earlier."
Fautan found himself sitting up despite himself. "If that's the case and there was a lie which I have concealed, why by Palaven would I tell it to you?"
"Because a sane, guilt free person doesn't evacuate every crewmember off his ship and then do a suicide run at the heart of an enemy fleet. You have something on your conscience, Quarter Admiral. Perhaps I could be your confessor in this instance?"
"If I feel the need to relieve myself of my burdens, Admiral Drescher, it will probably be to a member of my own species." Fautan lay back down. "In any case, we may all very well die tomorrow when your fleet arrives at Shanxi. In which case my problems will be over anyway."
"And you'll die with your affairs unsettled?"
"I will die without adding betrayal to corruption on my list of crimes."
"Why? You strike me as a man of honour, Admiral Xiliatus. Were you forced into this? Whatever it was?" Drescher challenged him.
"I think you've half guessed it already, Admiral Drescher." Fautan shot back. His defiance died as quickly as it had begun. "I wasn't forced into anything. I once thought I was a man of honour. I was wrong, it would seem. I have no honour left. I've cast it off like a poor man might cast off a worn cloak in favour of richer garb, only to find that the fancy garment does nothing to keep him warm when the winds howl by his fire. And without honour, turians or humans, we are no more than beasts."
The human fell silent, her jaw shifting slightly. "You're right, Admiral Xiliatus. I have half guessed it. And what I've guessed paints you in a fairly damning light. But that doesn't have to be the last word on you. Whatever the truth actually is, it could hardly be worse than what I've already imagined."
Fautan was silent, turning her words over. There was merit to them. A little, at least. "And I should tell you the truth, then? For my redemption?"
Drescher shook her head. "Redemption, condemnation, they're two sides of the same coin. The truth is what matters, Admiral. The truth for the truth's own sake."
Fautan sat back up with a sigh. "You really won't leave me alone until I spit it out, will you?"
Her hard stare was all the confirmation he needed. He breathed deeply. Should he continue to live through these strange times then his own words would seal his fate. But to remain silent at this point was less and less cowardice and more and more obstinate stupidity. Call Fautan Xiliatus a coward and he wouldn't object, but no one could yet call him an idiot.
"We picked up a strange power fluctuation from a defunct relay on the thirty second cycle of our patrol cruise. At the time we believed it was pirates or illegal salvage."
"We were wrong."