A/N: Been a tick since I worked on this, but I got a burst of inspiration after watching "Peacemaker" on HBO Max. Good show. Special thanks to Eggnogui and kainono for helping with the Portuguese dialogue.
Other than that, I guest-authored a piece for LogicalPremise called "The Cerberus Files Addenda : Human History (1910-2050)," in which Volinski narrates the history of PV humanity from 1910-2050. And I can say emphatically that alternative history is stupendously difficult to write. It's a good read, though only Part 1 is up at the moment.
Posvin reviewed the manifest for last month's operations. His upper eyes narrowing at the diminished returns. Since the fall of Umlor, nowhere was safe for his crew to ply their trade. Every raid felt like doom – the Butcher stalking the void.
They'd been forced to prey on disabled ships and far-flung mining outposts. A year ago, a single raid could snag fifty people. Now they were lucky to catch five. He frowned and growled in his throat. This was a family operation and one day his son would succeed him, but what future was there when a slaver struggled to make ends meet?
A chime from his datapad drew a vicious smile. A distress beacon one system over. A small merchant vessel with a dozen crew. He messaged his pilot to make way, feeling the slight vertigo of jumping to FTL. A soft and bountiful target like that would be the perfect demonstrator of the viability of their trade. He would take Farag along. The boy needed to hear the screams and feel the fear and exhilaration of the hunt.
This would be his life until death, Emperor willing.
~BE~
It was an old elcor freighter – blocky and dull like its makers – slowly spinning on its axis with cold engines.
Posvin nodded to his Lieutenant, Jin, to open a channel to the ship. They would see a human face – clean and unassuming – and believe they were safe. They would open their ship only to discover too late that their 'saviors' were anything but. Fear was often paralyzing; a boon as it minimized risk.
The screen came to life, and a young human female with cropped hair appeared with another female behind her, both looking scared. Posvin smiled – females were more valuable to Bassac.
"Oh thank God," she exclaimed, the audio slightly staticky, "We thought we'd be trapped out here forever."
"Seems luck's on your side," Jin said with a warm and disarming smile, "What seems to be the trouble?"
"Core malfunction. Our engineer tried rerouting it but that just blew out the subluminals. I doubt you have the parts we need, so if you could give us a lift to the nearest port, we'd appreciate it."
Jin nodded, his voice still smooth and charming, "That shouldn't be an issue, we're on our way to port on Kosh and have more than enough space."
"Thank you, truly," she said, her smile one of genuine relief, "The docking airlock is on the starboard side. Our engineer and his assistant were injured trying to fix the core. If you or your men could help us move them, I'd be in your debt."
Jin smiled. "I'd be happy to, ma'am."
The woman smiled back as the connection ceased.
Jin's smile became predatory. "I can't wait to fill that bitch's throat."
Posvin tilted his head slightly to the left and narrowed his lower eyes, glad to have one of the good humans on his crew. None of that soft moralizing he had come to expect from a race of hypocritical monkeys. He grabbed his weapon and his son and made his way to the cargo bay.
The umbilical gantry connected without issue. Posvin and his men checked their weapons, hardsuits, and helmets as they approached the airlock – a skeleton crew left behind to man the ship. He grew excited, as he often did. The look on their faces when hope turns to despair… exquisite. He glanced at his son, noting the nervous shuffle of his feet and the way he awkwardly held the stun pistol, the grip slightly too bulky for his small hands.
"Keep your wits about you, son," Posvin said, "These are weak merchants lost in space and at our mercy. Corralling these monkeys is in your blood."
Farag nodded, but his wide eyes betrayed his fear. At eight years old, it was the first time he'd held a weapon and been expected to use it. He quivered. A single sharp nod from his father calmed his hysterics.
The airlock opened and they walked in, guns drawn… only to find an empty reception. Posvin was on edge, his weapon sweeping back-and-forth. He was about to give the order to retreat when an intercom sounded.
"Captain Jin, we're in the med-bay down the hall to the left. Could you come and help move our injured?"
That voice. It was the woman from before.
"On our way, ma'am," Jin responded. He glanced at Posvin, switching to helmet comms per protocol, "This could be a trap, boss."
The batarian grimaced beneath his helmet – in the old days, he could afford to walk away. "Agreed. Everyone be ready to fall back on my command. Overlapping cones of fire and use of staggered cover, just as practiced."
A round of nods. Orders received. He resisted the urge to pistol-whip one of the rookies who had nodded with a slight right tilt of his helmet. He was young and new and human, and this wasn't the place for summary discipline.
Posvin gestured to the door on the left and moved silently with the others. Their boots clanked and their gear jangled, but they did not speak. Fifteen men and one young boy moved through the corridor with cautious purpose. Tightly gripping their weapons and sweeping back-and-forth in search of hidden foes.
The silence was eerie. Some of the newer men jittered slightly. Farag was petrified, his eyes wide and his face taut, but Posvin was pleased to see his body remain still – only an occasional tremor in his limbs. He grinned, remembering when his own father first took him on a slave run. He trembled too.
Halfway to the med-bay, they heard muffled voices. Anxiety was replaced by thrill, and their pace increased slightly. They took positions around the door, Jin hit the haptic release and the men funneled in, raising their weapons and taking aim but finding no one inside—
The room exploded in a flash of light and noise. Noxious fumes and powders filled the air, stinging the eyes and choking the nose – flashbangs and pepper bombs. Choking shouts added to the chaos – with Jin cursing at the newer crew members for not checking their seals properly, even as he ordered them to fall back. Through the occluding smoke, Posvin saw silver-armored forms with glowing red visors emerge from the mist, opening fire and cutting down two of his crew.
He and his men used covering fire and grenades to try and halt the ambushing charge and allow for an orderly retreat. He was proud to see that even his son fired at them, though the recoil left the shots wide and ineffectual. In the exchange, another of his men was injured and left on the ground out of reach of the others. One of the armored figures approached him and opened fire point-blank, shouting, "Sem presas, apenas predadores!"
Posvin didn't recognize the language, but he recognized the voice, even over the din of battle. It was the female who spoke to them previously. His eyes fell upon her silver armor, he saw a splash of red on the chest and left shoulder that formed a winged serpent. Blood Dragon mercs. The realization flooded him with dread. His men were good, but they weren't SIU.
He grabbed his son's wrist and pulled him close as he and his men affected a fighting withdrawal back to the airlock. He activated his helmet comm-link, "It's a trap! Prep the ship to jump to FTL once we're aboard!"
The reply was filled with static. Were the comms being jammed? That shouldn't be possible with all the precautions they took.
They retreated back to the room with the airlock, ducking behind crates for cover. Posvin cursed, only nine of his men remained. He pulled his son close and turned to make a dash for the airlock – shooting behind him to keep the Dragons in cover. Ten meters between them and the safety of their ship. That's when the aperture opened from the other side, and he skidded to a stop, stumbling back with his boy as he turned his rifle forward.
A female quarian in a suit of white and brown emerged from the airlock with dozens of palm-sized drones swirling around her. The mechanical cloud flowed out into the cargo bay like a swarm of stinging insects.
He fired into the undulating mass without real effect until they slammed into his rifle and exploded, ruining the weapon and leaving him defenseless – he took his son's stun pistol but the same thing happened. The drones flowed around them, targeting his men instead – attaching to the helmet and exploding, the shaped charge penetrating armor and flesh. He saw the shock on Jin's face before it disappeared behind his blood-soaked visor. He tightened his grip on his son as he watched the quarian continue her leisurely stride. Her crimson omni-tool came alive and she gripped a glowing rod of haptic light as it extended and curved at the end with a two-pronged fork.
He tugged at his son and made a mad dash to the other side of the room, unthinking in his hurry to protect his progeny, his legacy. There was no escape but he ran anyway. The drones swarmed him, latching onto his shins and exploding. He lost his grip on his son as he fell to the ground, bracing himself with his hands before the drones removed them as well. He thrashed in a growing pool of blood, spitting invectives and threats as the quarian stopped a meter away.
"Don't you fucking touch him!" Posvin roared.
She looked down at the quivering boy, her glowing eyes upturned in a smile as she raised the omni-crowbar and said in a warm tone, "Time for bed, little Master."
Drifting through the violet dust of the Widow Nebula, orbiting the yellow dwarf star Boltzmann, was Planet Bekenstein. Originally a failed salarian/asari joint colony, the world was ceded to the Systems Alliance following the conclusion of the First Contact War. Direct ownership was offered to House Bekenstein, and it became a refuge for the Jewish people – a wandering diaspora ever since the Black Glassing.
As the colony grew, it evolved into a financial hub for the Alliance economy. Piggybacking off its proximity to the Citadel, Bekenstein gained a reputation as the 'Human Ilium.' To work there was a windfall. To live there was a godsend. The environment was pristine, and the arcologies were centers of culture unparalleled in Human Space. Home to some of the most prestigious academies in Citadel Space.
Bekenstein University was the premier center of learning in the early years, and while it remained top tier, it had slipped somewhat in standing since its founding. With enough money and a pristine academic record, anyone could get in – unlike Technion-Weizmann or New Ben-Gurion, where a noble house-backed scholarship was required.
One such student, who had the means to attend but not the name to hope for better, made her way through the winding footpaths that cut through the meticulously maintained gardens. Her gray tank top stained with sweat and her breathing heavy as she sauntered back to her dorm room from the track field.
After a much-needed shower, Pamella Rodríguez pulled on her favorite pajamas and logged on to her computer – finding her inbox filled with newsletters she was certain she'd unsubscribed from. Mixed in was an offer to split the profits on a Prothean relic cache – once a stakeholder fee was supplied, of course.
Ignoring the spam, Pamella opened the launcher for 'Galaxy of Fantasy' and brought up her account, 'AmberCladQueen68.' She smiled wistfully. Her mother passed away when she was a toddler, and she had little to remember her by. Apparently, she was infatuated with amber jewelry – the inexorable march of time turning simple tree resin into beautiful, fossilized art.
Her smile lessened as she loaded the game and found her steadfast companion, 'BudaPest_Gambit,' wasn't online. With a mental shrug, Pamella leant forward in her seat as her drell necromancer (level 66) set off into the procedurally generated forests that encircled the small hamlet. They teemed with generated wildlife, low-level stuff for noobs to cut their teeth on.
She was nearing a large waterfall when she received a private message.
＜BudaPest_Gambit: ola pam-tan
＜AmberCladQueen68: hey niri
＜AmberCladQueen68: sup?
＜BudaPest_Gambit: i hope your wearing pants :3
She paused, confused. "Wait, what?"
The door to her dorm unlocked and slid open. A quarian clad in white and brown sprinted inside. "PAM-TAN!"
"Jesus Christ!" Pamella yelped, leaping up from her chair only to be tackled to the carpet in a crushing bear hug. She tapped out after a moment and the pair helped each other to their feet, embracing more properly once they were standing. She noticed a discoloration on Nirin's off-white suit near the shoulder. "What's with this stain? Is that blood?"
Nirin glanced at it, then back at Pamella, and said in a cheerfully nonchalant tone, "I just love killin'!"
Pamella stared for a second before rolling her eyes. "Yeah right. Weeby nerd like you couldn't hurt a fly."
Nirin turned off her helmet's opacity just so she could stick out her tongue at Pamella, who returned the gesture with gusto. She tensed slightly as her father entered the room, schooling her features as if dealing with a school administrator. "Hey, dad."
"Pam," he greeted stiffly, "How are you?"
"I'm good… I'm good." She regretted the awkwardness that seeped into her voice. She so rarely knew what to say.
"I heard you're on track to graduate magna cum laude. Congrats." His smile was small and awkward, but genuine.
"Thanks," she replied, unenthused, "If it weren't for applied theoretical physics, I'd be summa cum laude."
Estêvão chuckled. "Don't let your ambitions exceed your grasp."
She narrowed her eyes. "That's rich coming from you."
He scoffed, "O Brasil ainda não está perdido, sua pirralha!"
"Why is this so important to you? What about me? What about us?"
He frowned, but did not reply. The room fell into an uncomfortable silence.
A chime at the door and Pamella thanked her lucky stars for the interruption. Normally she'd be able to keep her cool, but something about her father always made her defensive. She wasn't looking forward to the rest of this visit. She opened the door to find her friend Iago standing outside.
"Buenos dias, Pam," he greeted before catching himself when he saw Estêvão and Nirin, "Ah, hello, Mr. Rodríguez… señor. And Señorita Ptrun."
Nirin waved enthusiastically while Estêvão only offered a curt, "…Iago."
Pamella rolled her eyes. "Ignore him. What's up?"
"We were heading to the café. I don't suppose you're free?"
"Nah, I've got some family stuff. Next time."
"Okay, I'll catch you later." He looked at her father and Nirin, nodding his head. "Señor. Señorita."
Estêvão silently watched the boy leave before muttering under his breath, "Porra de espanhol."
"Adios mio," Pamella scoffed, "would you knock it off?"
"Don't you dare use that language with me, missy," he hissed.
"¿O que?" she needled, hiding a smile at his irritation, "Your hate doesn't even make sense."
"How can you not understand?" he demanded, growing flush, "The Imperador—"
"Mom was Argentine, dad! Ergo, she was fucking Spanish!"
"She wasn't Spanish, you little shit, she was Argentine! It's completely different!"
Pamella stared at him with her mouth agape. How was she related to this buffoon? "I… I can't even with you. That is so profoundly asinine."
"You'd understand it if you'd been raised right," he sniped.
"Oh really? And who exactly raised me?" she demanded, intruding on his personal space, "Because it sure wasn't you."
His face tensed; she could see the anger in his eyes. "I wasn't in the right state of mind to care for you, Pam. Not after what happened to your mother."
"Don't." She glared. "Don't use mom as a crutch for your failures. And don't try to use her to gain sympathy. I barely know the woman. All I have are old photos and vids. God forbid you tell me a story about her with any nuance or depth. It's all flowery bullshit. I want to know the truth. I want to know who she was. I want to know what happened to her. I have a right to know my mother."
Estêvão narrowed his eyes. "We're not having this conversation, Pam. Now pack your shit, babcia and dziadek are celebrating their anniversary. That's why we're here."
"And what if I don't want to go?"
"You don't want to see your grandparents?"
"Maybe I don't want to see them with you."
He bristled but held his tongue – barely. "You do what you wish, girl. Niri and I are leaving for the villa. You can come with or not at all."
He spun on his heel and stomped away. Pamella growled and grabbed a pillow to scream into – the walls were like sheet paper. Her eyes welled up but she fought back the tears. Their relationship was so frustrating.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Nirin. She dropped the pillow and her shoulders fell as the quarian pulled her into a hug – rubbing her back and cooing whispered encouragement.
"Wh-Why does h-he make it so h-h-hard?" Pamella forced out between sobs.
Nirin tightened the hug. "Your father is a good man, but he is hurt. He fears losing you like he lost everything else."
"That's stupid," Pamella mumbled with a sniffle, "He's pushing me away."
The quarian chuckled. "Estêvão can be very stupid sometimes, but he has a big heart. He rarely speaks of your mother. The pain in the memories is too strong. Just give it time. Try to be there for him. Find something you can both connect on. How do you feel about Brazil?"
Pamella broke out laughing, pulling away and wiping her nose. "I think it's a wasteland and we're better off leaving it in the dust. His fascination with it is ridiculous. And the idea of reviving it? Pure madness."
Nirin shrugged in a very human fashion. "Everyone needs a purpose, even if it's out of reach. Now come on, a family visit is only worthwhile if everyone is there."
Pamella nodded, quickly changing her clothes as Nirin sat on the bed playing chess on her omni-tool. Once satisfied with her yellow sundress, the pair left the dorm and made their way to her father's aircar – both hoping the ride wouldn't be too awkward.
Estêvão landed the aircar outside his parents' ranch-style villa. He was happy to be free of the awkward atmosphere of the aircar. Why was it so difficult to connect with that girl? Did they have any common ground at all?
Izzy, what do I do with her?
The trio made their way to the door, the senior Volinskis welcoming them into the foyer with warm salutations.
Renata Volinski embraced each of them. "Tesouro! Niri! Boneca da vovó! Bem-vinda ao lar!"
"Poxa, matka," Estêvão grumbled, "pare de me chamar disso."
"Nunca irei parar de chamar ao meu pequeno tesourinho 'tesouro' "
"Sabe que eu odeio esse apelido."
"Porque está tão bravo, tesouro?" Renata pouted insincerely. "Você vai me fazer chorar."
Estêvão didn't respond, instead glowering at the floor.
Nirin shoved him lightly on the shoulder. "Não seja tão desagradável, tesouro-kun. Acho um apelido muito fofo."
"Obrigada, Niri. Meu pequeno tesourinho é um mal-humorado."
Pamella giggled at the spectacle, and Estêvão was at least happy she still understood the language. He was worried she'd been corrupted by that filthy Spaniard at school.
"Tá bom, tá bom," he grumbled before leaving the women to chatter amongst themselves as he followed his father into the den, accepting a mug of coffee.
"You look well, son."
"Bah. I'm a fucking quadriplegic," Estêvão dismissed as he opened a compartment on his left forearm and removed a flask.
Jameson Volinski grimaced as he watched his eldest pollute the gourmet coffee. "Lucky for you, we live in a world of advanced prosthetics."
"True. And they are pretty badass, no?"
"Aye. Seems you've gotten used to them."
"Yeah. Helps that Niri was around to kit them out for me."
"I can see the appeal of having cheap whiskey on you at all times," Jameson deadpanned.
" 'Cheap'? This is Stranahan's brand Colorado whiskey. There's nothing cheap about it, old man."
"As long as you aren't stealing it from me or your grandfather, I suppose I can't complain."
"What am I? Ten? I can buy my own."
"As you should," Jameson said, picking up his bone china cup, "Speaking of which, your grandfather contacted me the other day."
"Yeah? How is His Noble Lordship these days?"
"Sneering at your noble heritage is poor form, son. Especially when we're so close to rising to the Second Rank," Jameson chastised, taking a sip of his cortado.
"Which is great and all… but what is that supposed to mean to me?" Estêvão scowled, staring at his metal fingers, flexing them rhythmically. "I'm happy for them, really I am, but…"
"You are too hard on yourself, son. Do you not recognize the love we have for you? Do you not recognize your own value?"
Estêvão remained silent.
"You are more than your blood and your past. Some may sneer. Call you a 'half-breed' or a disappointment to the Family, but you have always made your mother and I proud. For even when you stumbled, you stood back up."
"…It's not easy. I feel so fucking conflicted sometimes. Everything was so much clearer after Izzy died."
"It was not 'clear,' son, it was simple. Being the aggrieved party, lashing out at one's 'oppressors,' is easy. It is far more difficult to have faith in yourself and overcome what the universe has forced upon you. It's why the people of Oro thrive – in their own way – while Brasil Eterno flounders. You are more than your hate, and you are better than you believe."
Estêvão smiled shyly. It was good to hear his father speak well of him, oftentimes he was so disconnected from things that he thought his parents scorned him. Perhaps they would if they knew the truth of his life. "Thank you, tatuś." He took a deep breath and reset his mood to something more positive. "So, how's dziadek?"
Jameson smiled, swirling his cup. "The Viscount is well. Sent his love and all that, but said he was contacted by the Alliance."
"Yeah? What'd they want?"
"Following up on a lead. Apparently, Cerberus has an agent named 'Volinski.' "
Oh fuck all ducks…
"He's a Brazilian sniper with a quarian wife," Jameson said, pinning his son with a piercing look, "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
Estêvão laughed it off, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice. "Couldn't possibly be me. Niri and I aren't even married."
"A solid and irrefutable argument. Shame you never went to law school."
"As if they would take me."
"Your Brazilian blood is an issue, yes, but you've spent most of your life successfully wearing an Argentine mask. No reason to think anything would have changed."
"Well, that aside, I'm a shit orator and you know it."
"I beg to differ. Ms. Ptrun has shared vids of you rallying your men before an operation."
"Goddammit, Niri," Estêvão grumbled under his breath, sparing the quarian in question a glare across the room – receiving a dainty waggle of her fingers in response, "I told her not to send you shit without my approval."
Jameson just smiled. "As if you could control someone like her."
"It's not about control. It's about risk management," Estêvão explained, "The AIS monitors everything. It puts you and matka at risk."
"Understandable, though I'm less concerned. The videos are relatively innocuous, and Ms. Ptrun is smart enough to provide them on encrypted physical OSDs."
Estêvão frowned, he still didn't like it. "I remember asking you to stop calling her 'Ms. Ptrun.' "
"Formality is important."
"It's weird. We've been together for years now."
"Well, give her a ring and I'll address her properly," Jameson offered with a winning smile, "as 'Mrs. Volinski.' "
"Oh meu Deus."
"English, please. I'm not nearly as proficient as your mother and sisters."
"You just want to gloat over my annoyance. I won't give you the satisfaction."
"That implies you managed to stop me from gloating in the first place. I assure you, you have not."
"It's no wonder you get along so well with the women I bed. You're all fucking annoying." Estêvão shook his head as a slow smile formed. "As for my oratory, that's mostly the social augs."
"They are quite useful. I don't know a single Noble of note that doesn't use the latest version. You didn't answer my question."
"Which one?"
"The only one."
Estêvão sighed. "What do you want to hear? That I'm this mystery sniper? You're better off not getting involved."
"True, but that's not how I conduct my life, Estêvão. The fact that you exist at all is proof of that." Jameson set down his cortado. "Start from the beginning, son. When did you join Cerberus? Why did you join Cerberus?"
"When…?" Estêvão leaned back in his chair and stared up at the dark oak accents in the ceiling embellishments. "After I left the Corsairs and founded the Blood Dragons… we were on an op and crossed paths with some Cerberus agents. They were securing a VIP at an old Corsair lagoon the vesgos had converted to a pirate anchorage. Just so happened we'd been hired to purge the site."
"An interesting coincidence."
"Yeah, well, nothing is coincidental when it comes to patrão," Estêvão said, sipping his Irish coffee, "We worked together on that op and they made an offer afterwards."
"And you took it?"
"No. I was… leery of the politics. I offered them an exclusive contract with the Dragons, but stipulated a certain independence on our part. It was years later that I actually joined officially."
"What pushed you over the edge?"
Estêvão pursed his lips. "Patrão offered me Izzy's killers."
"The batarians?"
"No, no… pretty sure the Lion took them out. No, it was the Alliance medics, the ones who let her die. He tracked them down and sent his goons to bring them in. I wasn't about to say 'no' to that. Everything since is water under the bridge. Though I can't say I'm not relieved to see what Cerberus has become since BENEDICT."
" 'Benedict'?"
"Yeah… the breakaway op. The AIS was calling the shots before patrão cut ties and went 'rogue' during the Benezia Incident. We purged the organization of their filth, along with most of the stupid evil shit they were doing. Ilium would not have gone down the way it did if the AIS was still involved."
"I see. I'm relieved in some sense, disappointed in others – at the very least you're no longer with Brasil Eterno, so there's that. I'd like to support you, but the Family cannot be tied to Cerberus. We're not nearly powerful enough to weather such scandal."
A wan smile. "Just keep being a good grandfather and we'll call it even."
A comfortable silence fell upon the two men. Estêvão went back to his drink, while Jameson watched his wife and – for all intents and purposes – daughter-in-law gush over one another with gossip while Pamella stood by chiming in and laughing alongside them.
"Babcia still shunning you?" Estêvão asked, finishing his spiked coffee.
"She is." Jameson shook his head. "Obstinate as always. That's the German in her."
"Heh. Bitch."
"One cannot choose their family, Estêvão."
"Tell that to her. Shit, when's the last time you two spoke?"
"Near forty years, at least. Thankfully, that's the limit of her abilities. Your grandfather holds the power, and he supports my decision to be with your mother, and to father you and your sisters."
"Yeah… here's hoping he outlives her."
"Even if he doesn't, the position devolves to your uncle. She has no power."
"Assuming she isn't whispering in wujek's ear the whole time."
"I realize your 'job' makes you paranoid, Estêvão, but do remember your uncle fondly. Marcus adores you kids, he always has."
Estêvão nodded somewhat sheepishly. "Yeah, I'm sorry. Babcia always put me on edge. I'd rather my family be a sanctuary and not a den of vipers."
"Then be thankful that is the case."
The conversation continued, each man playing off the other in a natural duet of opinion. Jameson described the Family's political dynamics and Estêvão offered his own thoughts – without his usual vitriol, he sounded downright blue-blooded. He found it refreshing to discuss this topic in a nuanced way. He'd attempted a similar conversation a couple months back with Pel… it ended in a barfight and a night in the local jail.
He lost track of time until his mother called them to the table. It was set aside in a specially-built clean room so Nirin could join them without her helmet. They each walked through the sterilizing fields and found an ornate mahogany table. Pamella and Nirin were setting the food in the middle – each seat complemented by fine china and polished silverware.
He took his seat across from Pamella as each of them portioned out their share – Nirin availing herself of the dextro foodstuffs set aside for her. Estêvão smiled, his mother had been thoughtful enough to not only provide the food, but do her best to find and prepare something that would taste similar to the bounty the rest of them would enjoy. Pão de queijo and coxinha as appetizers, moqueca baiana as an entrée, and ending with beijinho for dessert. The smell of it brought him back to his childhood. He reached for his fork before catching himself.
Jameson led them in grace before everyone dug in with relish.
It was a pleasant affair. Laughter and good cheer all around – the sound of orchestral works playing on the ambient speakers as Nirin regaled them with their trip to the Salt Cathedral of Wieliczka, imploring Pamella to visit it some time with her. Estêvão was happy. Not a care in the world, just him and his kin. But as time passed, he noticed his daughter fidgeting in her seat, glancing at him but looking away whenever he looked back.
He sighed. "Pam, is there something you wanna say?"
She froze mid-chew, glancing at the others nervously, surprised at being caught. She swallowed and cleared her throat. "I, uh… I was just… wondering…"
He stared without reply.
"I mean… we're all here and we're all family, so… um…"
"For fuck's sake, spit it out, girl."
"Tesouro, language!" his mother admonished.
"…Sorry."
Pamella narrowed her eyes, the fire returning to them. "I want you to tell me what happened to her."
Estêvão narrowed his own eyes in response. "You want to ruin this moment with that?"
"You refuse to tell me anything! I want to know who my mother was!"
He glared, his fists clenching and creaking. Should he rebuke her? Should he walk away? He wasn't sure what to do, but he knew what he didn't want to do.
"The girl is old enough, Estêvão," Jameson said, interrupting his thoughts, "She has a right to know."
Estêvão hesitated, the tension leaving him for a moment. It felt… strange. Like he was being given permission – something he normally disdained, but now it felt freeing in a way. "She has a right to a happy and carefree life, tatuś. Knowing her mother's fate – in full detail – will taint everything."
Jameson nodded. "To live is to hurt. To survive is to heal. Tell her what happened, son."
He hesitated again, losing his voice for a moment between breaths. Then he sighed deeply, leaned back in his chair, withdrew his flask, and drank it empty. A sharp gasping cough for the finale as he looked upon his daughter with mournful eyes. "You and I were at the ranch, tending the horses while your mother was shopping around the capital city with her girlfriends. My birthday was coming up so she was looking for a present for me" – he smiled – "probably some slutty little thing for me to sink my teeth into."
"Dad!" Pamella exclaimed, no longer as enthused about this tale.
"You asked for this! I didn't want to get this off my chest! So you're gonna sit there and you're gonna listen, and maybe when I'm done, you'll understand why people keep secrets from you."
She fell silent and nodded for him to continue.
"Mindoir was just waking up. Workers funneling into the city for their ten-to-twos. Same as any other day." His expression darkened. "Then the klaxons went off… it terrified the horses."
A deep breath and exhale with a shake of his head. "Ugly, battered ships broke through the clouds, blasting our defenses into dust – nothing more than a militia barracks back then. They landed and unleashed their complements. Hundreds of vesgo slavers against a wave of stampeding civilians, it wasn't even a fight. They used shuttles to herd them into chokepoints before rounding them up. That's when your mother was taken."
He twiddled his fingers nervously, keeping the memories at arm's length lest he fall into them. "They separated men from women, young from old, healthy from fit. Useless stock were shot en masse. The women and girls and young boys were passed around in an orgy of violence…" Estêvão's words drifted off, his eyes cloudy and his muscles tense.
"Papai?"
He jolted slightly before composing himself, wondering if she chose Portuguese to ground him. "It took hours for the Alliance to send help. I… I…" He bit his cheek to focus. "I found Izzy in the burnout wreckage of the old communications array. She was… barely clinging to life, but held on long enough for the medics to find us. I squeezed her tight to my chest and wept… I'd never been so happy to see a red cross," Estêvão said, his smile turned venomous, "They scanned her with an omni and… it came back with Brazilian DNA markers. So, they sent her to the back of the line, and that's where she died."
Pamella furrowed her brow. "But… mom was Argentine."
"She was. That field test was a false-positive… sometimes people get caught up in the gears of history. Izzy died in the Imperador's shadow. Most of us go out for the same reason." He lifted the flask to his lips only to grumble at its empty state. "After that… I was filled with so much hate and self-loathing. That my blood doomed the woman I loved. I wanted to die alongside her, but I still had you. And I thought: 'what's her future gonna be?' It terrified me, and I fell in with an… 'unsavory' crowd. Brazilian nationalists. I wasn't the problem, other people were. So I left you with your grandparents and drowned myself in ethnocentrist revolutionary literature and philosophy. Eventually I… did as a patriot does."
An image flashed in his mind. A shopping mall in flames. Bodies strewn outside a ruined café. Its flickering holograms written in Spanish.
He smiled sadly. "I've grown past that in some ways, in others I'm still stuck. I fear what your mother might have said had she seen me at my worst. That she might recoil in disgust." He looked down at his hands, the ebony slick with imagined blood. "I fear you might scorn me if you knew the real me."
Pamella was silent, then she forced a smile. "Don't I scorn you already?"
He smiled good-naturedly, before frowning gravely. "Several years ago, I avenged your mother… I had those medics in my clutches, and all I could think of was her face. The weight of her body against me. The taste of her lips the morning she left."
"No one would blame you for what you did, papai. Not with that kind of hurt and injustice." She smiled sadly. "Thank you for sharing the truth with me."
Estêvão hesitated, the alcohol warming his thoughts. She understood and yet she did not. Before he could stop himself, he continued, "I did not kill them, Pam… I sent them to Khar'shan."
The reactions at the table were muted but stung all the more for it. His mother silently gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. His father frowned, his eyes understanding but tinged with disappointment. Nirin smiled sadly. Pamella… her expression of revulsion hurt him the most. Didn't she understand they deserved their fate? Didn't she feel the vindication he did at their ironic sentence? The whiskey tasted of bile on his tongue, and he clenched his fists – this was what he feared. He clenched his teeth to keep his emotions from overwhelming him.
"You did all this for me?"
He looked up at his daughter, his eyes watery and frenzied. She looked so much like her mother in the distortions.
"Estêvão, baby, you really think I wanted this?"
"No… no," he ground out. It wasn't Pamella sitting across from him, it was Isabel.
"Galivanting across the stars? Murdering in my name?" Her eyes were scornful – truly scornful – her plump, smiling lips rueful. "You're nothing but a pale imitation of the man I loved."
"You're not real…" he hissed.
"I'm more real than you. You're not even alive, are you? Just a corpse running around playing hero to make up for leaving me to die and abandoning our daughter."
"Estê-kun…?" The word was muffled, spoken through thick soup, he barely noticed it.
"And you have the gall – the unmitigated gall – to look at what you did to those medics as a triumph? You're no better than the batarians, Estêvão," she sneered, "Just another slaver."
"Shut up. Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" he screamed, flipping the table over and nearly crushing Pamella's toes, "I did everything for you!"
"That's it, Estêvão, show me who you really are! Show me the man who killed me!"
The nano-ceramic blades extended from his forearms and he slashed through the mahogany table, lunging at the specter of his late wife. The smug quirk of her lips – ever the welcoming sight – a burning denunciation of everything he'd done since her death. Let the dead remain so. He slashed forward—
Only for his father to intercede, slipping behind the blade and grabbing the nape of his neck with both hands, kneeing him in the gut. It felt like something burst on the inside as Estêvão heaved and his knees buckled. He felt his augs shut down and he noticed Nirin's omni-tool in his periphery. He collapsed in a heap of wood splinters and spilled food. He gagged and thrashed and screamed and cried as Isabel evaporated away leaving only Pamella sitting on the floor nearby, her terrified eyes and quivering knees a wretched sight to behold. He saw that his father had positioned himself as a shield for the girl, his face stern but his brow moist – his feet staggered and his hands held in front of his chest. He saw his mother tense and wide-eyed like a deer on a highway, clutching a steak knife to her bosom. And finally, there was Nirin, her arm still engulfed in red haptic light as she approached with that same sad smile.
He wept, wishing to be anywhere else.
~BE~
Estêvão left his parent's villa in a daze – unsure if he'd even apologized. He vaguely recalled Nirin shuffling him into the aircar. And now they were aboard his ship. Grounded? Flying? He couldn't tell. He didn't care. He let himself be led to the cabin, taking his seat on the edge of their bed as reality reasserted itself.
He wept.
Nirin held him, consoling him to the best of her abilities until he shooed her away, asking to be alone with his thoughts. Her look was sad but understanding, she often asked for the same thing. She disappeared from sight and he fell into the pit of his own despair.
He felt the darkness surround him like a labyrinth. Every thought a new agony. Every musing a condemnation. He breathed deeply the sterile air he'd grown so fond of – flavored as it was by their life choices. He looked around his home. They'd rushed to Bekenstein and hadn't had a chance to tidy up.
A half-drunk beer can and its empty siblings.
An ashtray overflowing with a menagerie of cigarettes, cigarillos, and hand-rolled joints.
A bottle of pills – three months' worth, and yet only a handful remained after two weeks.
The table in the corner that acted as his little workshop. A Kishock mounted on the wall above, a trophy from his first meeting with Cerberus. On the table itself was his prized Raptor – disassembled for cleaning – that he'd taken to calling 'Quimera.' Next to it was a rough sketch he'd made of a new sniper rifle – the paper damp from spilled oil and cleaner. He was still workshopping names for the thing, settling on 'Vanquisher' but hating the melodrama. He smiled, sometimes he would fantasize about working on it with Shepard… before reminding himself that she wouldn't give him the time of day if they met.
On the floor around the table were crumpled notes and old mods. A feather drone that wouldn't sync to the others on his HUSSAR rig. Packing material that fell from the overflowing trash bin. Just junk that hadn't been cleaned up yet. It usually wasn't like this. They were both pretty organized, honest. Or maybe that was an illusion. The room felt like a reflection of his mind.
It all seemed so… cool. Neat. Desirable. He wanted everything in this room at one point or another. But now it all seemed so hollow. Vain. Irrelevant. Maybe it was something else. Maybe he was hoarding everything to fill the void left by Isabel. Could anything substitute for her? No, not even Nirin. And what good did it do? Did he fight for her? For their daughter? The girl barely knew him and… well, after that dinner, who knows what she thinks? Nothing positive, certainly.
He remembered his joy when Pamella was born. The contrast of his pride with his profound fear of ruining the purity in his hands. Well, his fears had come true. She was as removed from his orbit as ever before. Driven away by a father who had abandoned her and didn't know how to make amends. It was his fault she was what she was. The fury at the girl embracing Spanish became fury at himself for allowing it. For not teaching her about her people when she was young. For abandoning her so he could vent his rage in the Terminus like a child.
The only one he still had was Nirin. And yet, in that moment of pain and clarity, he wondered if that was tainted too. His beautiful broken quarian, with all her faults and quirks and pathologies. After they'd lured those slavers onto the Trojan merchantman, he'd found her playing with the body of a headless child –if she hadn't called it 'Master,' he wouldn't have been sure it was batarian. He wondered where she would be right now had she been rescued by someone else. Would she be living a normal life? Tormented by the memories but creating something positive despite them? Had he ruined her like he'd ruined Pamella?
His eyes stung as the tears dried. He felt so tired. Tired of everything. Where had he gone wrong? What was the one choice that brought him here? He didn't know. He clenched his knuckles, the grip of the revolver hugging his artificial palm like a glove. He lifted the barrel to his head, the cold metal digging into his temple.
He was surprised how calm he felt. Maybe he was just resigned to the inevitable. He smiled sadly.
Goodbye, Pam. Goodbye, Niri. A fresh tear fell from his eye. I won't hurt either of you ever again.
He exhaled and squeezed the trigger.
His hand went limp.
The revolver clanked to the floor.
He collapsed to his side, no longer feeling his arms and legs.
He felt numb, yet appreciated the warmth of the bed.
Was this death?
Was it a hallucination as the synapses died around the void in his skull?
He tried to move his fingers but they remained inert.
He didn't feel dead… though he had little experience with it.
There was no white light or loud bang.
Just silence and warm sheets.
A bit anticlimactic, honestly.
He turned his head and saw Nirin leaning against the wall, her crimson omni-tool alight on her forearm. She raised her hand and blew him a kiss.
The tears were flowing stronger now. God he loved that woman.