Chapter 5: Evidence
Shepard's new guard stood exactly two feet to the right of the door, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall and his posture at rigid attention. He'd been standing that way for the past fifteen minutes, and Shepard had no inclination to ask him to relax.
She sat at the dining table, picking at the food the guard had brought her. Mashed potatoes like cardboard mulch, steak like thick cardboard, vegetables like soggy cardboard. Her jello dessert wobbled when she poked it with a spoon, but she was sure that would taste like gelatinous cardboard.
"You know, Corporal, it wouldn't kill you to maybe throw this in a compactor and get me a burger," she said, throwing her flimsy cutlery on the tray and spreading her paper napkin over the entire thing so wouldn't have to look at it anymore.
The corporal stayed silent, like he always did until Shepard gave him permission to speak freely. It didn't seem to matter to him that technically she didn't hold rank. He was like an Alliance recruitment holo. His close-cropped hair looked freshly cut, his boots so shiny she could make him eat off them, and his uniform was pressed to perfection—down to the crisp crease that ran straight down the front of his dress pants. James had never worn dress pants. She wrinkled her nose up and looked out the window.
The corporal could stay silent. She didn't need another insubordinate guard getting too comfortable.
The corporal's omnitool beeped, and out of the corner of her eye, she watched as he moved his arm just enough to read whatever he'd been sent. She saw him glance at her, an agonised expression on his face. She looked at him and his eyes flicked to six inches behind her left ear.
"Go on," she said with a roll of her eyes.
"Admiral Anderson requests your presence in his office, Commander."
"Great. Maybe he'll get me a burger," she said as she stood. The corporal opened the door for them.
Shepard strode into the empty hallway and the corporal followed to her right and two steps behind. The first day he'd had to escort her somewhere, she'd spent the ten minute walk stopping or hurrying randomly. The corporal never missed a beat.
The walk through the sky atrium made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Even though she tried to keep her eyes fixed on the elevator doors on the other side of the atrium, her gaze kept being pulled to the seats by the window. Her gut twisted itself into such a tight knot that had she actually eaten her lunch, she might have decorated the atrium floor with it.
She hurried to the other side of the atrium, almost tripping over a running toddler halfway there. The mother who scooped up the child gaped at Shepard, although whether it was from recognition or because she'd barely mumbled an apology, Shepard didn't care. The atrium used to be her refuge from her cell. Now it was too bright, too warm, and too full of staring people.
Once in the elevator, she rested her forehead against the window and stared out over the city. Shepard valued her solitude, but in Vancouver that was all she had. She wanted to punch James for being so stubborn, so righteous, so private, so far away. She missed his stupid jokes, the way he'd frown right before he argued with her, the competition during workouts, the quiet times they no longer needed to fill with words.
A soft cough yanked her out of her memories and she turned her head. The corporal held the elevator doors open. She marched past his carefully blank expression and down the hall to Anderson's office. She knocked and stared at the camera above the door. A few seconds later, the door slid open and she plopped herself down in the chair across the desk from Anderson.
"Wait outside, Corporal," said Anderson and the door slid closed again.
"He won't buy me burgers," said Shepard, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. "You assigned me a babysitter who doesn't care about my nutrition."
"I'll look into it," said Anderson, but the amused twitch of his lips, coupled with his wry tone, told Shepard that he had no intention of letting this guard be so easy on her. He picked up a datapad and handed it to her. "This gem turned up on my desk this morning."
Shepard pursed her lips as she scrolled through the data in one of the six open tabs—partially recovered data of the discovery of Object Rho.
"I thought Project Base was completely offline. Where was this info from?"
"Black ops recon in the Bahak System years ago." When he didn't continue, Shepard looked expectantly at him over the top of the datapad. He shrugged. "Classified."
She sighed. Of course it was. Shepard switched to the next window. Grainy pictures of familiar, elongated dark shapes stood out against the backdrop of a galaxy: Reapers. The top of each picture had letters and numbers—not all of them in galactic basic. Anderson craned his neck when Shepard tilted the datapad toward him and raised her eyebrow in askance.
"Recent images sent back from deep space probes," he said. "They're from almost every species. We don't know exactly where the probes are, but respective governments will at least know which direction they exited the galaxy."
Shepard pointed to the string of characters in the corner of one image. Reapers were scattered across the frame, but much more than any of the other images she'd see. "Who owns this probe?"
"The batarians."
"The Reapers were heading for the Alpha Relay. Kite's Nest is the next closest cluster with a relay." Anderson nodded, a single jerk of his head, his mouth tight with unease. Shepard stared at him. "You have to tell the batarians. Kar'shan and every other colony in the system will get wiped out."
"The Hegemony has cut all communication with us, even their backchannels. The Bahak System had three hundred thousand–"
"Yes," she said through clenched teeth. "I know how many people I killed."
"Then see it from their perspective," he said, his hard tone making her shut her mouth. "Three hundred thousand dead and you say it's to stop the Reapers, which no one believes exists because the Council made sure to censor everything about them."
Anderson leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. Shepard chewed the inside of her cheek and stared at the blue, patterned carpet. She had to remind herself that the Council had had two years to erase the truth about Sovereign, the Geth, and Saren. The reminder of her death soured her mood further, only this time she didn't have James or Garrus or Kasumi or anyone, really, to lift her spirits.
"Your first priority is to convince the Navy Board of the Reaper threat," said Anderson and Shepard scrunched up her face. "The rest of the datapad has research on pieces of Sovereign, preliminary reports on suspected reaper artefacts, and autopsies on husks."
"People saw Sovereign with their own eyes, fought and lost thousands against it. This–" she threw the datapad back on his desk, "–isn't going to be enough."
"I'm not saying they're going to believe everything on here and drop all charges. All you need to do is plant doubt in their minds that the Reapers are a myth—anything to delay your court martial." He leaned forward and picked up the datapad, shaking it at her. "There are those who believe you without this information, Shepard. Now you just need to buy yourself more time to help us think of a defence strategy."
"You have a lot of faith in me, Anderson."
"You got this kind of information to magically appear on my desk, in a sealed room, with no footage of who left it here, while you were under arrest in one of the Alliance's most secure HQs, where you had no ready access to the outside world." Anderson chuckled. "Yes, I have a lot of faith in you."
Shepard sat at her table reading off a datapad so thick it might as well have been a brick. It needed Tali-levels of creative hacking to get around the security locks on it. The no contact rule still chafed, but the datapad was loaded with enough books to pass the time.
After her meeting with Anderson three days ago, she'd expected to have to wait at least a fortnight before the Navy Board wanted to speak to her. Instead, she was due to go in front of them within the hour. She should be reading something to do with her case, but the roundabout legal jargon in the documents might as well have been written in hieroglyphics.
A knock at the door interrupted her reading. She waited. The door didn't open. It wasn't Anderson, then. She turned off the datapad, set it on the table, and rested her chin in her palm. Another knock, still polite but a little louder. She drummed her fingernails on the table.
"Commander Shepard?" The corporal's muffled voice sounded part curious, part worried. Maybe he was scared she'd managed to escape. "Ma'am?"
After another knock, this time more insistent, she said, "Just come in already."
The door opened and the corporal took two steps in before standing to attention and saluting. "You have a vidcall, Commander."
Shepard raised an eyebrow. "That's a cruel joke, Corporal, and I'll be reporting you for mental torture of a prisoner."
The corporal's eyes widened. "It's not a joke, ma'am, Admiral Anderson approved it."
Her other eyebrow rose too. "Who is it?"
The corporal pulled up his omnitool. "Staff Lieutenant James Vega, ma'am."
Shepard's eyebrows fell into a frown and she leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest. The corporal shifted his balance from one foot to the other under her scrutiny.
"What does he want?" she asked and the corporal shook his head and shrugged.
Shepard chewed the inside of her cheek as she stared at the table. A few days ago, she'd been lamenting not having James around for company. Now, she didn't even want to hear his voice through the tinny speaker of the datapad—not right before she hadto keep her cool to argue her case to a stubborn Navy Board.
"No. I'm busy," she said. Doubt flickered across the corporal's face and she glared at him. "If the lieutenant's information was urgent, the admiral would have said so. Deny the call."
The corporal hesitated for another second before tapping a message into his omnitool. He saluted, said he'd be back to escort her to her meeting in forty minutes, and left.
Shepard stood and paced the room. He was thousands of klicks away and still knew when she needed company, only he answered her mental summons at the wrong time. She should have listened to her instincts when she and James were lost in the Canadian wilderness. Romance was a bad idea. Emotions ruined her concentration and forced her to make decisions where she'd lose something personal no matter what she chose. Kaidan sidled to the front of her mind and she shoved him back into his box.
She rubbed the back of her neck, her hand scraping over the empty implant. Another thing she'd lost because she couldn't keep her cool when it came to James. Her tiny display in the gym, caught on camera, was enough to void Anderson's promise to the brass that she'd keep her biotics in check. Now, energy fizzled through her body, pooling at her nodes but without enough focus to do anything but let off a tiny spark of blue.
This was ridiculous. Pacing was working her up, not calming her down. She snatched her datapad from the table and flopped onto the bed, intent on settling herself by reading about someone else getting into trouble for once.
The Navy Board's room smelled of wood polish. Shepard looked down at her reflection in the wooden table and resisted the urge to smudge the sheen by drawing on it with her fingers. Her lawyer sat by her side, one sleek datapad ready for her to type on and another open to an index of law books and documents, just in case. Anderson sat at a long table opposite them with two more brass sitting either side of him.
The QEC unit next to Anderson's flickered to life with Hackett's image. He nodded to Anderson and the others before acknowledging Shepard. She gave him a tight smile.
"I thought the Navy Board would be bigger," said Shepard, leaning closer to her lawyer.
"The Navy Board consists of more officers, but they do not have clearance for the information to be discussed in this meeting. Only Alliance admirals, rear admirals, and generals do, but they rotate on the Board every year, hence why this meeting is so intimate. As for Fleet Admiral Hackett–" she shrugged and pushed her glasses up her nose, "–I suspect he is here because this information is highly unusual."
Shepard leaned back in again, resting her elbows on the arms of the chair and knitting her fingers together over her stomach. The admirals stated their ranks and names for the VI recording the meeting and her lawyer did the same for herself and Shepard.
"We've reviewed the evidence, and it is enough to merit further investigation," said the brass to the left of Anderson. "We'll be postponing any court proceedings until our investigation is over."
"And the batarians?" asked Shepard.
The other brass nodded her head. "We'll find a way to placate them."
Shepard frowned. "I meant, are you going to tell them about the Reapers heading straight for their front door."
The two unfamiliar faces in the room shared a look Shepard knew well from any time she'd ever asked the Council for anything. She looked to Anderson for help, but his lips were set in a tight line.
"At this stage, there's not enough hard evidence to present to the batarians, and the evidence we do have violated Council space's espionage laws," said Hackett.
Shepard shot up out of her chair and slammed her hands on the table. "There's just one relay between Harsa and Arcturus, two before the Reapers arrive at Earth. Sovereign cut through our largest ships almost three years ago like they were toys. What will a thousand do? You've seen what they did to us on Eden Prime, you've read the autopsies. Imagine every colony, every city, every single human on Earth turned into husks and hunting the last–"
"Sit down, Shepard." Hackett's bark shut her up but she stayed standing, her hands stinging from how hard she's smacked the table and her heart beating in her ears. He fixed her with a stare that would have made someone who hadn't faced down Reapers and Collectors crap themselves. "Sit down, Commander."
Shepard's nostrils flared as she let out an angry breath and she plopped herself down in her chair, making sure to scrape it along the wooden floor as she inched it closer to the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the unfamiliar brass giving her disapproving looks but she kept her gaze fixed on Hackett.
He was the one who sent her after Kenson. He was the one who told her to be discrete. Without Hackett, the Alpha Relay would be intact and the Reapers would already be here. He was a much to blame as her, but he wasn't the one in the brig having to yell about the threat the entire goddamn galaxy was facing.
"As soon as we have sufficient information, we'll inform the batarians of any threat to their borders." Hackett gave her the same placating look that Anderson gave her when he felt she was being unreasonable. Maybe it was something all admirals had to master before they got the job. "This is beyond the military now, Shepard. The highest offices of the Alliance and Earth's sovereign countries will have to deliberate on this information and whatever we find during our own investigation."
"So, you're telling me it's out of my hands," she said, lips curled into a snarl. "You're telling me that you sent me into the Bahak system to help Project Base complete its objective but you're also going to let me hang for it."
"We're telling you to stand down, Shepard, and I'm telling you to be patient," said Hackett. Shepard crossed her arms and blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. "This meeting is adjourned. Hackett out."
The admirals and Shepard's lawyer stood and saluted. Shepard stayed in her chair, glaring at the image that flickered and disappeared. So much for keeping her cool.
A/N: Woo! An update in less than two months! As always, thanks to everyone who's still reading, giving kudos and reviewing and also a huge thanks to dismalniece who was super busy but edited anyway 3