Chapter 1: Midnight Revelations

The moment Chertyl was relieved by the oncoming shift she took the nearest cargo lift to the first deck, striding purposefully through the docking bay's observation gantry on her way to the Infirmary. Below her, an assault shuttle was offloading crew from the Iconoclast, to be checked in through the aid station and assigned to their new stations aboard the ship. A pair of engineers were visible conversing with one of the human pilots beside an Alliance fighter at the far end of the bay.

Entering the clean area surrounding the Infirmary, she waited impatiently for the VI module mounted on the hatch to perform its scan for contaminants and pathogens. She leaned against the bulkhead, rapping her fingers idly on the handle before the hatch finally hissed open, and her face was greeted by a wave of cool, positive pressure air as she entered the Xeno Ward, isolated from the rest of the facility as a precaution against cross-species virulence.

The ship had entered the nocturnal phase within the past hour, and the only lighting to navigate by was the dim red glow of the standby lights. Taking a moment for her eyes to adjust, Chertyl carefully maneuvered her way beside the nearest bed where a human slept, chest rising rhythmically in deep slumbering breaths. Doing her best to stay quiet, she leaned over him, trying to get a better look at his face. A bandage was wound around his eyes and forehead, leading her to ponder what sort of injury he must have sustained in the fighting.

Beside him, a bedside table held what appeared to be personal effects. Glancing through some unrecognizable trinkets she spotted a set of identification tags on a small chain. She picked them up, feeling embossed lettering on one side and a hardened datachip on the other. Interfacing with her omni-tool, she turned her back to shield him from the glow, and caught herself. There was no way he could see anything short of an arc welder past those bandages anyway. The chip latched onto a magnetic slot on the omni-tool, and a holographic readout of information crossed her hungry eyes. There was that name again.

Victor Sandage. Major, Alliance Navy. Blood type O negative. Hazel eyes, beneath the bandages. Over a full foot shorter than her, but unsurprising as she was on the tall side of her species. Sensitivity to warfarin and some other drug she couldn't even pronounce in her head. None of this was leading her closer to answering why she recognized his name, nor why it had evoked such implacable dread throughout the day.

She noticed that his medical profile was flagged in the local server as well, meaning the data was hosted on the turian fleet's medical net. This could be expected of anyone who received aid or treatment upon a Hierarchy vessel, except for the fact that according to this, the man before her had existed in their records for twenty-nine years.

Before she could ponder this further, the lights in the room brightened moderately, and the towering figure of the Medical Director stepped through the doorway in comically quiet fashion, momentarily pressing one talon vertically between his mouth and nose.

"That's a human signal to keep quiet, did you know that?" He whispered. "What are you doing down here?"

Obscuring her omni-tool with her other hand, Chertyl shrugged and tried to reply casually.

"I… didn't know that actually. And uh… I just wanted to get a general idea of their dimensions, you know- to clear out enough room to bunk."

Shit, she thought. That sounded a lot less stupid in my head.

Thankfully, Marthel didn't seem to find the proposition as ridiculous as she did.

"And here I thought I was the only one on this crew who preferred planning over improvisation. Nice to see initiative like that, but they're all not much different than our friend here." He motioned a talon toward the slumbering human. "Except most have hair, even if their military personnel keep it shorn low so it doesn't interfere with helmet seals. This one lost his as a side effect of a medical treatment for a rare affliction. Quite fascinating. Tell me Chertyl, have you ever heard of Inverlerik's Disease?"

She shook her head.

"It's quite rare, caused by one of only two viruses transmissible from turians to humans. The other does nothing more than blacken their vestigial talons for a week or so, but this one can affect their central nervous system and cause paralysis and coma- though surprisingly it is not transmissible between humans, and only affects a small subset of their population. Want to know something amazing?"

He shuffled for something on the little table.

"Huh. Could have sworn it was here…"

Chertyl reached behind the table with a closed palm before lifting the identification tags in feigned surprise.

"Is this what you're looking for, Director?"

"Yes!" Marthel exclaimed, before lowering his voice and quietly interfacing the chip with a nearby terminal. "Very good. Have a look at this. Victor Sandage here was a case study when I attended the Academy of Medicine on Palaven. He had acquired the virus around the time of the Relay 314 Incident and fell comatose within a year. One of our doctors identified it, and the human spent almost twenty years in cryogenic stasis before a viable treatment was perfected by researchers at the Academy. It was big news for a while, and brought us no small measure of goodwill from affected families. I can't say I'd ever have imagined a minor medical celebrity would grace my Xeno Ward, but here we are. Perhaps you can ask him sometime about what it felt like to wake up on Palaven."

He thought of the Academy, and was saddened by the thought of it in ruins. But his attention was brought back by the concerned look on Chertyl's face.

"Director!" She hissed quietly, "This wasn't the-"

Marthel cut her off with another signal for quiet, removing his visor to rub the glass between a cloth,

"Ah yes, I'm sorry to tell you that Captain Yamaduta succumbed to his injuries late this afternoon. I have placed his body in cryo separate from our own casualties and will ask the Commodore how he wishes to proceed once we make port on the Reef, spirits willing. But I will go ahead and place Major Sandage here in your care until then, if that's alright with you."

Chertyl was set to protest this, but looking down at the sleeping human, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity. This one's woes obviously went back much further than the war, and although she had never borne children in her forty-six years, she felt the empathetic nudge of a motherly instinct to protect and nurture this frail and blind creature. On a practical level, the thought occurred to her that he might be able to provide a helping hand in the coming week on her deck once the bandages were off, assuming his injuries were not severe. She sighed in resignation.

"Very well. When will he be cleared from the ward?"

"He is clear to go now, actually. Might be ideal too, since he is still sedated from a minor op early this cycle. He suffered flash burns to his retinas from one of those implant-linked helmet sensoriums the Alliance guys use- it overloaded in his face when his fighter took a high-energy hit. Have you seen those things in the bay? I like how sometimes they paint cartoons or lewd figures on the nose or stabilizers. Some kind of tradition, one explained to me. Anyways, take this bandage and have him change it when he wakes. Then have him keep it on for another cycle and let him take it off when it's like this again." He motioned his arms about the dim room.

Marthel watched her stow the roll of medigel-infused cloth, and glanced around the ward for a moment before frowning.

"Hate to tell you, but all my stretchers are being used in the aid station at the moment. But I don't think he's terribly heavy."

"Are you serious?"

Chertyl glanced down hesitantly for a moment, shaking her head before gently slinking one arm under his back and the other at the crook of his knees, before lifting the pilot clear from the bed. Marthel hadn't lied. She could probably run rescue drills at speeds rivaling those at her prime carrying fellow turians with someone this light, though her carapace would probably not work wonders for him if she did. As it were, Chertyl walked easily to the hatch, promising the Director she'd do what she could for the human. Before she left, he mentioned that he'd store Victor's personal effects in the meantime, and added,

"That reminds me, he said something funny before I put him under anaesthesia for the microsurgery suite to fix his eyes. I asked him what his level of pain was on a numeric scale, and not to lie, because it was important in setting the right dose for a dilating agent. He gave a moderate value, and said he knew better than to lie to a turian with surgical instruments."

Chertyl took a moment to digest this.

"Right. Be seeing you, Director."

Carrying the pilot in her arms down the deserted hallways towards her cabin, she took a leisurely pace to quiet her footfalls and not disturb the human's slumber. From this angle his face began to appear more and more familiar as she walked. Silently pondering Marthel's last words, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place- his identity and records, the memories of her formative years in the Fleet; that parting jest- Chertyl could not believe she had failed to recognize it before. As she rounded one last corner approaching her quarters, she was relieved to find herself alone. She looked down at Victor one last time before crossing the threshold to her cabin, and only after sealing the hatch behind her did she let allow herself to bury her head against the fabric of his scorched flight suit, choking back sobs.

29 Years Earlier…

The young Alliance captain was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he was in very deep shit. When his ejection capsule had come to rest in the dim red glow of an unfamiliar hangar bay, he thanked his lucky stars profusely, popping the hatch immediately to take deep draughts of sweet air into his oxygen-deprived lungs. His cosmic gratitude was to be short-lived however, as the powerful, taloned hands of these frightful aliens soon whisked him roughly into the armored heart of their warship.

Pinned against a cold and unyielding bulkhead, he had been stripped of his survival equipment and boots, and felt the skin of his neck pinched as a metal collar of some kind was clamped around it. He was left like this for nearly a half hour by his estimate, before a pair of the menacing raptor-like aliens strode into the room bearing an array of equipment. A boxy apparatus was laid beside him and a cable connected to the device around his throat. Satisfied with his work, the nearest of his captors contemplated him for a moment with arms crossed in a strangely human way, before speaking in an incomprehensible language, the voice guttural like a guitarrón out of tune. A moment later, the metal box by his side provided a translation, with the intonation of a toy robot with dying batteries.

"You picked a very bad day to enter my brig, alien. Particularly when the flight recorder we recovered from your escape capsule reveals you were the one dumping cannon rounds into the wingman of my comrade here. I think he wishes to tell you something."

A taloned fist cracked against his cheekbone, snapping the pilot's head sideways as he cried out a blue streak of expletives, a couple of which seemed to be repeated back through the translation machine.

"You may wish to articulate, alien. We have a great many questions."

He leaned in close, waiting for his captive to face him again before adding coldly,

"...and no shortage of time."

The human had lost track of time by the sixth beating. He'd gritted his teeth and said nothing as long as he could, but eventually his SERE mindset began to crumble, breaking his stoic facade and leaving him crying and begging for it to stop, which somehow seemed to curb their brutal enthusiasm slightly- but only for a moment before they'd work him over again, and he'd divulge bits and pieces of information they were all too eager to pummel out of him.

Broken and bleeding they'd left him after the endless ordeal, the restraints of luminous omni-matter pinning his arms around a pillar at his back, preventing him from collapsing flat onto the floor as he desperately wished he could. The human remained still, doubled over and slumped on his knees. He tasted the sticky tang of blood on his upper lip as a thin rivulet ran down his temple, following the swollen curve of his cheek to meet another red flow from his busted nose. He was surprised it hadn't coagulated yet, but at the very least his muscular tremors and hyperventilation seemed to have subsided. In their wake, he felt only a vast, overwhelming exhaustion calling him into unconsciousness. He didn't fight it.

The metallic shriek of a hatch opening jolted the pilot awake, his heart pounding furiously as the tall profile of another alien entered his cell and approached, looming menacingly over him. He dared look up, squinting his eyes against the glaring illumination of the naked vapor lamps above. He took in the sight of this alien, leaner and curved slightly differently at the waist and torso. Rather than the turtleshell-like armor he had seen previously, this one was decked in a form-fitting garment of flexible weave, over which was strapped some kind of utility harness or load-bearing vest. He couldn't tell if the subtle differences in physiology were due to sexual dimorphism or simply his addled imagination.

The creature turned briefly to make an adjustment to the apparatus beside him, the human's gaze transfixed by the movements of the lithe creature. The backside of the alien's garment trailed off into a pair of what looked like long coattails, which his eyes soon followed back up, being cautious not to make eye conta-

-they were a piercing, frigid blue.

The alien said something incomprehensible in an unmistakably threatening tone. There was no translation provided by the machine.

Despite himself, a fractional remnant of rebellious spirit welled within him, and against his better judgement the human spoke the first snarky thing to come to his pummeled mind.

"S-sorry. I told you guys already I don't speak Spanish."

Crouching directly in front of him, the alien took him by his short crop of hair between three long digits, forcing his head back. Seeing the other massive hand balled into a fist, the human inhaled sharply and shuddered in anticipation of the blow.

But it never came. Opening his shuttered eyes, he watched as the alien simply sighed, and let go of his hair, cradling the back of his head and tilting it gently upward to face that icy gaze. Seeing the alien's face in close detail, the pilot noticed light bands crossing the creature's foreplate, while the lighting of the cell reflected a faint glare from some kind of metal cap around one mandible. In a softer, harmonic voice, the alien spoke again after a moment. This time the box delivered the message.

"I understand your resistance, alien. It is natural that you should be bound to your kin and say nothing that would compromise their security or stain your honor. But I have my directives, just as you have yours. My directive is not to leave this room until I have the information I seek, and to take it by any means necessary."

At this final statement, the alien produced a cloth bundle from a breast pouch. Unrolling it on the ground in front of the human, he was treated to the sight of an array of metal instruments, most of which appeared capable of applying a mechanical advantage to what would surely be excruciating effect on any number of his body parts. He looked tentatively back at his captor, and back down at these frightful implements. For the umpteenth time the pilot wondered if it would have been better to have simply suffocated in that ejection capsule after all.

"Now I'm going to start easy, and ask you your name."

With a straight face, he replied.

"Mike. Mike Litoris. Rear Admiral, Systems Alliance."

The humor was almost certainly lost on his captor, whose head tilted quizzically at the response like a befuddled bird. The alien retrieved his identification tags from a pocket and idly played with them between fingers.

"That you would lie about even the most easily retrieved information tells me that you may require an ample amount of additional encouragement."

With these words, the alien retrieved a long-handled instrument tapering to a pair of blunt prongs, twisting the handle until an arc discharged between the tips with a sizzling crack.

"And I will dispense as much as necessary to get to the truth."

The instrument was touched to the human's collar, sparking a flow of current that sent his neck muscles taut. A scream caught in his throat, along with his ability to breathe for an excruciating moment until the tool was pulled away, leaving him gasping. Catching his breath, he watched her inch the tool closer before he relented.

"Victor! My name is Victor, goddamn!"

Pocketing his tags, his captor replied in a pleased timbre.

"Your cooperation is appreciated, Victor. Believe me when I say you will find your captivity much more agreeable this way."

His interrogator produced a pouch of fluid from another pocket, loosening a resealable cap before bringing it to his parched, split lips. He took the nozzle and suckled for his life, the faintly-chlorinated taste of water washing down the blood and mucosa choking his throat. Before he could finish the container it was pulled away, and he had to actively fight the urge to plead for more. His captor looked at him with warmer eyes.

"You looked like you needed that, alien. There is no need for pain, you see? Now answer this: from where did you obtain the transponders that tricked us into thinking you were turian craft?"

Victor pondered the question. The way she phrased it implied that perhaps they didn't suspect the Alliance had partially managed to break their cryptography, duplicating transponder schemes to mimic turian IFF signatures, a tactic Alliance squadrons had recently begun using to lay ambushes- including this ill-fated sortie. He settled for a dubious half-truth, telling his captor that a number of transponders had been taken from downed enemy ships and their native hardware restored to working order, rather than reveal the more insidious truth that captured units were actually used to remotely flash turian-coded decoy signatures onto Alliance equipment in real time. Thankfully, there was likely nothing that remained of Victor's fighter that could contradict this, as the transponder arrays were stowed nowhere near the canopy and its crew capsule.

The alien listened attentively, seeming even more agreeable by the time he had finished spinning his yarn. He watched as the creature reached into yet another uniform compartment and produced a cloth, which was soon soaked with the water that Victor hadn't finished. The human watched apprehensively as his captor crouched even closer, and felt the lengthy fingers of one gloved alien hand cradle the base of his head, while the other brought the wet fabric to his face, cleaning him gently. Victor winced as the cool cloth brushed against multiple lacerations, although the turian had a surprisingly tender touch. The feeling of being handled this way, and the knowledge that receiving continued humane treatment would depend on the betrayal of his friends- his very species- overwhelmed the young captain. Hot tears welled in his eyes and rolled down his battered visage, and he wondered idly if lacrimation was something their kind could even comprehend. A finger lifted his chin and brought his eyes to hers. It has to be a her, he reckoned. Can't imagine this kind of touch from anyone else- human or otherwise. The creature let out a heavy exhalation as she wiped the tears from his cheeks, more careful this time around his injuries. The two locked eyes for a moment, and with a valiant effort to still his quivering jaw, the human managed a weak thanks. The alien's mandibles fluttered for a moment, the metal tip of the shorter one glinting erratically in the harsh light. She broke her gaze away, parting her mouth-plates as if to say something when the hatch behind her clacked metallically as someone on the other side worked to unlatch it.

Rapidly stuffing the blood-soaked rag into a pocket, she backed away suddenly and stood to acknowledge the entrance of another intimidating figure, a turian with blood-red facial markings and a set of armor sufficiently ornate that the human would bet fair money he'd be saluting this guy- if Victor also happened to be a spacefaring raptor-turtle. With a deft motion of her foot-claws, his interrogator flicked a dial on the translation machine and struck a pose uncannily similar to parade rest as she addressed the newcomer, who was clearly a superior. Victor's presence wasn't acknowledged at all in the course of their ensuing conversation, which sat just fine by him as he lay slumped in his fading hope that this was all a terrible nightmare. The new face soon looked at him with interest, and sauntered over to assume the same crouching posture over the kneeling human, reactivating the translation machine as his first interrogator interjected.

"-damaged. There is no way to know if this one even has the clearances-"

The armored turian held up a dismissive hand, bringing silence to the room. He stared daggers at Victor, as he slowly worked his digits into a pair of elongated polymer gloves. Looking over his shoulder, he made a remark to his colleague about the importance of barrier protection when handling unfamiliar species, before turning back to face the prisoner.

"As for you, it is well that you have begun cooperating. I might suggest that doing so from the start might have saved you from this."

He took Victor's jaw into one hand, inspecting his injuries as he turned it from one side to the other. Though he was not rough in his ministrations, he seemed heedless of the burning sensation he was causing his captive through the nitrile-like texture of his gloves against the human's split flesh. Victor could only endure it, thankful when his head was released after a minute, his captor speaking up once more in a grave tone.

"But of course, there was little chance of that once the wing commander saw his friend's ship torn to pieces through the gunsight captures of your particular telemetry module. Which brings me to the great question: how to access the navigation partition. It appears to be encrypted on the user end, a fact that leads my technicians to conclude that the decryption key is somewhere in here."

A gloved finger tapped against Victor's forehead, eliciting a shiver as the translator delivered the message. There was no way for him to know whether or not the guidance and nav data within the partition had overwritten itself as it was designed to upon tampering. The fact they were aware of its existence as an entity independent of the gun camera suggested that it hadn't. Which meant the only thing preventing these aliens from tracing his flight plan back to the position of the SSV Komodo Smile- the assault carrier whose deck he'd cleared not ten hours ago- might only be his will not to surrender it. Relinquishing a single nonsensical phrase of twelve characters (including numbers, capitals, and special characters- of course) could spell the end for every soul aboard his home ship.

This thought shed light onto a new perspective for Victor, one in which his life meant very little in the greater scheme of this crazy war- but in which his actions could have profound consequences. He was done feeling sorry for himself, Captain Victor Sandage decided.

"Now, you are going to provide that key if you value your well-being. I will warn you now I am not nearly as patient as my junior intelligence officer here. "

Victor looked idly toward his first interrogator, a nearly-pleading expression frozen on her face in anticipation of his response.

"You know I can't do that. I… I have nothing left to say to you."

Three savage strikes to his ribs brought forth a fresh tidal wave of pain, his screaming face then backhanded towards the deck as if by a carnival hammer. The last sight Victor remembered seeing was the armored turian reaching for a wicked-looking powered instrument, a look of pure terror frozen on the striped face of the junior intelligence officer in his fading peripherals.