There are ways to set the tone of a meeting before any words are spoken. Things can be done, from the arrangement of the furniture to the angles of the lighting, to give whatever impression the person calling the meeting intended to give. Home field advantage.
Shepard's first meeting with the Tribunal had been on board the Normandy, in a brightly-lit comm room with a roundish table and no chairs. In that room, everyone was clearly visible and equally uncomfortable. There was no place of precedence in that space, so long as the center of the room was being used for tactical displays rather than yet another infuriating conversation with the Illusive Man. The meeting had been a hurried affair, Alliance personnel scrambling to react to the news that the fabled Normandy was on her way in to dock with none other than the walking ghost of Commander Shepard on board. She'd had EDI send a discreet heads-up message to Anderson at his Council office on the Citadel in the faint hope that he might be able to help her stick the metaphorical landing at Alliance HQ. The swell of relief she'd felt when his tall, dark form strode into the Normandy's comm room had nearly choked her. He didn't disappoint, ready to bull-rush the Alliance legal system and bypass the court martial and call this fiasco a Tribunal. He arrived with two other officers in tow, a Rear Admiral and a Captain, neither of whom she had met before. Their disparate ranks said loud and clear that Anderson had steamrolled into HQ and grabbed whoever could possibly fulfill Tribunal duties on a moment's notice. She turned over the Normandy to the Alliance and got debriefed all in one long meeting.
Her second Tribunal session had happened days later, in the hyper-sterile whiteness of the most advanced medical clinic she had ever seen. Strapped to a gurney that lifted and turned however the Chief Medical Officer who was conducting the session saw fit, Shepard was crystal clear that in that case she was the subject of the discussion rather than a participant. Admiral Anderson was, again, presiding along with the Chief and another Admiral who was new to her. Admiral Sakai was a tiny woman, straight-spined despite the age that creased the ivory plains of her delicate face and threaded her jet-black hair with silver. Everyone deferred to her, even Anderson. Endless scans and diagrams accompanied this session that was more medical lecture than interrogation. The Chief Medical Officer had clearly been fascinated with Shepard from a scientific point of view, making her wonder what might happen if she were left alone with him and a scalpel. He conducted scan after scan, displaying the findings in bigger-than-life holo so that the other members of the Tribunal could follow in real-time. Shepard got to see multi-colored images of her innards and listen to an exhaustive cataloguing of all the cybernetics that Cerberus had used to cobble her corpse back together, all while sometimes twirling slowly or hanging upside-down. At random intervals, one of the Admirals would lob questions at her, clearly designed to test the truth of her identity in distracting and uncomfortable circumstances. She never did find out what conclusions they had come to.
Now, weeks later, she was following James's broad back down increasingly impressive hallways. Two Marines, armed and armored, set a rear perimeter on her and kept pace. The presence of armed guards was familiar, but the armor was new. Buffed and polished, they looked very official. A wry suspicion started to form in her mind that was confirmed as soon as she stepped in to the meeting room.
Three figures were seated at a raised dais, lights on the desk before each of them intended to cast their features in authoritarian shadows. On one of them, it nearly worked - an older man whom she didn't recognize, with dark eyes that stared holes through her. A quick glance at his uniform told her he was a Vice-Admiral. On the other two, the effect was wasted. Admiral Anderson tipped his chin downward as he caught her eye, his neutral expression fully illuminated so that she could not miss the significant weight to his gaze. He was trying to warn her of something, but there was no way to tell what. Admiral Sakai glowed in her light, a porcelain island of calm placed in the center of the dais between the two men.
Somehow, tiny Admiral Sakai was the same height as Anderson and the other guy. Out of habit, Shepard turned her head slightly to murmur a comment to Garrus. ("What is she, sitting on a phone book?" she would snark. And then Garrus would have to ask what a phone book is, and she would explain, and he would have something mocking to say about the human obsession with printing ink onto pieces of wood pulp, and they would end up laughing together not nearly as quietly as they thought they were and generally being the most obnoxious pair in the room.) But the presence at behind her was not her turian friend, but a Marine who probably wouldn't think she was very funny. So she kept her mouth shut and tried not to twitch her shoulder against the sudden emptiness she felt at her back.
The arrangement of the room didn't help with that. In the center of the semi-dark space there was a plain metal rail, the kind that kept people from walking into galaxy maps and other holo projectors. The small space in front of that rail was illuminated by a spotlight from above. James gestured silently to that little pool of light, and she pressed her lips together to keep from snorting. So this was how it was going to be? The Tribunal seated comfortably on high, and herself, the accused, humbled and debased to stand below them and face their judgement.
The imagery was too heavy-handed to have been Admiral Sakai's design, and too antagonistic to come from Anderson. That left the mysterious Vice-Admiral.
Ever the good soldier, Shepard stepped into her pool of light and snapped off a salute. It wasn't returned because it didn't have to be.
"Thank you for joining us today, Commander Shepard," Admiral Sakai greeted, her voice as calm and measured as Shepard recalled from their last encounter.
Shepard settled to at-ease and gave a single nod. "Ma'am."
"Before we begin," Admiral Anderson's rich baritone rolled through the room, "I feel it is my duty to remind everyone in this room that the very fact that we're calling this farce a tribunal is a tacit acknowledgement that we are, in fact, in a state of war." Inwardly, Shepard smirked. The Tribunal had been Anderson's idea. The Admiral doth protest too much.
The Vice-Admiral responded smoothly, as though he had anticipated this point. His dark gaze did not leave Shepard. "It is also a tacit acknowledgement that former-Commander Shepard is considered a potential enemy combatant."
"In a war that has never been officially declared!" Anderson's volume rose, and this felt like an old argument being repeated for the sake of getting it on the record.
The Vice-Admiral tore his gaze away from Shepard and glanced all-too-casually down at a datapad on his desk. "If Admiral Anderson would prefer that we proceed with a court-martial, instead, I will remind him that I have the documentation ready here," he tapped the datapad, "All that it needs is our signatures."
"Gentlemen," Admiral Sakai's serene tone forestalled whatever retort Anderson had been about to spit out, "The purpose of convening today is neither to debate the nature of these proceedings, nor to establish Commander Shepard's status. Vice-Admiral Williams, I will have my staff forward the transcripts of this tribunal's second session to your office, so that you may review them."
Williams? Surely not … "That won't be necessary, Admiral."
"Then let the record show that this tribunal has already established that, in all ways relevant and medically provable, the woman before us today is the same Commander Shepard who was killed in action and went down with her ship nearly three years ago." Good to know. Somehow, Admiral Sakai's so-calm voice made that impossible fact sound commonplace, "She is to be accorded the same consideration as any Alliance officer in these proceedings."
"Agreed." Anderson rapped a knuckle on his desk for emphasis.
The Vice-Admiral who was starting to look a bit familiar gave a stiff nod. "Understood."
"Commander Shepard." There was a very slight note of reproach in Admiral Sakai's tone that said she was finally being allowed to return to what she had been about to say at the beginning, when Anderson interrupted. "The purpose of today's inquiry is to explore the nature of the squad that assisted you in your recent endeavors. Are you prepared to answer any and all questions presented to you?"
Ah-ha, so that was what Anderson had been trying to warn her about. He damn well knew that her team had been full of folks who were (she imagined Garrus offering up descriptors: Colorful? Violent? Wanted for crimes that would make an Elcor weep?) no longer on record with the Normandy, or at most of the locations that the Normandy and her crew had visited while working with Cerberus. EDI had been very thorough. Now it was time for Shepard to corroborate that lack of information.
Shepard nodded, her face schooled to a stoic soldier's mask. "Yes ma'am."
Vice-Admiral Williams picked up a second datapad, but did not look at it. Instead, he skewered Shepard with a shadowed gaze. It might have been intimidating if she hadn't already gone toe-to-toe with … hell, she tried to think of just one person she had confronted in the past three years who was more scary than Williams, but the list just kept going on and on. She reminded herself that this man had earned his rank, and had a power over her that she had agreed to submit to by returning to the Alliance, so she had better get over herself and start listening.
"Our tactical experts have reviewed the data that you delivered regarding the assault on this alleged Collector base," Vice-Admiral Williams began, "and they have come to the conclusion that you simply could not have successfully assaulted a facility of that magnitude with the squad that you claim to have had."
After a polite pause to ensure he was done speaking, she matter-of-factly asked, "Sir, did your tactical experts account for the technical finesse of a salarian scientist and a quarian machinist prodigy?"
Williams was ready with an answer, "Mordin Solus's records are sealed by STG -"
Anderson interjected, "Which should speak volumes on its own."
And Williams ignored him, "- and as for the other, I assume that you are referring to Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya?"
He tapped at the datapad, and a pale blue glow started on the floor just beyond the rail that she stood by. Sure enough, it was a holo projector. An image of Tali's face (er, her helmet) appeared to float in the space between Shepard and the Tribunal. Shepard recognized it from the dossiers in the Normandy's roster, the weirdly candid photo with the sassy head-tilt that no Cerberus photographer could have prompted Tali to do. Not for the first time, Shepard idly wondered if EDI had gone data-mining in the Shadow Broker's files.
A small shake of her head, "No, sir. I am referring to Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. When she was exiled from the Migrant Fleet, she took the name of the ship that she served on."
That earned her a frown from the Vice-Admiral. "Do you honestly expect us to believe that a quarian would take the name of a human ship?"
"It was her home, sir," she gave the pure, simple fact.
"Preposterous!"
Anderson held up a hand, "I believe Commander Shepard's claim is corroborated by the Migrant Fleet's response to our requests for Tali'Zorah's service record."
Williams turned to face him, "We can hardly consider their inquiry as to when the Normandy will be returning to active duty to be a response."
"Specifically, with Commander Shepard as Captain," Anderson pointed out.
Admiral Sakai, smooth as silk, brought the conversation back on track. "Regardless, the Migrant Fleet's records of Tali'Zorah's abilities would be out of date in comparison to the testimonies of the engineers with whom she served during her time aboard the Normandy."
Admiral Anderson consulted his own datapad, "Her current competence has been rated higher than most Alliance engineers can hope to achieve in a full career."
Vice-Admiral Williams waved a dismissive hand, "By Engineers Daniels and Donnelly, both of whom are under investigation, themselves, for their defection to Cerberus. Their assessment is suspect, at best. Even if we were to take them at their word, it still would not account for the ease with which former-Commander Shepard claims to have taken this alleged Collector base."
Ease, he had said. He thought they had taken the base with ease. Shepard's jaw clenched as the memory flashed behind her eyes.
Tali was in the thermal vent, sickly green translucent panels providing just enough glimpses of the little quarian for her small fire team to keep apace. Roar of a shotgun melds with a Krogan's war-bellow, Grunt plowing ahead, the blunt and unstoppable tip of their spear. Crack-crack of a sniper rifle was the only sound Thane made, announcing the elegant demise of two more Collector drones. Comms crackled, Tali reporting yet another obstruction in the vent.
"Not much good as a vent, is it? All those obstructions seem to sorta defeat the purpose," Garrus on comms, taking a moment from leading his own team to put in his two cents. Tali quipped back, and Shepard didn't shush them. Trapped and defenseless in a rapidly heating tube, Tali needed all the reassuring banter she could get. And if Garrus had time to crack wise, then his team was doing just fine. Comforting her and Tali in one fell snark; the turian was nothing if not efficient. She held back her own retort so that she could keep an ear open to the firefight around her, listening and waiting for ...
Not yet, apparently. Mattock a familiar weight against her shoulder, she sent a brief spray of incendiary rounds to keep the drones' heads down while she broke from cover, confident that Thane would protect the rest of her movement without needing to be told. Sub-audible whomp of biotics and an insectoid screech behind her, and she grinned. Her lover had a way of punishing enemies who tried to shoot her in the back. Bullets were too good for them; crushed organs and broken bones were better.
Armored shoulder punched the button that would release the obstruction as she turned to face the firefight once more. Tali warbled a relieved thanks and moved on through the vent. And then the shit hit the fan.
"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL." There he was.
The walls suddenly boiled with Collectors, pouring down on her team, blocking her shot on the one that was suddenly glowing with Reaper influence. Noise poured into Shepard's ears.
Grunt roared a challenge, trying to carve a path through the enemy throng and failing. There were just so damn many of them. Garrus barked over comms that his team was meeting heavy resistance. Collectors screeched, biotics hummed, bullets pinged on walls and zapped her shields to pin her to cover and keep her from advancing. Through it all, there was Tali's increasingly frantic voice over comms reporting yet another obstruction that left her trapped and cooking alive in that damned vent.
Shepard gritted her teeth. Added to the cacophony by lobbing two grenades into the mass, then leaped from cover and ran like hell for the next button. Claws scrabbled over her armor, but she didn't bother trying to fight them, too busy running. A glowing carapace suddenly loomed in her path, the Collector being puppeted by the Reaper intelligence and determined to kill her, just her. To Harbinger, Shepard was the prime target. Her furious instincts screamed at her to kill him just as Tali screamed in fear and pain. It wasn't even a choice. Shepard ducked to the side, rolled past the Harbinger-puppet and kept running.
Harsh buzz of her shields failing, sharp impact of bullets finally hitting her armor, piercing through to her flesh, but all she could hear was Tali's screams. She dove, heedless of the chaos around her, rolling at the last moment to strike the button with her shoulder. The obstruction released, Tali sobbed in relief, and Shepard turned to come face-to-face with Harbinger.
Yes, that had been so easy. Vice-Admiral Williams was old enough to have fought at Shanxi, where humans and turians had first discovered a mutual talent for bloodshed. For him to scorn the hell that her squad had gone through in fighting a new and frightening alien threat ... it could only be a deliberate provocation. With an effort, she unclenched her jaw. She could not afford to rise to that bait. Time to stay focused on protecting the people who had helped her. "Do the Alliance tactical experts have a way to quantify the impact of a centuries-old asari Justicar on a battlefield?"
Williams pressed his lips together. He didn't like this particular point. Admiral Sakai lifted her own datapad, and with a few delicate finger-touches called up a series of graphs to the holo projector. Lines in blue for the asari, and white for the Alliance. The graphs were very telling, but Sakai verbalized the results anyway, "As you can all see, in matters of biotic power the average asari commando exceeds all known human military standards."
"I think it's safe to assume that Justicar Samara is well above average," Anderson rumbled, "She offered her service record without being asked, you know. Centuries of data. I had to task two aides to analyzing it 'round the clock, and they're still not done. But what they've reported so far is … impressive."
"Chilling, is more like it," corrected Williams, "That asari is a killer."
"Precisely," Shepard agreed. "In her own way, Justicar Samara is the most principled, controlled warrior I've ever met." A pause, there, as she let the Tribunal consider the full spectrum of warriors met by Commander Shepard. "And she is an undeniable juggernaut of biotic ability. She was an unstoppable force of authority and justice in asari space when humans were still trying to turn lead into gold and burning witches at the stake."
"Your point, Shepard?" Williams sounded bored.
"Sir, my point is that my squad was extraordinary. Every last one of them." Anderson took his cue, tapped his datapad, and suddenly the holo projector was wiped of graphs and displayed dossier photos. Shepard pointed at each image in turn as she spoke, her voice taking on the subtly fierce cadence of command as memories of farewells whispered in the back of her mind:
"Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and Justicar Samara, you already know. Jacob Taylor and Miranda Lawson: Cerberus operatives, competent in the extreme regardless of their affiliation. Doctor Mordin Solus, in his spare time he cured a plague that had been engineered by the Collectors to kill all non-humans on Omega. ..."
"Glad to have been here, Shepard. Honor. Have taken Collector tissue samples. Will study forced evolution from Protheans, prepare for possible imminent Reaper invasion."
"... Urdnot Grunt, genetically engineered to meet the Krogan standard of perfection. ..."
"We can leave Okeer's genetic tinkering out of it," she offered. He gave that slow chuckle, "Heh heh heh. If they wanna make somethin' of it, let 'em come. If the rest of your Alliance is like you, they'll make worthy enemies for Clan Urdnot."
"... Flight Lieutenant Moreau, the best damn pilot the Alliance has. Period. ..."
"Don't worry, Commander. They''ll never get rid of me. I'm like space herpes!"
"... And Garrus Vakarian, the finest officer C-Sec ever lost. He helped me take down Saren, and Sovereign, and now the Collectors. ..."
"Where will you go?" she asked, striving for casual. He saw right through her, like always, his mandibles flicking in a dry chuckle, "Not back to Omega, if that's what you're asking. Think I'll go home, to Palaven. Try and get somebody, anybody, to listen to our crazy story. And Shepard …" his hand hovered over her shoulder, hesitating a moment before clasping, "... take care."
"... Every last one of them followed me through the Omega-4 relay and into the mouth of Hell itself, because they knew that it wasn't just the lives of thousands of human colonists at stake. And every last one of them came back. Because they are all. That. Good."
The Tribunal sat in silence. Anderson gave her a barely perceptible nod. Admiral Sakai was inscrutable, gaze flickering over the holo images. Williams stared at Shepard, his jaw set in a hard line. He drew breath to speak, and when he did it didn't much matter to Shepard any more. He was going on about rumors that Garrus had actually been the vigilante known as Archangel, but Shepard made no comment. She didn't have to - Sakai was already pointing out that Council law did not extend to Omega, and Anderson was retorting that if Garrus had been a vigilante targeting criminal organizations that it spoke in favor of his character rather than against it. This session was all over but the shouting. The important thing was that five particular names never did come up. Kasumi, Jack, Zaeed, Thane, and Legion. Four criminals and one impossible ally. EDI had been very thorough, indeed.
The litany of her comrades had filled her with renewed pride in each of them, and refreshed her determination to see this Tribunal through. It was imperative that the Alliance trust her, or they wouldn't believe the Reapers were a threat until it was too late.
Afterwards, on the way back to her quarters, there was a subtle change in the three Marines escorting her. They had been present in the Tribunal chamber throughout the session, and though they hadn't spoken they had apparently been listening. Before, their formation around her had been full of the tense, surrounding watchfulness of guards with a prisoner. Now, the two behind her moved closer to her flanks, and James shifted a step to one side so that as he led her down the halls he did not obstruct her. Taking point. They moved like a squad in formation with her, rather than Marines protecting the rest of the world from her.
After weeks of solitude, the change did her soldier's heart good.