"Will Major Garroth Kyle please come forward." The VI spoke serenely.
A man in a pristinely kept suite stood up from the crowd. His hair was gray, but his eyes were still and brown as the earth. Many would have said that his eyes were gorgeous. Yet they possessed a deeply disturbed element within their depths. He calmly walked down and took the oath. The Prosecution had the ability to question him first.
Cassandra kept up her lackadaisical demeanor as she approached him. " Major Kyle." Her voice sounded sweetly. "Do you know the defendant?"
Without so much as a look towards Shepard he simply responded. "Yes."
"Could you please tell the court how?" She asked.
"She was a subordinate of mine when I was with the Alliance Navy. She served with me at Tor.." He coughed clearing his throat. "She served with me at Torfan." Major Kyle swallowed and said nothing more about it.
"I'm sorry Major. I didn't mean to bring up a bad topic." Cassandra said coyly.
"It's alright. Can't change the past. All one can do is move forward."
"I agree Major. And that is why we are here today, to move forward. But to do that I will need to talk with you about the past. Her past..."
Again he visibly swallowed.
"Now Major, The defendant was your XO before well before Torfan. Can you tell the assembly what your impressions of her were?" Cassandra said airily.
The Major settled back in to his seat. A pensive look pervaded his face. All could see he was going back, far back in time. Yet as before not once did he ever turn to look at Shepard.
"She was a leader, but very distant. Charismatic, yet cold. Her military background was Vanguard class, and it fit her style well for the most part, when dealing with any situation."
"The defendant was a Vanguard? Could you expand on that and also on her leadership style." Cassandra asked intently, and Major Kyle simply nodded.
"High risk, high reward is typically how Vanguards function in combat, and in life in general. Each one is a biotic, and while they not usually particularly gifted in biotics, it gives them an edge in combat. My personal experience is that Vanguards tended to be thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies." He exhaled heavily. "They are a combat officer's greatest weapons in the field, and their greatest headache when off duty. But she never fit completely into that mold."
"How so?" Cassandra queried.
"Pragmatic is the word I would use. Her style was still reckless for the standard soldier, but unlike most Vanguards who charge head long in to a fight like a bowling ball going for pins, she was much more calculating. " He laughed nervously. "During training missions and simulations, her squad routinely bested the rest of the unit."
"And how did she interact with rest of the unit during off duty times?" Cassandra asked.
"She didn't. She spent most of her time alone."
" But she must have had friends."
"Acquaintances yes, friends no. She rarely spent any off duty time with any one."
"Did she have any...romantic entanglements?" Cassandra asked slyly.
Frustration started to appear on Major Kyle's face. "No, and before you even think about asking me if I'm sure; I can assure you that I kept close tabs on my people. The last thing I wanted was to lose good people to Alliance regulations because they felt...lonely."
Cassandra's eyes flashed. "You don't think that the Alliance has those regulations for a reason?"
The Major winced. "I didn't...that is not what I wanted to infer."
She didn't press him any further on the matter. It was clear that his statement was not a target worth chasing at the moment. "What would she do on her off duty time if she wasn't spending time with others?"
"If she wasn't tinkering with her weapons and armor, she was either in the gym or studying." The Major said candidly.
"Did you know of her study topics?" Cassandra queried.
"Not all of them no. She was keenly interested in military tactics and history. She also studied linguistics from time to time." He responded almost haphazardly.
"How would you describe her leadership style?" Cassandra asked, as she continued to lazily pace back and forth.
"Superior experience, and pure strength of will." He replies with certainty.
Cassandra smirked softly. "That is a little vague Major, almost sounds like she uses Indoctrination."
If the words used were intended as they were displayed no one was sure. But their effect on the court assembly was telling. Looks of panic stricken shock graced the faces of most beings in the chamber. Even Major Kyle took a moment to process the connection.
"Ah...no! I meant that her strength with dialog and understanding was impressive. In critical situations she knew exactly what to say and when to say it, and also when to listen to those around her." He impulsively rubbed the back of his neck.
Cassandra turned on him, and her features had changed. Feral and smiling was the only was to describe her. "You make it sound as if Shepard was perfect..."
"...I never said that..." The Major replied with haste.
Cassandra quickly leapt in to the opening that she had created. "Tell me Major; from your experience has she ever used coercion to force her view on another?"
The Major gawked at her. "..what.."
"During the time that she served with you, did the defendant ever use duress to...twist...others to support her views?" Cassandra.
He swallowed hard, and her smile only grew.
"Do you know much about the N7 program? It was ran to twenty years, and with you having a N7 in your company you must have known about it." She asked changing her approach.
"The N7 program? There was no program. N7 was just a military proficiency ranking..." The Major replied candidly.
"Oh come now Major. We both know that is not true..." Cassandra said sweetly, smiling like a viper. She sauntered back to her desk and picked up a data pad. " If it was, then why wasn't the defendant ever reclassified? A simple 'paper work' malfunction? A classic data base corruption? I think not..."
"Obb...Objection!" Admiral Machalovich yelled. He was standing out of his chair his fists on the table, outrage painting his face. "Any information concerning proficiency classifications for the Alliance Systems Military is not available to the public!"
He would have continued, but Udina simply raised his hand to silence the man. "The Alliance Parliament and the Council have reached an agreement concerning this Admiral. I assure you it is quiet alright, unless you want to take it up with them; after the trial."
The Admiral slammed back into his seat, his face still seething.
Cassandra walked back towards the Major as if she hadn't heard a thing. "Now I don't think you need to see this, and I don't think we need to go in to the details of the program. But you were well aware of the defendant's involvement in the program weren't you."
Major Kyle seemed to cringe at the memory of the program and Cassandra looked over to Gianna expecting her to say something. But the Defense kept her silence, and her face betrayed nothing to Cassandra. She turned her attention back to Major Kyle.
"Yes I was aware." He said finally.
"How did this effect the other soldiers that served with in your unit, knowing that had an N7 operative in their ranks." She soothed.
He was quiet for a long time. The audience held their breath. Shepard just continued to look straight ahead.
"They followed her lead with very little argument. They feared her." He said.
"Why?" She asked.
"Reputation, scuttlebutt. How should I know?" He responded shakily. "Do I really need to explain why a group of regulars would even want to try to argue, let alone try to go up against, a single N7 operative?" He said in frustration.
"No." Cassandra said satisfied. "You don't." She took a few steps back. Rays of rusty light cascaded around her shifting her giving her the visual aspiration of a shape shifter. "Because we know what happened at Torfan."
The Major's eyes fell to the floor. A silver visibly ran through him.
"Would you say that the Defendant was driven by her experiences as a child? Losing her family to a raid on Mindoir?"
"Driven? She had a bloodlust. She wanted nothing more then revenge..." The Major responded.
Cassandra again walked back to the Prosecution's table and took up another data pad. "Major. I understand the strain of Command." She said understandingly as she walked back towards him. "The stress of commanding those around you. Even sending them to their deaths." She made a point to look in Shepard's direction as she said this, and Cassandra began to pace back and forth. Her foot falls redounded around the chamber.
"I've seen your record. You knew how to conduct operations with the best of Military honor and dignity. Yet unfortunately, you suffered an illness which incapacitated you. Your command was taken from you, and was given to the defendant in your stead, is that correct?"
The Major swallowed. But he quickly composed himself. "Yes."
Cassandra upheld the datapad as if it was a trophy. "Here, are the eye witness accounts of the Assault team members that survived Torfan." She said to the court as she gave the image as to purse through the pages on the screen. "Mostly they read the same. 'Extolling' the Defendant's choices. But as a person pears through them...disturbing threads develop."
She looked up and locked eyes with the Major. "Could you please tell the court the Council's official statement about the Assault on the moon of Torfan?"
"The Council viewed Torfan completely as an Alliance matter outside of Council Jurisdiction as a result of the Pirate siege of Elysium." The Major spoke clearly.
Cassandra smile. "Do you know the Council's 'unofficial' position of Torfan?"
The question caught the Major off guard. She looked up to the pedestalled beings; up toward Udina, who simply nodded his head. She turned her eyes back on to the Major and gave him a hard look.
"They branded the entire operation as Ruthless. Destructive. Cruel, and heartless. At best a power demonstration not unlike Dresden back in the twentieth. At worst, calculated destruction and murder." The Major replied with a hint of shame on his voice.
The court's gaze was suddenly fixed on Shepard, but she wavered not at all. Said nothing at all. Nothing could be discerned from her features, except that her eye's shone with a cold hollow blue.
"Calculated...Destruction...and Murder." Cassandra seemed to savor the words as they slipped off her tongue and in to the Court room air. "It is those things which the eyewitness accounts point to in both fear and awe isn't it Major?"
The air in the Tribunal was still. It mirrored the same quiet that was held in the streets, in the homes, and in the crowded cantinas beyond.
The Major then began to speak in a detached tone. His voice sounded spectral as he reviewed the events on that small and worthless moon. "The Assault of the bunker is used in Military schools Galaxy wide as a textbook example of small squad tactics. Yet, some accounts that were logged, that were not made public; That I have read, speak of the defendant threatening to execute Alliance personal if they didn't follow her command. That she used her status as a N7 operative as leverage over them. Of the defendant executing surrendered and unarmed Prisoners of War."
"Since when were Slavers and Pirates given the status of Prisoners of War?" Gianna roared breaking her silence. "Look what Slavers did to Mindior! What the Pirates tried to do to Elysium! Does that not require a response?"
"And there we have the lynch pin to it all! That for every harsh action that reaction must be harsher!" Cassandra fired back.
"Enough!" Councilor Valern said. "The prosecution will have a few more statements, then the Defense will be able to make it's case." He turned his predatory eyes on Gianna. "But if the Defense cannot let the Prosecution continue. If The Defense continues to be belligerent; then representative, you will be barred from interacting on the defendant's behalf for the rest of the day."
Gianna looked on unfazed by Valern's words, and Cassandra simply smiled.
The air was pierced as Major Kyle spoke with fervor. "Regardless of whether the accounts can be verified does not matter. How the Alliance sees or saw the status of the opposition on Torfan does not matter. What matters is the fact that over half the survivors of the Assault team share similar statements. That is telling. The known facts support their statements." The Major said with conviction. His gaze was emotionless and cold. "That the defendant ordered the destruction of a viable ecosystem. That not one enemy combatant was taken alive for questioning. The entire Torfan operation was slash and burn."
"And Alliance let it happen." He finished.
The court room erupted in a fury of speech. The Council looked on serenely, but at the Jury table, Admiral Machalovich and his subordinates were furious. The other Jurors spoke to each other. The Batarian delegation on the other hand looked on with satisfied expressions.
"Thank you Major. Thank you." Cassandra said sweetly as she gracefully turned and walked back to the Prosecution's table.
"Defense Parasini, you're witness." Councilor Daice said Cooley.