Shepard regained his awareness to taste the stale air of a sealed environment, probably some sort of spacecraft. His ears picked up a quiet yet constant humming of machinery, and when he briefly opened his eyes to scan the room the grey, metallic bulkheads and bland surfaces confirmed his suspicions. Given the state he had left the batarians in, and the fact that he appeared to have been treated with transfusions as well as further medigel, he felt it was safe to assume that he had been successfully picked up by the Alliance.
Footsteps were heard, and he opened his eyes to regard the medic. Human. He had confirmation; he was safe. He began to sit up, and tried to lift his hands to examine the wounds to his face and torso, and was rapidly forced to revise his analysis of the situation.
He was cuffed to the bed.
"Might I ask whether this is really necessary?" He asked the female doctor, who flinched when she realised that he was awake.
"The admiralty believes so. If you wish to persuade them otherwise, then don't worry. Admiral Hackett wishes to debrief you in person as soon as you are fit."
So, this is Arcturus... how long was I unconscious?
"Well, I wouldn't mind getting into some of my own clothes..." Shepard said, looking down at the light blue patient's gown covering his body with evident distaste. He disliked wearing anything that wasn't black, as a rule.
"Certainly." The medic said, with a faint smile, almost despite herself, apparently. Then, she gestured to the door, and Thaddaeus understood why. Two Alliance military police personnel walked in, the pair of them practically armed gorillas in uniform, and released him from his restraints.
"So nice to see that the Alliance has retained its sense of subtlety whilst I was out." Shepard commented, stretching, and then examining his injuries, all of which were healing satisfactorily, although the gashes to his face and neck, it seemed, would scar. Shepard didn't mind in the slightest, and rolled out of bed before dressing himself in black lightweight combat fatigues; the clothes that Shepard always wore these days when he wasn't in armour. Over them went the trenchcoat that someone had left for him with his other possessions, a peculiarly thoughtful gesture when one considered the fact that he was clearly under suspicion of wrongdoing, and possibly facing a court martial.
However, Shepard wasn't too worried; the issue was doubtless related to the fact that Shepard was the only one to survive from his own squad, and the negative light that Kyle's more coherent ravings had surely cast him in would mean that they would want to be cautious until they could find out from him what had actually happened. Shepard already knew what he would tell them.
When he was dressed, the gorillas approached him again, bearing handcuffs. Shepard sighed. "If I was going to run I would have done it already. Is this absolutely necessary?" They didn't answer. Shepard let them put on the handcuffs, binding his wrists in front of him, a reassuring move, if only because it allowed him a level of autonomy and freedom.
They walked him through the corridors, Shepard managing somehow to look casual, nonchalant, in control, walking in a relaxed, loose fashion that made observers forget that he was wearing handcuffs and under escort. It allowed him to observe their reactions towards him in a more scientific fashion. What he was surprised to find was that the reactions were almost universally fear and hostility.
Surely one rumour of the ravings of a tortured madman couldn't do this? I wasn't exactly loved, but I was acknowledged and accepted, before...
The MP grunts escorted him out of the medical wing, and took him to the law enforcement and detention hub, before leaving him in an interrogation chamber, predictably, with one of those clichéd two-way mirrors. He was directed to sit down by a grunt, and rewarded the under-evolved ape a disdainful look, before going to lean against the mirror, on the side of the questioner. That earned him a few glares, but his response was a calm look that said 'Try to move me and I'll demonstrate why people should fear me'.
He wasn't made to wait as long as he had expected, him being merely a lowly Corporal, after all. After about five minutes, Admiral Hackett entered, adjutant in tow, though a quick glance and a shake of the head had her remaining outside.
"Admiral Hackett." Shepard acknowledged his presence with a nod that was dangerously close to becoming a mocking bow. "I'd do a proper salute, but your... ah... boys seemed to think it necessary to put handcuffs on me. Despite the fact that with my hands out in front I could do all sorts of damage anyway..."
Hackett sighed heavily, and went to sit down on the prisoner's side of the room, opposite Shepard, before nodding to the gorillas, telling them they could leave.
"You seem to be the only one around here comfortable with the concept of being alone with me." Shepard noted. It made for a pleasing change. "Care to tell me why I'm being treated like a criminal? You're a reasonable man from what I know of you, Hackett; you wouldn't just persecute a war hero on the say so of some poor, deranged sod that became unhinged by torture."
"You're right; I wouldn't. You, however, Shepard are not a war hero. And I am not persecuting you merely on the basis of Major Kyle's ravings."
Oh, SHIT-
"O'Reilly..." Shepard breathed, knowing immediately that the man wasn't bluffing. "Son of a-"
"So, want to get in your side of the story? Because from where I sit, it's pretty damning. You got most of your squad killed through recklessness, taking a role that shouldn't even have been yours and usurping the chain of command, even murdering a superior officer, using torture and execution on enemies that had surrendered... The list's a long one, Corporal. O'Reilly uploaded all of it to the wireless network in the science hub, and managed to send it to Command before you blew the hub. He was worried that you'd kill him too, mop up the loose ends... or should that be hack them off?"
"Well, I doubt denying those charges will get me anywhere, but just so that we're charging me on the basis of what I did and didn't do, I didn't kill the Irishman. A batarian did it for me, though I can't say I regret that now... or that I ever did..."
Shepard knew that he was more or less royally fucked. There was no point pretending, the only thing to be done now was to go out with some style, and maybe buy himself some time whilst he did it. Perhaps Cerberus would still be interested in his services, or the philanthropic Henry Lawson would pull some strings to prevent his talents from going to waste...
"So... does the public know yet? What about the 'dearly beloved'? You must have told them by now, since Kyle's sanity is MIA it's down to you to write the letters, telling them that a psychopathic bastard got their dearly departed killed just to get the job done and stay alive..."
"I have. They've demanded a public trial, leaked details to the media. They're calling you 'The Butcher of Torfan. Obviously they don't know all of the details, just getting your squad killed, executing and torturing prisoners..."
"Hah." Shepard snorted. "Oh, the wretched media, always trying to be evocative to sell a few more stories, and who cares if they sacrifice the truth doing it? I'm not a butcher; I'm a doctor, a surgeon, removing a defect from the galactic gene pool. Did you mention the batarian's mind control gadgetry? Or the fact that they're using ancient and advanced technology the likes of which we've never even seen before, and developing it solely for the purpose of driving humanity to extinction? Or would it have complicated things for the psychopathic scapegoat to have done what he did with humanity's interests at heart, as well as his own? Or didn't O'Reilly even mention that?"
"He did. And, I'll be honest, that was hell down there, Corporal. Even the main strike force agrees, and I'm certain they didn't have it anything like as rough as your boys. I highly doubt that anyone else could have kept those men alive, I doubt that anyone else could have used those men in the way that you did to get the job done. This galaxy is a rough place, Shepard. Humanity's going to have to be rough to keep on top, and we could have used you, as much as I hate to say it, but we need a scapegoat. This is as much about politics as anything else; you're in the way of the Alliance's agenda. If we want a seat on the council, we can't be seen to protect a war criminal."
Shepard now understood the coat. It was a not-so-subtle attempt to get people to associate him with the 20th century Nazi secret police, the Gestapo. Well, if they expected him to play the xenophobe, they were going to be disappointed.
"And as such, the trial's going to have to be public."
Hackett nodded. A gleam entered Shepard's eye.
"Well, this is going to be fun..."