THE "BASTION"
MAIN HANGER
CARGO PROCESSING
NOVEMBER 15th, 2188
"WELL, THAT DIDN'T WORK."
The two Piercer prisoners had been locked in a storage facility just off the Bastion's hanger. A control blister for the crane used to move cargo hung above it. At the moment it was used to watch their 'guests' without being seen. Their would-be interrogators could look out a window on either side into the makeshift cells. At Shepard's request, only he, the other Shepard and Miranda were to attempt the first interrogation. Everyone else concerned would watch on discreet monitors.
"I told you it was futile." Vnkar began pacing around the small room. "Actually listening to me could save you time and energy better served." He huffed and shook his head. "All this pointless shuffling gets us nowhere."
Vnkar had accompanied the two Shepards and Miranda as they'd attempted to question one of the Piercers – a young woman as it turned out – but she did nothing but rant about 'trickery', 'traps' and refused to do anything after but sing shrill hymns to the 'perfection of the Echo'.
"He has a point," Patrick told his counterpart as the other Shepard simply shook his head. "I've fought them before, when they invaded my space." Patrick looked down on the still-singing Piercer. "They usually just laugh in your face and then detail how many different ways they plan on burning your planet." He crossed his arms and made a point of looking at his counterpart although he could still see Miranda in his peripheral vision. "The singing's new. Of course, you rarely capture one intact."
"They're just Pandemonia." Vnkar added, stopping and thrusting a clawed finger at the window. "Those …things just die – they're expendable. They don't even have names. They're fodder. This thing is so pathetic it dies without even thinking of itself as an individual! You can't appeal to it as if it were a person!""
"But it is," Patrick reminded him, "whether you like it or not." He shook his head. "Still… you could stick hot needles in her eyes and she'd go right on singing. That fanaticism gives them a lot of power to resist."
"Trying to be reasonable certainly won't work." Vnkar resumed pacing. "Reason is as alien a concept as mercy to those things." He said the word 'reason' with heavy contempt. "You'll get nothing of value by being reasonable!"
Miranda was standing apart, though not consciously so and every time Patrick came near her she got again that odd feeling of being …watched, even if he didn't look at her, which he did, a lot.
"Strike and justify them," Miranda added. "Torture simply doesn't work and never has."
"I've done a few interrogations in my time and her responses are …curious." Shepard looked over at Patrick. "She seemed… surprised by us."
"I would have said 'bewildered'." Patrick had been pondering her responses as well. "And rather suspicious. Which was strange." He watched a computer readout on her health scroll by. An actual button was next to it and out of curiosity he tapped it. The screen flipped to a structural analysis of her armor. He pressed the button again and it flipped back. Interfaces weren't the same and the programming languages seemed unnecessarily complex. Fortunately his people had created something similar to the HAI system they used here and he could access most of their terminals with relative ease, though not access as much as he'd have liked. Still, nothing beat an actual key.
"Regardless, I'm afraid Vnkar is right." Shepard turned to contemplate the male Piercer on the other side. "Standard interrogation techniques are futile, if she's any standard to go by."
"We fought them for three years.," Patrick informed them. "Prisoners were rare but the few we managed …there were very few levers to use against them. One was threatening to remove their armor – that can rattle them," Patrick offered, "although that's hit and miss."
"Because they don't have the detonating kind, I assume."
"Only their Inquisitors and High Officers are so outfitted," Vnkar was contemptuous. "The detonating armor ensures loyalty and an officer's competence."
Patrick nodded in agreement with Vnkar. As he did so, the door sliced open and Flynn stepped in. Miranda found herself surprised by his presence.
"Roight so – wha'd I miss?" Flynn looked at Miranda as if he expected her to answer.
"You were supposed to be here forty..." Shepard admonished.
"I don't fookin' work fer you," Flynn reminded him, looking away briefly from her and then back again.
"You didn't miss much," Patrick said, stepping to the bounty hunter as the door closed behind him with his hand out. Miranda gave Flynn a small fleeting smile. She was done talking to him for the next little while. "The first one refused to say anything."
"Tha's hardly a su'prise," Flynn's voice held his skepticism for any Shepard's methods but his face was composed as he turned and looked at the man. He ignored the hand. Behind him, Miranda frowned. "Sure an' ye c'n hear her singin' haf'way across th' place… which means ye bolloxed up th' gurl."
"It's a learning curve," Shepard shot back dryly. Flynn walked past Miranda and deliberately stopped.
"Roight. Course i'tis."
Miranda bit her lip and saw Patrick frown. Flynn put his back to the wall directly behind Miranda and crossed his arms with a smirk. Flynn waved the man on.
"Don' let me stop ye."
Patrick's frown deepened as he turned and directed his next to Shepard. He coughed into his hand, trying to steer his mind back to business.
"Those troopers are still dependent on their rig, however. Strip them and they get nervous, believe me."
"That's one way," Shepard agreed. He glanced at Patrick. "It's a psychological chink we can explore."
Patrick joined him by the window. A similar readout displayed information on the man below. Unlike his fellow trooper, the one below was remarkably calm. Patrick saw a button near the display and again on a whim hit it. He waited a moment but nothing happened. With a slight shrug he turned his attention back to his companions.
"What about this religion? What do we know about this Echo of theirs?" he looked at Vnkar as he asked. "All we ever heard was how 'true and inevitable' it was."
"Don't look at me," Vnkar shook his head. "They didn't deign to teach it to us."
Unseen by anyone, the Piercer below looked up.
"From what I could glean after they arrived, it's considered the Voice of God – or at least, the echo of its voice, hence the name."
"The voice of the Echo is True!"
"What?" Shepard glanced at Vnkar.
"I didn't say anything."
"The voice of the Echo is True!"
Vnkar stepped forward with raised hands.
"He can hear us," Vnkar said in a low voice. The room went silent.
"How?" Patrick asked, just as quietly.
"The com's on," Shepard pointed to a small indicator. "Damn. How much has he heard?"
"I think I just turned it on, actually." Patrick raised a hand for silence and bent over the console. "Can you hear me?" He asked the air. There was a moment's hesitation from below.
"Yes, Lord!"
Patrick sent a look of surprise to the others. Flynn looked thoughtful. Shepard stepped over and muted the intercom.
"'Lord'?" He looked from Patrick to Vnkar. "Who does he think you are?"
"Who might you be?" Vnkar asked the two Shepards. "You two know enough to guess."
"I'd rather not hazard it," Shepard replied. He looked to Patrick.
"No idea," Patrick said.
"Come now," Vnkar scoffed. "You must be someone. A 'lord' someone in his reality. Are you commanding his mother ship?"
"Maybe he's gawd there," Flynn added dismissively.
Patrick eyed the Irishman and then said, "We'll be careful with what we say."
Shepard pondered for a moment.
"And how we say it. Let's try the basics," he said as he raised a finger and reactivated the intercom.
"Identify yourself," he told the man below. Again, the momentary hesitation.
"I am fifth fledge among the Scarweavers, Lord."
Shepard muted the intercom again. Vnkar blinked at the man's voice. It sounded rather young.
"Fledge? That was a training run? Would explain its failure."
"It didn't fail," Patrick reminded him. "It just didn't succeed."
"He didn't differentiate between your voices," Miranda noted.
"So, more Shepards," Victor shook his head. He was everywhere, apparently.
"In some semblance of command." Patrick paced away. "We can use this."
"Some 'semblance'?" Vnkar interjected. "That's not just an underling to a commander. That's reverence."
"You're imagining things," Shepard countered.
Patrick nodded in agreement and paced to a metre short of Miranda and came back. When he paced it was always toward her.
"He's a Piercer. From what I know they're not used for prisoner grabs. They're basically soldier-techs. They grab a ship, neutralize the crew and steal every scrap of information they can get. Occasionally they'll take specimens if they've never seen the species before."
"Out of their depth then." Shepard held up his finger again and hit the button.
"More than they expected," Vnkar muttered.
"What went wrong, Scarweaver?"
"Forgive us, Lord. We were not properly prepared. I am ashamed at this admission but it is the truth."
"Who sent you unprepared?" Patrick thrust his head forward.
"Lord, the Lord Dragon Commander of the Rebuke commanded our Captain to send us thus." The Scarweaver's voice was carefully neutral. Vnkar waved at Shepard who hit the mute.
"What?"
"So you're not this 'Lord Commander of the Rebuke'. Or his Captain." His mandibles juddered. "So what are you?"
Miranda regarded the turian for a moment. He had a point. Why was this Piercer talking when the other spent her time insisting that every word the two Shepards spoke was 'trickery'? She'd looked surprised initially, almost stunned but it had quickly sunk into a sullen and sharp anger.
"Someone those two answer to?" Miranda wondered aloud.
"Smart," She heard Flynn mutter to himself behind her. "Shut op an' lissen, boys."
"An overall field commander? All of the recent incursions feel like sorties to test strength." Miranda ran a hand through her short thick hair. "Which might mean their headquarters are relatively near."
Vnkar shook his head.
"No bases. They live in their ships. Why doesn't he assume this is a trick, like the other one did?"
"That would make sense," Miranda offered. She suddenly hit on why she thought the Piercer was talking when the other didn't. Behind her, she heard Flynn grumble-sigh quietly. She gave herself a moment and counted to three in her head.
"I'd think tha' were obvious," Flynn said just as she hit three. Miranda put a finger to her lips to supress a sudden smile. "Yer man there can't see ye, he c'n only hear ye. I'd say it's yer voice what matters, nawt yer slapped-up faces."
"I suppose it's possible." Shepard looked thoughtful, ignoring the jab. "Unfortunately we have no idea in just what capacity his Shepard might command. It's all supposition and weak supposition at that. I can't just start giving him orders."
"We could just ask him." Patrick leaned forward but Shepard stopped him.
"That would be suspicious. We should already know who we are, shouldn't we?"
"I can remember your voice," Vnkar said, voice low. He was gazing through the window, mind far away. The room stared at him. "When they came for the last of us. You spoke and my world burned."
"But…?" Shepard asked. He could hear it trailing the last word.
"I never saw you." Vnkar slowly focused back on Shepard. "The one with your voice, anyway."
"When they attacked my space, I didn't hear… me," Patrick supplied. "Only an Inquisitoria called 'The Hand of Dying Embers'."
"It was personal," Vnkar said, his voice low and throbbing with hate. "It came from a vessel so large it eclipsed our sun. So you're more than some vershet 'fleet commander'." He blinked and seemed to remember where he was. "That other one …over there, I mean."
Patrick eyed his counterpart for a moment who shrugged minutely and then jabbed the mute.
"What was your range of operations?"
"I do not know, Lord."
"Your Commander's mandate?"
"I do not know, Lord."
Again the mute.
"Makes sense. He's a specific-area specialist. A 'fledge', he said. Low on the ladder," Miranda reasoned.
"So he's useless," Vnkar insisted. "Like I said."
"Not necessarily," Patrick told him.
"Pay attention," Shepard told the turian. "Low on the ladder or not – he is a specialist. Basically a tech."
"Information retrieval," Patrick added, his mind clicking over.
"Likes a puzzle?" Miranda wondered. Flynn pushed himself off the wall.
"Fer feck's sake. Yer all over-bloody-thinkin' it."
Miranda glanced at him. Experience told her that the more complicated a thing was there was that much more that could go wrong. Keep it simple. She smiled to herself. Think like Flynn. She wondered to his inexplicable solidarity with her given his venom earlier.
"Perhaps the best course of action now would be to simply let them loose and see where they go?" Miranda put forth and Flynn nodded. Somehow she wasn't surprised.
"Zack'ly. Ol' school. It'd work. Let th' feckers go an' folla' 'em."
"It has potential." Shepard nodded to himself. Definitely old school.
"It's viable." Patrick amended. "Tricky but not impossible." He smiled Miranda's way. She gave him a slight nod.
Shepard scratched his chin in thought. "We could follow them in the Fierce Light. It has stealth capabilities, all the firepower we could need."
"Nawt tha' big bas'ard," Flynn dismissed the idea. "The Red Mane is ready ta go a'ready an' she hits damn hard fer 'er size."
"My ship is a Fist-class Interceptor," Patrick added. "The Revenger is easily the equal of anything in this space."
"…And each is powered by a massive testosterone drive." Miranda had her arms crossed and was shaking her head in condescension, making a point to look directly at Flynn as she did so. He simply stared until she looked away.
"Do they have anything to escape in?" She asked.
"One of the pods they hit the Phoenix in. Your Engineer took out the crew before they got too far. It's powered down, but functional."
"I can't believe you're contemplating this." Vnkar appeared as incredulous as a turian face could manage.
"Would they expect it?" Patrick asked him.
Vnkar thought about it and shook his head.
"I suppose they wouldn't. People aren't usually trying to go to them."
"So all we have to do is give them a clear run to their vessel and let them go."
"With appropriate shouting and gunplay?" Patrick asked to Miranda's nod.
"If necessary," she agreed. She took a step away from Flynn and toward Patrick.
"All th' unnecessary eejit shite aside," Flynn growled, "ye just manufacture a rest period fer ever'body an' dim the feckin' lights. They can nae know th' hours, roight? Leave a door open an' let 'em figger owt th' rest."
"Now that would work," Shepard told his old teammate. "I think they need some incentive, however."
Flynn scratched the N7 tattoo behind his ear and thought a moment.
"Incentive?" Patrick asked. "What more would they want than their freedom?"
"Yer still overthinkin' it," Flynn admonished, not liking the man at all if his tone of voice was any indication, "like this fella here said," he indicated Vnkar, "yer some high-up mucky-muck? Order the feckers to escape." A last look at Miranda. She took another small step toward Patrick.
"Finally," Vnkar complimented. "Someone was listening."
Flynn just looked cross and stomped to the door. It sliced open as he neared.
"Do it or don't, I don' really give a shite, so – but do feckin' somethin'. Time's flyin'." Without a backward look he walked through.
"The Major has a point," Shepard conceded as the door shut. "It's a sound idea."
Miranda found herself looking at the door and pulled herself back.
"It's as good as any."
Patrick and Vnkar agreed. Shepard reached for the comm.
"Liara? We need a favour."