Chapter 13
She walks up to the kneeling figure in front of her, the boots heavy against the floor, the black leather of her uniform creaking as it follows the movements of her body. 'That's me? What the f-... I'd never wear that!', she tries to object but the words won't come, she tries to move but her limps won't obey; silent and detached. She watches herself move around the platform, it seemed to be suspended in space with darkness surrounding on all sides, lit from above by a pale blue light. She stops before the kneeling figure, it raises its head, turning in her direction, four eyes wet with tears pierce through her mind. 'The batarian woman? No... no, this isn't how it happened."
"Can't even face me, can you maggot?" she hears herself say, the voice is raspy, it sounds hard and hollow. The batarian woman sobs loudly, keeping her eyes firmly on the observing Shia. She sees herself move around to the back of the kneeling woman, pulling out her pistol, the leather creaks as the gloves strain against the weapon. She pressed the barrel against the back of the woman's skull as she places the bears her teeth "Pathetic..." she hisses as her finger starts squeezing the trigger.
'No!' Shia tries to shout when a familiar voice interrupts her silent struggle. 'Dad?'
"Shiala..." Sarah says in a thick voice, appearing on the platform. Her shoulders are slumped and an expression of pain and sorrow paints her pale face.
"Admiral" she heard herself croak in a mocking tone.
"I never thought I'd see you like this..." she heard her father muse in sorrow "...You changed."
She saw her own face contort into a wicked grin before speaking again in that foreign, raspy voice "For the better" she said, pulling the trigger.
Shia sat up violently, the haze of sleep quickly fled her mind and she felt the intense throbbing of her heartbeat, the imagined gunshot still ringing in her ears. She struggled to get her frantic breathing under control, feeling on the verge of hyperventilating. Her head moved frantically from side to side in the piercing darkness as she tried to get her bearings. She felt the panic claw at the back of her mind before a faint mumble from the right side of the bed caught her attention. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could make out Janis lithe form tossing about gently under the covers; the sight put her at ease somewhat, at least enough to soothe the descent into panic. She sighed deeply, hoisting herself out of bed and putting on a pair of trainers to go with the regulation tank she used for sleepwear. Careful not the wake the sleeping quarian, she tripped gingerly and made her way out into the corridor towards the elevator.
She always found the crew deck to be eerie at this hour. The lack of crew present felt unnatural, and the knowledge that some of them were no doubt resting uncomfortably in the pods lining the walls somehow managed to make the feeling of loneliness even more pressing. She passed the dimly lit galley and made her way straight towards the lounge. The familiar faint scent of smoke and liquor felt oddly soothing and went well with the calm sea out stars visible through the viewport. The cabinet was well stocked, and she was pleasantly surprised to find an untouched bottle of Thessian brandy; not the fancy kind, of course, but still a decent one for navy pay grade. "Dads favorite" she chuckled mildly to herself as she pulled the bottle out and sat down in the soft couch in front of the large window.
Janis eyes flickered tiredly as they attempted to keep up with the stream of information running over the screen, she tapped a few commands into the pad she was working on before setting it down gently by the console. She'd been at it for almost a full day with little rest, she sighed while rubbing her eyes gently, they felt dry and strained and she felt a dull throb settle in behind them. "Why always a tenth layer of encryption?" she muttered, to herself more than anyone before picking up the pad again. The work was paying off at long last, the information streaming in front of her now in English rather than some obscure Khar'shan dialect. Translation was usually a simple matter as far as hacking alien tech went, but it seemed that the glossaries supplied by the Hegemony in the past had been far from comprehensive. She twitched visibly as James walked up behind her, having been so enthralled by her work, or simply too tired to notice the door.
"Captain!" she exclaimed, fidgeting with both her words and the pad in her hand.
"How's it looking?" He asked promptly, hiding a smirk from having startled her; it wasn't often the lumbering marine managed to make a discrete entrance anywhere.
"We're getting results, sir." she said, handing the pad over for inspection "I've managed to separate the comm logs and navcom routing orders from the rest of the database, we should have it all within a few minutes... There's a lot of data though."
James huffed his approval, wondering briefly if there even was such a thing as an incompetent Quarian. He hadn't served with many, but the few he had all seemed like mechanical magicians to him, and even the civilians seemed to be able to make everything from toasters and electric shavers to towering mechs do their bidding. In fact, he vaguely recalled Tali threatening to program the servos in his armor to do the kalinka if he wouldn't stop calling her 'Sparks', though he had been far more impressed with her knowledge of human dancing than the actual threat.
"There, that's everything." Jani said, pulling him from his thoughts.
"Good work. Have it encrypted and transferred to my private terminal, I'll need to analyze it all before sending it to Command." He replied, handing the pad back. "And Ms. Nara" he continued after a moments pause "The contents off these logs are confidential, and to be kept under wraps... at least until I know what we're dealing with here."
The severity of his voice made Jani swallow nervously. "Y-Yes... Captain." She said as she watched him exist the room.
She stared at the pad in her hand for a moment in indecision, overt curiosity had always been one of her more defining characteristics; a curse at times, but also her greatest strength. She bit her lip slightly before letting her fingers hover over the tactile interface and start the encryption process and queu the data transfer. Leaning over the terminal, she sighed deeply and wiped the local copy of the logs.
"Keelah, I could use some sleep... Or a drink." she muttured to herself as she leaned back back against the sleek, cold metal of the bulkhead.
The familiar low electronic buzzing and rythmic thumps of his limited musical database greeted James as he entered his cabin on the top deck. He sighed at the sight, despite a few years wearing captains stripes he was still a grunt at heart, and he still felt slightly uncomfortable with the relative luxury of his living space; though he had to admit that the bed really was a lot harder than it looked.
He tapped his omni-tool to shore up the ambient lighting, drowning out the cold blue shine of the vacant fish tank with a warm yellow glow and sat down at his desk. He groaned slightly at the pile of paper in front of him, the small table was virtually covered in crew evaluations, requisition orders and reports, making it stand out from the otherwise regulation neat quarters. He cleared the terminal from clutter and rejoiced quietly when he found the still smokeable remains of a cigar under a pile of engineering incident reports. He fired it up, letting the warm blue smoke circulate in his mouth and roll out over his tongue as he turned the screen on and loaded the the encrypted data, making a mental note to commend Jani on her expediency.
He quickly sifter thorough the navcom routing orders in the package. It was valuable intel, but not much use without being put in context, so he decided to focus on the comm log transcripts. Most of it was fairly mundane, but slowly the nuggets started to pile up; a personal message caught his eye.
"Confirming departure of two platoons out of Omega within the next ten days. Mostly Vorcha, I'm not sending you the heavy shit just yet, the Blood Pack's not that stupid. They're a mangy bunch of rejects, but just whip the scum hard enough and they'll fall in line.
- Jorgal Genk"
James sat back and chewed steadily on the now fairly damp cigar. Blood Pack? he thought in slight disbelief "The hell are they doing working with the Hegemony?"
He continued pouring over the logs, and as he went, more and more correspondence between the batarian station and various outside forces started to emerge. "Jesus... they've get half the terminus heading our way..." he scoffed as he read yet another message, this time from some rouge outfit of the Eclipse. The hours passed through a few more cigars and half a bottle of tequila, James rubbed his eyes wearily, giving them a moments pause from the intense glare of the screen. He scrolled down further and paused as he came up on a large sequence of departure requests in tight succession, he continued down to the end, finding a blanket alert notice immediately preceding the wave of departures. He sighed and opened the file, deciding that it would be the last one for the evening. As he read the short message, his face instantly grew pale and he swallowed hard in an attempt to clear the lump forming in his throat. "... joder!" he cursed under his breath as he tapped his comm.
"Why is this door locked?" Jani asked impatiently as she stood in front of the lounge.
["The door was sealed by verbal command at 04.36, Engineer Nara"] the VI informed coldly.
"That was 20 hours ago! By who!?" she exclaimed.
["The door was sealed by Corporal Shepard via verbal co-"]
"Yes, I heard you, just open the door!" she sneared.
["Command override is req-"]
Jani groaned loudly and simply set to work on the door interface. She didn't technically hold Alliance rank, and lacked authority, but as chief engineer she had access to the whole ship, and the process of overriding the lock was a simple and quick one. The door slid open and she entered the room, the residual smoke stung her sensitive sinuses and she recoiled slightly before entering the room and letting the door close behind her. She looked around the room slowly, it seemed empty.
"Shia?" she called out mildly as the took a step forward.
A set of familiar blue fringes shot up from behind the couch in front of her, and she jumped back a startled.
"Whu? Whutimeizit?" Shia blurted out only half awake.
"Nearly midnigt..." Jani responded as she made her way around the couch and sat down next to Shia. "Are you alright?"
Shia groaned and pushed away an empty bottle in mild disgust. "I don't know, Jani... I just..."
"What? You can tell me."
"I just don't know if I can do this... The violence, it makes me sick! And I'm supposed to be a soldier?"
Jani looked at her lover with deep empathy and stroked her fringe soothingly "A good soldier doesn't like to use violence, a good soldier knows when to avoid it, but isn't afraid to when there is no other choice."
Shia sighed deeply "I know... but I know I already have blood on my hands, and I know there will be more. That's the way it works, my father, she had to leave people to die. And captain Vega, he had to sacrifice a whole colony for the sake of the mission! I don't know if I could live with something like that"
Jani pulled her in tightly and kissed her, as she pulled away, she looked into her eyes intently. "I know you, Shia. I'm not saying it'll be easy, or fair, but I know that you'll make the right choices... whatever that may be" she pulled her into a tight hug before she continued "You're a lot stronger than you think you are, you know?"
Shia chuckled in between sobbing softly "Look who's talking"
They were interrupted by a loud buzzing sound, and the ambient lighting changed to a hue of red as the VI came in over the PA system, the shrill artificial voice echoing in the room. ["All hands to stations. Threat condition one."]