[A lawyer is appointed, but it's clear from the offset that no one expects a court martial to come down the pipeline immediately. Shepard suspects, more or less, that has something to do with Hacket or Anderson keeping the dogs off her for as long as they can. Eventually she knows the Batarians will raise enough of a fuss that the non-human elements of the Council will lean on Udina (or he'll come up with the idea himself) to encourage the Alliance Admiralty Board to get their shit together and break her across their knee, but for the moment she's coasting. It isn't exactly the Ritz and she's so far from being at her leisure that it might as well be in a different star system, but it isn't as uncomfortable as it could have been.
Which, come to think of it, is part of what's gnawing at her. At one point during a meeting (not the first, maybe the third) with the aforementioned lawer, she carefully recounts the events leading up to the desctruction of the Bahak system for what feels like the twelfth time. She tells it with the same dry, military precision she had the first eleven times including her initial report. That much is habitual. She's careful to outline only the facts and when she's finished, the lawyer looks at her askance and asks: "Do you regret what happened at all?"
She stares at him for a solid beat. Does she? She can feel some heat flaring up the back of her neck, locking a muscle in her cheek to clamp her jaw shut tight. Who wouldn't regret the loss of half a million lives? A psycopath. "I don't think regret factors into whether the decision I made was justifiable at all. Which is, correct me if I'm wrong, what the point of any hearing would be," she tells him coldly. He doesn't ask her again.
Afterwards, she scrapes together what little clout she has with the grunts ferrying her to and from her quarters to get her some net access. Once she has a datapad (on the condition that all her mail will be appropriately monitored), she spends an uncomfortably long time at a loss for who she wants to write to. She composes half a message to Liara, then deletes it. Eventually though:]
SUBJECT: Priority Message
Ex-Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau,
You don't happen to have Gardner's comm address, do you? I need to insult him for ruining mess hall food for me. Everything tastes awful now.
[When it had come time to fly back to the Alliance with their stolen ex-Cerberus ship, Joker'd had the chance to back out. He wasn't Alliance personnel anymore, and he'd been court martialed and joined up with a terrorist group and there was the whole Bahak fiasco. He knew that he'd be dragged into the same shit as Shepard if he went back with her, and it'll be no easier for him, even though he's the subordinate here, because he's got that mark on his record to start with.]
[But it's been the two of them since the start, so he figures he can't leave now.]
[The situation as a whole has been much the same for Joker-- interviews, a long, uncomfortable-but-not-as-uncomfortable-as-it-could-have-been detainment, and days spent under extreme scrutiny while he helps the Alliance's teams retrofit the Normandy, carefully keeping EDI's cover as a VI intact. His reception by the soldiers is a little different, though-- he may have been part of the same crew that took down Saren and now the Collectors, helped save the Citadel and the free peoples of the galaxy and all that jazz, but he's not getting any favors from them. They all know about his court martial and his discharge, and that he's the one who got Shepard killed in the first place by being bad at taking orders. She's the hero; he's the ass she died for.]
[He suspects that the only reason he has brief access to a datapad and a network is because Shepard's sent him a message. Otherwise, there's no way in hell that the brass would trust him with a net connection or that the grunts would give it to him out of the kindness of their hearts.]
SUBJECT: RE: Priority Message
Cmdr Lydia Shepard, If you're spoiled from Gardner's cooking, I'm sorry for, like. Your entire life. Remind me once we're out of this shit to get you some real food. We'll go someplace fancy and you'll probably shoot it up or something, but at least wait until after we get served.
You're buying. You'll still be making more than me.
[Much like in real life because Abby is a scrub, It's a few days before a response pings back thanks to the variability of when she has access. It reminds her of being fresh out of basic, stationed on patrol out past comm buoy access - sending and receiving messages every ten days when they looped close enough to some fragment of civilization and not much else.
It is, in a few words, a terminally boring way to communicate.]
Ex-Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, There's nothing wrong with food that comes in a can. Or plastic. Or whatever. But sure, you pick the place and I'll front the credits.
How're you holding up?
- Shepard
[She spends some minutes frowning at the second line, unsatisfied by it. There's probably a better question to ask, or at way to turn it into a crack, or just straight out something more to say. But she finds she doesn't have the patience to be anything but relatively straightforward. It's been a long day. She's been fronting annoying questions all afternoon.]
[Terminally boring, like their lives right now. Except with that extra edge of anxiety that comes from the looming threat of potential court martial over that whole Batarian thing, because boy are they not happy about that. Joker doesn't get a whole lot of news, being cut off from the extranet most days, but he's got the general gist of that situation.]
Cmdr Lydia Shepard, Everything is wrong with that sentence. It's bad and you should feel bad. How about a good steak place, you like steak, right? And like, real steak from actual cow, not the vat-grown crap that can't even be legally called beef. There are two important things with steak, 1. it comes from something that was once actually a functional animal and 2. don't overcook it. Anything over medium rare is ruining it, don't tell me you're one of those people who get their steak done until it's crispy.
And the fact that I just spent that much time on steak should probably tell you how I'm doing right now.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Which, come to think of it, is part of what's gnawing at her. At one point during a meeting (not the first, maybe the third) with the aforementioned lawer, she carefully recounts the events leading up to the desctruction of the Bahak system for what feels like the twelfth time. She tells it with the same dry, military precision she had the first eleven times including her initial report. That much is habitual. She's careful to outline only the facts and when she's finished, the lawyer looks at her askance and asks: "Do you regret what happened at all?"
She stares at him for a solid beat. Does she? She can feel some heat flaring up the back of her neck, locking a muscle in her cheek to clamp her jaw shut tight. Who wouldn't regret the loss of half a million lives? A psycopath. "I don't think regret factors into whether the decision I made was justifiable at all. Which is, correct me if I'm wrong, what the point of any hearing would be," she tells him coldly. He doesn't ask her again.
Afterwards, she scrapes together what little clout she has with the grunts ferrying her to and from her quarters to get her some net access. Once she has a datapad (on the condition that all her mail will be appropriately monitored), she spends an uncomfortably long time at a loss for who she wants to write to. She composes half a message to Liara, then deletes it. Eventually though:]
SUBJECT: Priority Message
no subject
[But it's been the two of them since the start, so he figures he can't leave now.]
[The situation as a whole has been much the same for Joker-- interviews, a long, uncomfortable-but-not-as-uncomfortable-as-it-could-have-been detainment, and days spent under extreme scrutiny while he helps the Alliance's teams retrofit the Normandy, carefully keeping EDI's cover as a VI intact. His reception by the soldiers is a little different, though-- he may have been part of the same crew that took down Saren and now the Collectors, helped save the Citadel and the free peoples of the galaxy and all that jazz, but he's not getting any favors from them. They all know about his court martial and his discharge, and that he's the one who got Shepard killed in the first place by being bad at taking orders. She's the hero; he's the ass she died for.]
[He suspects that the only reason he has brief access to a datapad and a network is because Shepard's sent him a message. Otherwise, there's no way in hell that the brass would trust him with a net connection or that the grunts would give it to him out of the kindness of their hearts.]
SUBJECT: RE: Priority Message
no subject
Much like in real life because Abby is a scrub,It's a few days before a response pings back thanks to the variability of when she has access. It reminds her of being fresh out of basic, stationed on patrol out past comm buoy access - sending and receiving messages every ten days when they looped close enough to some fragment of civilization and not much else.It is, in a few words, a terminally boring way to communicate.]
Ex-Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau,
There's nothing wrong with food that comes in a can. Or plastic. Or whatever. But sure, you pick the place and I'll front the credits.
How're you holding up?
- Shepard
[She spends some minutes frowning at the second line, unsatisfied by it. There's probably a better question to ask, or at way to turn it into a crack, or just straight out something more to say. But she finds she doesn't have the patience to be anything but relatively straightforward. It's been a long day. She's been fronting annoying questions all afternoon.]
no subject
Cmdr Lydia Shepard,
Everything is wrong with that sentence. It's bad and you should feel bad. How about a good steak place, you like steak, right? And like, real steak from actual cow, not the vat-grown crap that can't even be legally called beef. There are two important things with steak, 1. it comes from something that was once actually a functional animal and 2. don't overcook it. Anything over medium rare is ruining it, don't tell me you're one of those people who get their steak done until it's crispy.
And the fact that I just spent that much time on steak should probably tell you how I'm doing right now.
-Joker