Chapter Text
You keep going. You don’t give up. You don’t roll over and die and give the bastards the satisfaction of knowing they won.
Ash slammed her fist into the battered punching bag, and imagined her CO’s face.
General Williams fought till he ran out of ammo, and then he made fertiliser bombs till he ran out of food. He went two days without eating, because there were little kids holed up in that barricaded town hall and they needed the food more. Fucking raptors broke the plumbing like they were kicking over an anthill, and the kids started getting diarrhea, and two of them died of that. That's what stuck in his mind. He was seeing those kids on his deathbed, not the mass accelerators smashing buildings.
Lt. Conroy thought he was funny. Good job on that combat sim, Williams! Now just remember: if real aliens attack, your job's to fight, not to start waving a white flag!
What did you want the Shanxi garrison to do, Lieutenant? Blow up the whole colony, maybe? Kids and all? Those Hierarchy troops who took the orders they were given, let's wipe them off the face of the galaxy too? Death before dishonour?
Conroy’d go down fast, if she hit him for real. Too much coffee and gossip and not enough PT. You could get away with a lot of laziness in a place like Eden Prime.
Joshua Williams surrendered to Hierarchy Admiral Viaro because kids were dying and there was no food. They put him in cuffs that weren't made for humans and they broke his wrist.
I didn't look away, though, he used to say when he was drunk enough. Kept my head up and kept staring Viaro right in the face.
Of course it wasn't an accident. If they hadn't meant to hurt him, they'd have used asari cuffs.
Chana Viaro had been dead longer than Ash had been alive, but she pictured his glossy silver face on the bag anyway. Punch them in the gut or the throat, where they're soft. They've got stronger knees than humans, but the hock joint dislocates if you kick it right. Mandibles are fragile and they're sensitive but they're next to those teeth.
Get in close and watch the claws, Grandpa Josh said. There's not much muscle on a turian. Oh, they’re predators all right, but more coyote than wolf.
The impact reverberated up her arm.
Viaro hadn’t survived the war. According to rumour, he’d realised how badly he’d fucked up and he’d shot himself. But his cronies strolled off Shanxi and straight back to their day jobs, with no questions asked or answered about war crimes. And now the Hierarchy were trying to be humanity’s friends like nothing had ever happened.
What the hell - it was better than having them as enemies. These days, the enemy had fewer mouthparts and more eyes. Say what you like about the raptors: the Mindoir Atrocity wasn’t their style.
(The Hegemon still denied everything and still blamed “unaffiliated pirates” for the massacre. If he was in front of her, she could put her fist between all his eyes and cave his skull in.)
She’d signed up to defend humanity from people like Viaro, and from the fucking Hegemony and their slave raids, and from other humans who’d decided to behave worse than the Hegemony, and she was stuck on Eden Prime like a bow on a package. She'd defended the locals from something, sure - one of those tiger-lizard critters had taken to hanging round the primary school, so she'd shot it in the face and cooked it into stew. Give her a medal.
“Hey! Williams! You want to stop fighting that bag, and see if you can hit me?"
…and there was Jimmy Vega, strutting into the concrete gym to to radiate sunshine all over her filthy mood. He was missing his shirt, again, and he'd just waxed his chest.
She must have glared at him, because he smiled and said “Rough day?”
“Conroy.” That about summed it up.
He groaned. “Conroy. What can you do, eh?”
Vega could escape, was what he could do. He was off Eden Prime in a week and headed for officer school, like he deserved. She had absolutely no right to be jealous.
You keep going.
She took a deep breath. “D’you know how much I’m looking forward to getting off this rock?” You don’t give up, and you do not take it out on Vega.
“Well…” He shrugged. “It’s… got good live bands?”
Not helpful. But hey, he tried! Cussing out Vega: only appropriate when he decides your name is “Boomstick.” “Music’s good. Hold still so I can punch you?”
He lunged at her – still a bit slow, Vega, watch the footwork! – and she dodged behind the punching bag.