Regret |
Summary: | Shem meets with Astyoche to discuss her situation. An important question is asked, and an important conclusion is reached. |
Date: | 30 ACH |
Related Logs: | The Squeeze |
Players: |
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High Security Brig
The brig here holds four areas, with one-way glass. Guards stand at attention when on duty, if there are any prisoners within. This brig area is for any Officer that needs to be in lock-up. There is a bed, chair and table inside the room and Officers are treated with respect. No guard will leave the duty area unless told by his commanding officer or is rotating out. Security cameras are placed here as well.
Another night in the brig, Asty is laid out along the bed of her cell, a book of scripture in her hands. While her general demeanor still has a vaguely bleak air to it, she seems calm as she thumbs slowly through the pages of faith.
The cell door swings open, and Shem enters Astyoche's cell, unannounced. His holster is empty. "Miss Kyrios?"
Astyoche's chin lifts at the sound of the door locks being disabled. She has a little bit more warning than other visitors she's had, anyway. She carefully flips the book over so the bed can keep her page for her and she puses herself to fours, then shifts a knee over thus to rise to her feet. She comes to attention, not sure how she should treat this, but, "Yes, Lieutenant? What can I do for you?" she asks plainly.
"I'm Lieutenant Shem." He keeps his distance, staying at the door. "Marine intelligence officer. I'm supervising the investigation into your situation, there. I need to ask you some questions."
Astyoche nods, "Yes, sir. May I sit?" she replies, still holding her stance, as there's a lot more of Shem's 'all business' than most of the folks who've come calling, she's playing it safe.
Shem shakes his head. "That's fine, miss. You're not in the military, there's no need for all that. I'll get another seat." He disappears briefly and returns with a rolling chair.
Astyoche sits down then, a vaguely awkward look in her eye at the statement, but she nods, "But I am in an officer's brig during time of war, sir. I'm covering my bases." she offers thoughtfully. Her hands clasp and her elbows rest upon her knees, and, since she already asked him how she could help, she simply arches a quizical brow and waits for his first question.
"I've read all of your statements," Shem begins after he sits near Astyoche. He looks at her carefully. "But I'd like to hear your side of the story. Start from the beginning. I understand your sister was killed?"
To the bone, first shot. Asty visibly flinches, and her eyes lower, "Yes, sir, two years ago." she says ruefully.
Shem keeps silent.
A silence echoed in the prisoner for a few moments, then, "She was raped…" and her fingers tighten, "… then… " Her eyes squeeze shut and she takes a moment to get back together, "I got word on the Nike, where I was posted at the time."
Shem is the picture of impassive. He keeps his attention on Astyoche.
Astyoche lifts her chin, the streetsurfing down memory lane showing in her eyes, "I was… given leave and jumped back to Scorpia in a Raptor to be with my mother. The investigation was hard on her… on both of us. It went from civil to JAG when the DNA came back to… Phaedra's boyfriend."
Shem digs in his uniform pocket and removes a pocket notepad with a pen stuck inside. He opens it up and consults his notes.
Astyoche's face is troubled as she forcibly tries to keep coherent through another recitation of the bad times, "Lt. Halcyon Delios, a viper pilot out of the Chimaera." she says with some of the old loathing creeping into her voice. Her eyes lower again, "By this point, I'd resigned my commission, to help back home."
Shem pulls the pen out and makes a minor notation. He looks up in short order, with that same sort of poker face as before.
"With…. the leaky alibi… skin under…. her fingernails… and…" Asty's head shakes, her voice starting to quaver, "the DNA from the rape kit…. they had him… they HAD him!" Her hands part and she takes her head between them for a moment, roostertailing some of her hair between her fingers in the process as she faces the floor, "… suddenly… a technicality… that doesn't exist… until they get him dead to rights.."
Shem nods slightly.
A few moments of silence then, "Suddenly, case dismissed. Sorry for your frakkin trouble!" She looks up at him, anger and the beginigns of tears in her eyes, "They let that frakkin slag walk out the door with a handshake and a frakkin' smirk!"
Shem doesn't react to the outburst, per se. He asks, "And then what happened?"
Astyoche takes a moment, then, "I started looking into things when I wasn't working. Tap some friends I had…" she says softly, "Found out he came from some big deal family on Picon. Scuttlebutt was he got off lighter'n some folks, depending on who was in charge at the time." Her eyes lower, "Things made sense."
Shem leans forward a little.
"I started thinking there would be just one way for there to be any justice for Phae…. an' anyone else he may have gotten off on." Asty continues, "I decided to take it, myself."
Shem keeps his stance still, although there is a slight quirk of his lips.
Astyoche goes quiet, and after a few moments, looks up his way, "I was working an air show when the oppurtunity came along, about a year or so later, about… four months ago. August twenty-fifth." There's a brief pause, "We were using old model Vipers, decommissioned, with the vulcans gutted, and the only things that ever sat on the pylons when we had them were fiberglass shells painted up like the real deal, so people could see what a bird would look like during wartime."
Shem looks down at his notes again, but only for a short time.
"He was out on maneuvers, a navigation excercise on Scorpia. It was an area I knew." Asty says quietly, a grim nostalgia in her eyes, "I took one of our birds, it had just been retuned, so, I took it out to test it, then I ducked dradis and changed course." She doesn't embellish, nor leave anything out, since she only has the barest glimmer of hope that she's not about to die, in any case, "There are a series of buttes on the southwestern region of the field, I came in tight between them and waited for a contact."
Shem doesn't say anything, letting Astyoche continue.
"Thirteen-fifty-one I had a contact running higher than he should have been." Asty explains, "I could have probably rammed him at that point, but there was the chance that it was another bird, entirely." She sighs, pauses for breath, then continues, "I powered up and skimmed the flats to get some speed before I yanked back the stick to take it vertical near his path. I rolled it into an inside loop and leveled off about parallel to his course. I brought her in close, close enough that I could see his face as he looked back to see where I was and I tightened up on his wing and forced him down."
Shem scratches his forehead and writes another sentence.
Astyoche tilts her head slightly, "Lieutenant?" she asks softly.
Shem finishes writing. He looks up and asks, quietly, "Yes?"
"You looked a little confused for a moment." Asty remarks thoughtfully.
"You must've known that your life as you knew it was over," Shem says.
"Full well, sir." Asty replies gently.
Shem asks, "Tell me about your trial."
A snort, "It was a joke, Lieutenant. It shouldn't have even been one." Asty replies with a shrug and a roll of her wrists. She sighs, "I didn't run. They had my confession." She rubs at the bridge of her nose and shakes her head, "It was all politics, it was never about me. I was plead by proxy, I wasn't put up on the stand, the defense even managed to toss my, in their words, 'alleged confession' out on a technicality." Another head shake, "I confessed, obviously it was duress, right?"
Shem arches an eyebrow and asks, "You did not want a trial?"
Astyoche shakes her head, "I didn't want a circus." she closes her eyes, "I chose to kill a man who was, far as I was concerned, above the law. I owned up to it, then. I own up to it, now." She leans back, propping herself on her hands, "Defense attorney was way out of our price range, anyway. Said he volunteered." She looks sidelong at the deck, then and sighs, "Mom…" a tear, "Mom… may have been pushing to do what he could to get me off, but… someone leaked details about Phaedra's case, the nature of her…" a head shake, "How shady it was he got off. The reporteds went -nuts-."
Shem doesn't dwell on the first trial. He crosses his legs and runs his fingers along the opposite cheek. Looking at her attentively, he asks, in a softer tone, "Do you regret what you did?"
"I regret putting Mom through everything, sir…" Asty says ruefully, then settles forward again, face downcast, "I regret she died…. thinking she'd… outlived… both of us." Her eyes close, "I regret the frakkin' skag ever came into our lives in the first place. That I wasn't able to see through him before…."
Shem interrupts, "But not in killing a man." And in doing so, he reveals the crux of his questioning.
"Someone who preys on innocents isn't a man, sir. I prayed to Artemis for over a year to find that son of a bitch, and she answered." Asty says firmly, eyes seeking and holding to his, "I'll go to Hades before I say I regret putting that monster down."
Shem watches Astyoche for a small moment. He restows his pen and pad. "Thank you for your time," he says with a tone of finality. The lieutenant stands.
"Lieutenant." Asty says simply, not actually expecting him to respond.
Gripping the back of the rolling chair, Shem asks, with a layer of displeasure, "Yes?"
She doesn't flinch under his tone, "I regret all the time I spent learning to fight Cylons turned toward killing a human." She stands slowly, "Do I wake up with the shakes, sometimes? Yes." Asty looks into his eyes, a hint of something imploring in the back of her gaze, "She was my sister… what would you have done?"
"Revenge makes you do drastic things," Shem says carefully. "But there's always a realization. Always an understanding that two wrongs don't make a right. You've killed a human being. A man who, admittedly, did terrible things. But a man who had a family, just like you, who might've had people that cared for him, just like you. And if you've realized this, and you still do not regret killing him, then that makes you no different from a cold-blooded murderer by my book." He narrows his eyes at her. "Your sister's trial might not have been valid, but I see now that yours was, no doubts about it. You better pray to the Gods that Zeus will spare you, 'cause if I had my way, your sentence would be carried out tomorrow."
"That's why I didn't want a trial." she says solemnly, "That's why I didn't want the chance his family wouldn't get their peace, Lieutenant. I couldn't make it right by them, but I could give them some satisfaction." Asty pauses for a moment, "No matter what I feel… I can't say it, sir."
There's really nothing to say after that. Shem shakes his head in a 'what can you do' sort of way and drags the rolling chair out of the cell, and the guard comes in to close the door.
Astyoche lowers her eyes as he leaves, feeling bit less clear in the eyes of the Gods.