Rareth and Shiva:
Just as it seemed, Rareth's guess was correct, though it did not serve to change her opinion, at least not for the worse. She could completely understand why one would want to fight against the Sovereignty, though from what she described, it happened early in her life. Rareth supposed she would practically have to be a child for the Sovereignty to not execute her. She made sure to make a mental note to read up on Sovereignty law when she had a chance; if she was going to be working with Masulu, she needed to be well-acquainted with their societal expectations.
It was not long before the pair reached the officers' quarters, which consisted of a hallway's worth of rooms that were moderately nicer than the standard quarters. There had only been a few open when the team arrived, so some of them would still be sharing rooms. Once they arrived, they opened the doors to each of the rooms the team had been assigned to see whose belongings had been moved to where.
"Hmm, it looks like they arranged our stuff intelligently, at least. You and your CO are in one room, Humans in another, Rothians in the last." Rareth observed, eliciting a short sigh from Shiva. "I think the Dirophyds are split between you and the Humans." She noted. Rareth started to enter her room, but stopped in the doorway and looked back at Shiva. "You know, though, I think those stories are ones I'd like to hear."
Shiva looked up with a small amount of surprise, then glanced down the hallway that they came from. "Okay, since there's time, but..." she looked at Rareth again, "...do you mind if I come in?"
Rareth gave a nod to Shiva. "Sure, come on in." She responded before stepping inside. All of her belongings were there, but they were of course all still packed. As for the room itself, it had one bed that was built into the wall, and two, slightly smaller ones that had obviously been moved in later. There were a few desks, chairs, and other pieces of furniture arranged neatly across the room, all sized for Rothians. Like the rest of the ship, the temperature of the air wasn't as warm as it would be on the average Rothian vessel, as that would likely give a Masulu heat stroke. She planned on turning up the heat later, but for now, she kept it on something they could both be minorly uncomfortable in.
With a nod of thanks, Shiva stepped in and opted to seat herself on one of the chairs, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
"Hmm, nice rooms. More crowded than the standard officers' quarters, but not as bad as barracks." Rareth commented.
"Yeah, it is...still better than I'm used to." Shiva said. Having casual words made it easier for her to feel like actually sharing her story, so she gave Rareth only a half-serious questioning look and spoke up. "So, now that I don't have to be afraid of eavesdroppers, what do you want to know?"
Rareth was glad to be in her room as well, though for her, it was mostly so she could get out of the formal clothing she had been wearing the entire day. She was quick to remove and pack them away, though considering the air wasn't exactly comfortable at the moment, she changed into something that could hold in a bit of heat. "Well, for starters, I'm curious about how one becomes a 'traitor' at an age too young to know what you're doing. How young were you that the Sovereignty wouldn't just execute you?" She asked curiously.
"Nineteen. My sentence was handed down a week before I was considered an adult, so I still fell under those provisions. Mostly." Shiva answered immediately, though the details required a few moments to recall her memory. "I grew up on a backwater mining colony. Not a high population, not so important, but also far removed from the war at the time. I was close to my final year of education, but there were already problems that affected everyone." Shiva shifted in her seat, "The planetary governor, Davok, I think his name was, it doesn't matter much. He was squandering our resources. He would take funding for infrastructure, welfare, and such, and would have hired pirates 'steal' it, so he could embezzle and defraud us all. It got to the point where the lack of resources started to trickle down to society and ruin lives."
Shiva held out one hand, reasoning, "We started off protesting, some older friends and myself. We sent message after message to Righteous Conquest, pleading for help, but we got nothing. After a few months, we realised that the Consilium didn't care, so we took matters into our own hands. We started campaigning against the governance by turning the vote against him, he rigged it in his favour. That's when things got ugly. There were riots. We were lead by a friend of mine, who started the protests. He turned it into a full rebellion. We got weapons, took the planet's capitol by force, and held it. One of the reasons we were able to do so was because much of the garrison had defected to us. It helped that I was able to keep many of them alive during the assault. More time passed, we took more ground, then all of a sudden we got our wish."
Once more, Rareth could see where Shiva's story was heading, and it would be wishful thinking to hope she was wrong. It made her angry by reminding her of some of the worst she had encountered over the past few centuries. There were people so divorced from morality, so short-sighted that they would collapse an entire economy just to squeeze out a bit more money for themselves. She would have liked to have been able to say that the Rothian government was better about handling corruption, but she had dealt firsthand with some individuals who couldn't handle their power. Indeed, the Rahn'Masser did take a strong stance against such corruption, but they could only handle what was brought to their attention. For every corrupt politician or businessman she had arrested or assassinated, she knew there was another still getting away with it all.
"The consilium sent a force. Unfortunately for us, it was to take down a rebellion, not to depose a corrupt governor. We didn't stand a chance." It wasn't until this point that Shiva began to quiver with some words, "They...rounded us all up, those they hadn't shot already. Lined us up for trials. I was distraught, but the overworked soul that was my defense assigned to me said that I was manipulated into betraying the Sovereignty. That I was naive. I was naive, but I believed in what I fought for. I still do. All of my friends, though..." Shiva trailed off, she couldn't quite bring herself to put the image of them being killed by a firing squad into words.
Shiva sniffed and finished up, "There was justice in the end, though. The force also consisted of investigators, who found out why the rebellion started. The governor, last I heard, was executed for his negligence." Shiva lowered her head, "And that's why I'm a traitor, Rareth, because I fought for what I believed in."
As a rule, Rareth was a patient individual; one who was more apt to examine all sides of a situation before rushing in, but Shiva's tale filled even her with a fair amount of empathetic rage. The kinds of people who wronged Shiva were the kind who Rareth hoped would not surrender when they found themselves her target. "You know, if you were to tell someone from outside the Sovereignty that you had once been a traitor to them, well...that statement might gain you a few friends. I think there is a reason for that. I wish I could give you more than sympathy, but it is a few decades too late for my blade to be of assistance to you. What about the rest of the Sovereignty? You still serve them; has the rest of your government redeemed themselve to you in some way?"
Shiva mulled over Rareth's response, leaning a wrist against the side of her face. "Well, I was angry for a long time, but I couldn't be angry forever. I...learned a lot on my own. The Sovereignty itself, I've realised, doesn't just consist of unquestioning grunts, or people who couldn't see two sides of a story even if they put the spine of a book up to the bridge of their nose. The people in charge, most of them know what they are doing, and they can look past the Sovereignty philosophy, but they aren't perfect. We were a militant group disenfranchised with the government, they responded appropriately." Shiva looked at Rareth directly, now distracted from the more emotional parts of her story, "Think for a moment, what would have happened if the Consilium recognised our rebellion as legitimate inside their borders? They would get two problems." Shiva held up one finger, "One, it would suddenly be okay for other colonies to rebel if they were dissatisfied, perhaps even secede. The Sovereignty may be powerful but they couldn't put down every colony at once if they all rebelled." Shiva held up two fingers, "The second is this: If they support traitors, the people who are one sided, indoctrinated into thinking nothing of perfection of the government, would get angry that they would do something so against their laws. They would lose support, and be removed from their seat."
Shiva tried leaning back, but just ended up standing up straight with how awkwardly shaped the chair was. "The Sovereignty isn't the same as it was to me when I was growing up, but it would be foolish to think it could be. It is what it is. There is no use being angry at it anymore."
Rareth could understand the reasoning behind the Sovereignty's attack, but she was far from agreeing with it. It seemed to be a prime example of the Sovereignty's typical violent overreactions. It was as if they sent a fleet out to deal with every problem. "I am not saying that the Sovereignty's attack did not make logical sense from their perspective, but I would say there were other ways to deal with it without a full-scale attack. I know there are; I've been a part of similar operations before. Still, it is good to know you have recovered, and I'm sure you don't want to spend all of your free time talking about painful memories. Now, I've had a chance to learn a bit about you, so I think it's only fair that you get some questions for me. Granted, there is a lot classified about what I do, but I'll say what I can." Rareth offered, not wanting to keep the conversation on such a melancholy and no doubt painful topic.
Even though Shiva found it validating to share her experiences with someone who didn't see her as a criminal, she was glad for the subject change. For a moment there, they were close to delving into a debate on policy. No doubt that would have ruined their friendship. "About you? Hmm..." Shiva tried to think of something to ask, and came up with something simple, "I know Rothians live for a long time. How old are you exactly?"
"Oh, hmm, how long has it been now?" Rareth commented, quickly checking her device to make sure she had the correct date. "Ah, I am six hundred and twelve, from last month. I have been a member of the Rahn'Masser for five hundred and sixty-two of those years. I managed to join fairly early in my life. "
Shiva blinked while she did the mental arithmetic. That meant that Rareth was still older than Shiva was now when she joined the Rahn'Masser. And that was 'fairly early'. "Shen's gears," Shiva rubbed her forehead, "You must have seen a lot." Shiva's next question was slightly unrelated, but given how long ago it was, she was curious to find out. "What was it like growing up for you? Has Rothian society changed much?"
Rareth certainly had a lot she could talk about when it came to changes over the past six centuries. Even for a Rothian, that was quite a long time. The galaxy during those days looked nothing like it did now.; the discovery of the Humans was a relatively recent event in history around the time of her hatching. "Well, I would say that the core of our society, the fundamental parts of our traditions, have still stayed the same. The Rahn'Saki have been the leaders of our people for over fifty-two thousand years, after all, and they rarely make changes to the basics of how they lead. Everything else, though, is completely different. All the styles we appreciate, our tastes in art, architecture, entertainment, and most everything else in our society have gone through hundreds of changes in my lifetime. The technology is probably one of the biggest differences. Once a species gets far enough into space travel, and colonization, technological progress does tend to slow down, but six hundred years is still quite a long time for change. We were still using plasma when I was hatched, very similar to Sovereignty tech. Bioengineering has really made strides as well. Now, if you lose any body part, you can just get it cloned and replaced, but before, you had to get prosthetics, and the ones for magic-users were never as good. I had to use a prosthetic arm for about ten years before organic replacements were perfected." She explained.
Fifty-two thousand years was an unfathomable length of time for Shiva, but she didn't have much time to think about it. The Rothians were just very different. Sometimes terrifyingly so. However, another question came from Rareth's words. "How did you lose your arm?"
Rareth supposed that would be Shiva's next question. It had been quite a while since it happened, but it was hardly something she could forget. "It happened in the closest thing to a war in the galaxy before we encountered the Sovereignty. There was an insectoid race called the Krinak. If you're not familiar with them, they were quite agressive, even moreso than the Sovereignty's reputation. They had a hive mentality and were ruled by these warlords organized by a single Empress. That was the conflict that brought to fame the Datius named Rhajar, who ended the conflict almost single-handedly. At least, it would have been a lot bloodier of a war without him. Anyway, I was a part of a raid near the end of the conflict. It was a success, but I tried to play hero one too many times and got caught in some falling debris while I was covering our retreat. One of my fellow agents pulled me out of the rubble to safety, minus one limb. Honestly, it was probably the closest I've come to death in my entire life."
Ironically for Shiva, who often pointedly remarked how masulus often speak too much about old war stories, both herself an Rareth continued talking for quite some time about just that. Set apart from the small talk that had made up the last few days, Shiva walked away from it feeling like she had secured herself the first true friend she had made in decades. Before long, more details about Shiva's criminality were no longer shared as others came in and out of the room, but it ended up maintaining a better atmosphere that way.
With respect to FTL speeds, the ship's destination was not too far away, as it took less than a week to reach the planet. Despite its proximity to what was essentially the center of galactic civilization, it was fairly remote, with Pax actually being the closest settled world. The Boundless Light remained outside of the space station's sensor range with its stealth systems activated to minimize the chances of premature detection. Additionally, several other ships had been sent by the Assembly to take part in the attack once their team identified the locations of the hostages, but they were lying in wait much farther from the planet.
The reason the team had been gathered together, the mission they were about to undertake, was close at hand. Rareth was meant to lead this team, so she made sure to be among the first to be ready. For this mission, she was wearing her full suit of armor, helmet included, which was completely sealed against the outside. If everything went well, there would be no need for EVA, but she was not going to plan for everything to work. Her weaponry consisted of two energized daggers, her fusion pistol, which was capable of single shot, burst, and full auto modes, and her signiture weapon, her sword. The blade was aesthetically similar to a katana and, when activated, was capable of being energized to such a degree that it could burn though almost any material. Her other equipment included three fusion grenades, a handful of surveillence drones each the size of insects, and a medical syringe that, while by no means a replacement for a proper medic, could keep her alive through heavy trauma, or keep her fighting through less serious wounds.
For their infiltration, they would be using the Hummingbird, as it was the vessel that Ashley was most accustomed to flying. Apart from Ashley herself, Rareth was the first to arrive at the Hummingbird. She was sure everyone had already reviewed the plan, but just to be certain, once everyone arrived, she would go through one final rundown of their plan of attack.
