Voices in the Dark

Author: Havohej

Original post: https://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=7613.msg123351

Author's Note: The following story depicts a closed proceeding taking place on the Thukker Tribe's Oasis. Precious little information about the events depicted here could feasibly have made its way to anyone's ears outside of the Oasis, with the exception of Du'uma Fiisi's reinstatement and Havohej's Banishment. Details regarding the loss of the original Du'uma Fiisi Caravan, the administration and goings-on at the re-education centers that handled the one million freed slaves or the Akheteru Institute for Theology in Origin that were not already public knowledge are generally held to be OOC information that your character probably does not have access to.

Entry for YC121 New Eden Capsuleer’s Writing Contest in the Prose category.

YC121.03.22

He'd jumped into a 'clean' clone as instructed; no cybernetics, no augmentations physical or otherwise. Not even capsule tech. He'd left no word for Corporate or Alliance command, as instructed. Besides, Morningstar seemed to have things in Invictus well covered and both Freedom's Gate and Midular Memorial Mining Facility were fueled for at least the next month. If he didn't return, Charlie had clear and firm instructions to fold Akheteru Integrated Astrometrics and all of its assets into Rhiannon's SOE Roughriders and do everything she could to help the Electus Matari's Invictus colony in Anoikis - his colony - to grow and thrive.

He boarded his Leopard-class shuttle and with one of his most trusted associates piloting the craft he made his way to the rendezvous: The Trust Partners outpost in M-MD3B. No cloning facilities here. No last-minute backups. No fresh softclone. If the Tribe were to decide against him this time, his retirement was likely to be final. The Thukkers weren't big on long-term prison stints. Jama'al had been silent throughout the trip, but now after the station's docking protocols had brought the small craft to a halt with a soft but very final bump, he said, "Boss... Are you-"

"Wisler," Enkil cut him off, "you know that I can't put this off any longer."

Jama'al Wisler had served him for years, as a pilot, an engineer, a bodyguard, a confidant, and even briefly as a lover. If there were anyone alive who understood why Havohej would willingly put himself in this much jeopardy, it was him. Still, "Is it really worth it?" he asked the defanged capsuleer. "You could go on for another hundred years without submitting yourself to this process. You don't have to do this!"

Enkil sighed, eyes closed and pinching the bridge of his nose. It was several moments before he replied. "When I found you, you were clanless, Wisler." The man nodded. "Like many others in the years since my clan was nearly wiped out due to my own error, Clan Du'uma Fiisi adopted you. We gave you a place to belong, a family. And you served us well. Served me well. But what is Du'uma Fiisi now? As a result of my actions, the Tribe didn't stop at stripping me of my title and appointing a new Head. They struck the Clan, fried my transponder. We're not Thukkers. Barely even Minmatar. Might as well all go live in Vo'shun!" His fist pounded the instrument panel before him.

"No, Jama'al," he said quietly after mastering himself again, "none of you deserved that. Only me. I have to try to get the Clan reinstated, even if it's the end of me."

***

He came to in a world of darkness. Black sackcloth rested heavy and coarse against his face; through it, the air tasted stale and coppery, like dried blood. Not his own, though... he felt no pain. He tried to move, but found that his arms were chained to the chair in which he sat. The shackles holding his ankles gave very little play, either. Here we are, then, he thought. It's time.

"Good of you to join us, Akheteru," a voice spoke from the darkness. Through the rough weave of his hood, he became aware of a row of lights shining dimly ahead of him. Difficult to judge distance - not that it mattered, chained down as he was. "Why are you here?"

"To face the Tribe's judgement," Havohej replied, his voice a dry croak at first, gaining strength by the end of the sentence.

"And so you shall," spoke a Second Voice, this one colder and with an edge to it. "How much were you paid to betray your Clan to the Cartel?"

"I did not!" Enkil replied, his voice passionate but careful measured. He could not afford to lose his temper so quickly. "They set us up. We were chasing decoys and false transmissions. When we got to our scouting assignment, we saw it was a trap and tried to return to the Caravan. The other outriders weren't as lucky. We got back-"

"And your Caravan was smoldering wreckage, yes," the Second Voice finished for him. He could hear the sneer in the woman's tone. "He's consistent with his stories, I'll give him that."

"It's what happened," Enkil insisted.

"Convenient that it left you, a relative nobody, the senior surviving member of Du'uma Fiisi and the de facto clan chief, isn't it?"

"Convenient?" Havo snorted. "You must've never lead a clan before." Now a Third Voice spoke up:

"Your clan had a long history of dealings with the Cartel. Why did they turn on you with such force?"

"If you're asking the question, you already know." Enkil could not hide the bitterness in his tone.

"Humor us," replied the First Voice.

Sighing, Enkil relented. "Chief Tymor had found an artifact. He'd had us in Atioth for two fucking months, dodging the Guristas. Whole thing was kept very hush-hush, but rumors spread quickly that it was possibly Jovian tech. Possibly functional, they said. Never got a glimpse of it, myself. But the only thing I can figure is the rumors were right, and it was, and those rumors didn't stay confined to the Caravan. Cartel goes hard for that shit, right? Comm logs from the flagship's wreckage were garbled, but it looked like the Angel in charge demanded Tymor hand it over, and he refused."

"And why would he be so stupid," the Second Voice demanded. "Tymor was no fool."

"No," Enkil agreed, "but he was ambitious. Used to muse about how things'd be different if he were in charge instead of Einnar. Maybe he thought Jove tech would bring him the wealth he needed to become a power in the Tribe."

"Ambition has ruined many men," a Fourth Voice mused. "Let us move on," he said. "Akheteru was exonerated on this charge decades ago, it's not likely he'll incriminate himself on it now."

"As you wish," said the First interrogator. "You have been charged with slaving. What do you have to say about this?"

Enkil shrugged. "I have held slaves," he said. "Nearly all Amarrians. A few Khanid, Ni-kunni... maybe a handful of Fed nationals, but mostly Amarrians. I am not ashamed." Though his voice was dry and scratchy, Havohej spoke this last with steel underlying the words, as if daring the panel of judges to argue that point. And in the Republic, maybe they would have... but not here.

The Third Voice jumped in, "what of the Matari slaves who died in your custody? Over three hundred thousand, not counting the thirty thousand or so you loaded onto a freighter to be mass-murdered. What of these?"

"I was never in custody of Matari slaves," Enkil replied quietly.

"No?"

"No. I was in custody of one million free Minmatar men and women."

"And you murdered three hundred fifty thousand of them!" the Second Voice screamed at him, her voice trembling with rage.

"Yes," he agreed.

"We're done here," she spat. He could hear the feet of her chair, steel scraping against steel as she stood up.

"No," entered a fifth speaker, her own tone just as hard as the first woman's. "We stripped him of clan and title for his crimes with no hearing. He has surrendered himself for judgement - a capsuleer, with no obligation to do so. He has come before us with no means of protection, put his very life in our hands. We will hear everything that he would say, and then pass judgement.

"Continue, Akheteru," she said. Enkil could hear the other woman settle back into her seat.

"We didn't expect to free more than a handful of slaves," he admitted quietly. "We expected to kill most of the Amarrians we'd bought from the Angel Cartel associate Aria Jenneth. Whole thing was supposed to just be propaganda. You know, terrorism. Then Louella Dougans said she'd been contacted by someone representing a group of Holders who wanted to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, said they'd given a million of their slaves into her custody for the trade. That not one of the Amarrians needed to die.

"We were stunned. I thought she was full of shit. Almost killed the first Amarrian anyway, wanted to show we wouldn't be toyed with. But Director Alondra convinced me to take the meeting. Sure enough, when I got to Ashab, Dougans was there, with a million Matari slaves. Our medical staff inspected them for signs of illness or, you know, biological warfare. Found nothing. Dougans promised that these people had all been screened and all wanted to be free. She said the Holders wouldn't 'condemn' a slave who didn't want to be by releasing them before their salvation was assured. Whatever that means. 'Very few, if any,' she said. I wish she'd been right."

"Was she not?" the First Voice prodded.

"No," Enkil answered. "Maybe they had all answered so when asked. And maybe it took too long to set up our facilities and they just wanted to go back to what they knew by the time we could get them situated. Maybe once they were actually exposed to Minmatar culture, it was too far outside of their comfort zone," he said. His tone now was far from steely or defiant. Now, there was nothing in his words but defeat.

"It was supposed to be so simple," Akheteru continued. "Teach them the language, bring 'em up to speed on current events, an introduction to the myriad spiritual beliefs and practices of the different Tribes, all that good shit. Aptitude tests to help the Republic find jobs for them once we handed 'em over. Really straightforward stuff, yeah? But so many just wanted to go back."

"What did they do?" the Third Voice asked him.

"There were disciplinary issues. Some troublemakers would provoke the guards, try to martyr themselves to spur the others into open rebellion. Twice there were riots, our security forces-"

"Your Caldari mercs," spat the Second Voice.

"-were forced to use lethal means when tear gas and stun batons failed to prove effective. There were suicides. Some of them killed each other fighting over... anything. All of their needs were met, good food, clean water and other drinks - everything but liquor, they had music and holovids, clean clothing, medicines, if you could have it in the Free Republic, they had access to it there. I don't know why they needed to fight each other, why they couldn't just follow the process. But they couldn't, and they did.

"The guards would occasionally find a body in an out-of-the-way place that wasn't directly covered by cameras. It wasn't difficult to run the footage back and see who'd entered with the victim and left without them, every murderer confessed immediately when questioned and presented with the evidence our security team collected."

"I should assume these were dealt with in the obvious manner?" the Fourth Voice asked.

"They were exsanguinated and placed in stasis tubes along the corridors leading to and from the mess halls, commissaries and recreation yards, to serve as reminder and warning against the crime of murder," Enkil stated. He could hear a soft whispering among the voices, but without his augmentations it was impossible to pick out what any of them were saying. This continued for several moments, until the First Voice cleared his throat.

"So you would have this panel understand that over the course of seven months, more than three hundred thousand men and women, born in slavery and recently freed to your care, finding themselves in what must've felt like a prison colony, with controlled movement and armed guards, met their ends either as murder victims, executed murderers, or in the quelling of riots." Though the First Voice spoke plainly, the undercurrent of skepticism was clear in his voice.

"Well, yes," Enkil answered. "I mean, it wasn't all so cut-and-dried as that, of course. Everyone had different reasons for their actions. Some of the murderers cited religious disputes - those who wouldn't give up the slaver's faith and those who did so readily. Some cited personal disputes going back decades. Some riots were about the confinement, some were about the nationality of the guards, one was over displeasure at having to wait out a backlog in the sick call process - we doubled our medical staff after that one.

"The important thing to realize, here, is that we were dealing with people. And every person has their own way of dealing with things. Many of the people I freed didn't deal with the process as well as could've been hoped for."

"Why didn't you just hand them over to Electus Matari?" the Fourth Voice asked. "They had long-standing protocols in place to handle incoming freed slaves."

Before he could answer, the vitriolic Second Voice chimed in, "Don't forget, this is the same man who put a bounty on the head of Abel Jarek's followers - Minmatar civilians, all."

A murmur began amongst the assembled judges again, but this time Havohej spoke into that murmur. "It is true!" he spat into the darkness. "I did that! When the Theology Council freed Abel Jarek to bring his "Salvation Crusade" to the Republic, it was with the sole purpose of exploiting the large influx of freed men and women who'd recently come home after the Elder Fleet's actions the year before. They knew that those free Matari were mostly born and raised under the slaver's faith and they would flock to its cleric. That they would convert others. They wanted to subvert the Republic with a toxic religion because they could not conquer it in open invasion!" Unthinking, he tried to thrust his arm forward but growled in frustration when his bonds held fast. "I did put a bounty on the heads of those who would poison our brothers! You would have me give those freed slaves over, one million strong, without knowing who among them would cause us harm!"

"Oh," the Second Voice sneered. "But didn't you recently go on record that you don't believe it was necessary to kill any of them anymore? That you believe our People are 'stronger than that?' It sure doesn't sound that way, now, does it?"

"I do believe our People are stronger than that," Enkil agreed. "They are. But they are not invincible. Injecting a million speakers for the slaver's faith would not have destroyed the Republic. I see that now. But it would have been harmful. Jarek had only a handful of followers, a couple hundred at best. And he caused riots, turned brother against brother. Matari fighting each other in the streets, killing each other. With just a couple of hundred people, Jarek did this! The MIO did this! "Tell me what the MIO could have done with a million people." Enkil let that thought hang in the air. Gritting his teeth behind his hood, he struggled to master his breathing beneath the heavy, stifling cloth. Twisting his wrists against the chains holding him, it was a fight to not let his impatience get the better of him.

"Given everything to do over again," the First Voice asked, "what would you have done differently?"

Enkil did not answer immediately. Chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face beneath the heavy hood, he considered this question more seriously than he'd ever done when asked before. Normally, his answer would be 'nothing.' A part of him enjoyed seeing the look on peoples' faces when he'd say so. But for the most part, he'd simply never considered it because it wasn't possible. Nobody was just going to hand him a million slaves again, so what point was there in such a mental exercise. Today, though, was different. If the Second Voice had her way, he knew, he would not leave the Oasis alive. He would not lie to these people - it was likely they had done something to him while he was unconscious, something that would let them know if he was telling them the truth or not. He couldn't risk a flippant answer being inaccurate. This time, he must consider the question. And so he took his time. If they could murmur amongst themselves for minutes at a time, then he could sit silent for minutes. By the time he spoke, his breathing was even, his tone calm and measured.

"Tighter security, but less draconian," he said. "Matari security personnel, rather than mercenaries specializing in peacekeeping and crowd control. More cameras. More counsellors. Clerics in the Amarr faith selected from among the influx of freed Matari, ones who could show the newly freed a way to worship their godfigure without believing in the Empire's institution of slavery. Mediators selected from among the newly freed themselves, to help them resolve their disputes non-violently. We made many mistakes," Enkil quietly admitted, "but we learned many lessons."

Now it was the panel's turn to deliberate again. Havohej listened as he heard all five of the judges' chairs scrape on the floor, followed by rustling cloth and creaking leather and then footsteps as they all filed out of the room. There was a loud skree as a heavy door creaked open to let them pass, and then a whoosh of air followed by a hollow crash as the bulkhead door slammed shut behind them, and Enkil 'Havohej' Akheteru was left alone with his mistakes.

***

The crash of the slamming door startled him awake. But he did not hear several sets of shuffling feet, now. Only one. Coming directly toward him. Instinctively he tried to reach up and snatch the sackcloth away from his face, but his wrists were still bound to his chair. His back ached. How long had he been here, now? A shadow figure stepped between him and the row of lights at the end of the room and a pair of hands lifted the bottom of his hood and folded the heavy cloth to catch above his nose, exposing the lower half of his face. The figure bend down and then, with one hand holding his chin steady, placed a cool metal bowl against his lips. "Drink," the man said. Enkil, quite parched by now, greedily obeyed. "Well, well" the man chuckled. "Aren't you just the humblest little thing? Mighty egger, desperately drinking stale water from a cup. Bet ya hungry too, ain't ya?" The man laughed again as he dropped the cup back into the bucket and yanked the sackcloth back down over Enkil's face. "I bet the people on that freighter got hungry," he spat down at the capsuleer as he turned. Enkil listened to his footsteps withdrew. When the door clanged shut again, he let his chin rest against his chest and closed his eyes.

***

Enkil's eyes snapped open as the door shut again. He listened as his judges took their seats. For several seconds, there was silence. Finally, the First Voice spoke.

"Tell us about the Akheteru Institute for Theology in Alexylva Paradox's Origin colony system," he commanded.

This question startled Enkil. How did they know about the AIT? Brow furrowed beneath the scratchy fabric, he began, "It... was established to study the strength of religious indoctrination across several different faiths. Amarrians, Intaki, Achurans, Jin-Mei, different Matari cultures... but mainly focused on the Amarrians."

"How so?" asked the Fourth Voice.

"Well," Havo said, choosing his words carefully. "With the others, we would expose them to different ideas, different views. Challenge their beliefs. Educate them about an opposing viewpoint, and then debate with them the merits of their own. See if they couldn't be persuaded to entertain the idea that maybe their beliefs were erroneous. We did this with the Amarrians, as well. But with them, we went further."

"Further?" the Third Voice pursued.

"Further," Enkil said again. "It wasn't legal by Origin's charter, so it had to be done quietly. But the Amarrians, we tortured. Traditional methods, and... non-traditional. We would work on them, and then ask them to renounce their faith. We would do to them the things that they did to their slaves. Including the administering of Vitoxin."

"And did they renounce," the First Voice asked?

"Some. Not all."

"What did you learn?" The Third Voice.

"Our results were... inconclusive," Havo admitted. "The sample size was too small. We couldn't conduct our studies in an optimally scientific way, because we had to keep them secret from Origin's security protocols. Coordinator Riordan knew my history. Didn't trust me fully... kept as close an eye on me as she could, while still seeing to the business of colonizing an entire star system."

"What were your preliminary findings," the Fourth Voice pressed.

"As a preliminary finding, I would say that most of them do firmly believe in the superiority of their race, but there are many more practically minded Amarrians who can be persuaded to give that up relatively easily."

"From whence do you draw this conclusion," the Second demanded.

"Those Amarrians who renounced the slaver's faith did so within 48 hours of intensive study commencing. Those who had not renounced within this time frame... did not renounce at all," Havo explained.

"And what happened to those who did renounce?" the First asked. "What did you do with them?"

"Well," Enkil said, "as I explained, what we were doing was illegal in Origin-"

"What you were doing would be illegal anywhere," the Second cut in.

"-so there was no question of releasing them into the local population. Smuggling them out of Anoikis posed its own unnecessary risks. They were put down and their biomass quietly entered into my local TCMC production chains."

There was silence for several moments, before the Fourth Voice asked quietly, "Given all of this to do over again, what would you have done differently?"

Enkil thought about this question for just a moment. It was easy to answer. "I wouldn't have done it at all. For the trouble and expense I went to, the project yielded no actionable results. No profound understanding of the power of the slaver's faith. Nothing to help free enslaved Matari from the toxic belief that they should not be free at all."

Before the panel could get bogged down in whispers over his answer, Enkil heard the Fifth Voice again, "Let's move on."

The First cleared his throat and asked in a tone suggesting that he knew this question must damn their subject once and for all: "When you joined Sansha's Nation, how many of your personally held Amarrian slaves did you give to them?"

Enkil Akheteru's chest shook with the laughter that issued from beneath his sackcloth hood. "Is that what you think?" he asked, incredulously. "First of all, I never joined Sansha's Nation. I won't say the thought never occurred, but it didn't happen. I worked out of one of their outposts in Stain, carrying out missions mostly against the DED and the Amarr Empire, in exchange for Loyalty Points I traded for ship blueprints and Slave implants. Nothing more, nothing less. I released my slaves before I went out there, because I suspected I might retire there if it were possible to do so without wearing their other implants.

"And after I'd put in enough work against their enemies, it was indeed possible, and I did just that. Retired to a quiet, peaceful, very mortal life in a metropolis on one of their settled worlds where my wealth afforded me a life of comfort and leisure."

"Why did you return?" the Second asked, her tone snide. "You could've stayed in Stain and nobody would've cared."

"No," Enkil barked through the hood. "My clan cares that they've been stripped of their name and their birthright. I came out of retirement because I heard about Thebeka. I thought that I had something to offer Electus Matari in a battle like that. I thought that, if I did enough good for our People, then I could redeem the Clan... if not myself."

"Good?" the Second asked. "You? What good have you done that we should hear you?"

"I have confined my hunting to Amarrians and pirates in the warzone and to the theater of operations defined by Electus Matari's campaign ops," Enkil began. "I have sworn on my blood that I will not take or hold slaves again. I have established a colony called Invictus in Anoikis on behalf of Electus Matari. Here I have established a new refugee processing a cultural education center on the Freedom's Gate outpost that was first deployed in Thebeka, and this facility benefits from the lessons I learned in YC111 as well as Electus Matari's long history of refugee processing. To date, all have been released to the Republic, including those still faithful to the slaver's godfigure." Havohej paused, sighed and shrugged. "There isn't much I can do, beyond continuing that work. If I am not to leave the Oasis again, I have left clear and detailed instructions on how to carry on."

A silence fell upon the room, and its weight bowed Enkil's head once more. After what felt like hours, quietly the Fifth Voice declared, "This panel has heard enough. Let us retire and weigh the fate of Enkil Akheteru and Clan Du'uma Fiisi." Havohej listened to the five judges file out of the room, and this time when the door clanged shut, the lights mounted on the far wall went out.

***

Jama'al was visibly agitated as he piloted the Leopard-class shuttle away from the Trust Partners outpost and launched into warp toward the NIH-02 stargate. Havohej was thinner than when he'd been taken from their docking berth with a hood over his head by a group of armed men wearing Thukker Tribe colors. He was always thin, but now he looked gaunt. When the same group of soldiers snatched off the hood and shoved him back aboard the shuttle, his movements weren't as steady or deliberate as usual. He had yet to speak a single word, other than 'home'. Charlinda had found them a chain entrance in Hedaleolfarber and Wisler already had the fastest route plotted. Enkil didn't speak until they'd jumped the Egbinger gate and passed out of the Great Wildlands.

"Banished," he said quietly. "The Thukker Tribe has reinstated Clan Du'uma Fiisi, and me as its chief. But I am banished."

"I... I don't understand, Enk-" Jama'al had to catch himself. He'd gotten used to the lack of formality, but now that Du'uma Fiisi was an official clan again, he supposed he'd better get used to the opposite. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't understand, Chief. How can you be reinstated and banished at the same time?"

"On pain of death, I am never to set foot on a Matari controlled planet again," he said. Wisler gasped softly. "I am never to set foot outside the Capsuleer cordon on spaceborne outposts. I am never to be among Matari baseliners anywhere, even outside of Matari-controlled space, on pain of death. The only exceptions are baseliners among our own clan, and baseliners in Invictus as they see the value of the Invictus colony and did not wish to impede its development by forcing a change in its administration."

Wisler could see why his Chief had been silent, and now he fell silent as well. Banishment meant that, until Enkil Akheteru was no longer its leader, Clan Du'uma Fiisi was effectively crippled as a social or political entity within Minmatar society. There would be no alliances with other clans, no marriage contracts with other clans, no participation in various Circles, no anything at all, unless they had a capsuleer representative for Enkil to meet with - and that was something very, very few had. The Thukker Tribe had recognized Du'uma Fiisi, and then crippled it.

Unless Enkil Akheteru stepped down. As the shuttle came out of warp in Hedaleolfarber within three kilometers of the wormhole that would take them into the Invictus chain, Wisler looked over at his long-time Boss. Would Enkil do that? Could he?