2022-10-05: Here I choke on the truths I demanded
- Cutscene: Here I choke on the truths I demanded
- Cast: Yuliana Dispersal, Major Pham Van Vinh
- Where: Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Date: 2022-10-05
- Summary: Yuliana confronts her superior officer over the battle of Torrington, and learns more than she planned on.
"You threw me under the bus, Major," Yuliana starts, scowling, as soon as she storms into his office. It's the first moment she's gotten alone with him since she got back.
"You embarrassed me," Pham Van Vinh replies, unperturbed.
"You THREW ME UNDER THE BUS!" Yuliana yells, gesturing angrily -- only for her hand to jerk back towards herself, with a wince she can't quite hide. It's still trapped in a brace, to support it after it was trapped between two pieces of metal for too long. There are still several patches and bandages on her skin; she's mobile, but that doesn't mean it's easy or comfortable.
"Captain," Major Pham still hasn't raised his voice, "if you want to cry and wail like a wounded rat, I'll happily cage you up next door. For now, I'll thank you for demonstrating the lack of composure we'll be discussing here today."
Yuliana scowls, and schools her expression into something more accepting. "Yes, sir."
"Sit down," he commands, and she does. Major Pham sighs, hands folded together on his desk. "You followed orders, and I'm not faulting you for that. But Captain, please consider the optics of telling a young pilot you'll... it says here," he lifts a hand to tap at a paper file on his desk, "kill her parents a second time, just to hurt her. Tell me, Captain. Do you think you sound like the embattled hero, saying things like that on an open channel? Do you think you sound reasonable?"
Yuliana glances away, frowning. She turns her left cheek to the Major, but her bangs aren't long enough to hide her, any more. "How else was I to hurt her? It was the best tool I had to destabilise her while I tried to get to her. That mobile suit was huge... destroying her was no simple matter."
"Why, then," Pham asks, "did you not open a private channel? Let her be upset without being able to explain to the rest of them! Your blatancy was ineffective, Captain, and more than that -- compromising!" He speaks harshly, with no smoothed edges.
"I was just saying what everyone was thinking!" Yuliana snaps, her voice raising again. "Why should I hide my capacity to hurt those Zeon devils?! She deserved to have her innards drawn out in front of everyone!" Yuliana lurches forward, to grab the edge of Pham's mahogany desk with her good hand. "There were CIVILIANS there! Women! Kids! Normal fucking people are dead!"
"And now they'll look at that devil's actions," Pham explains, cool, "and wonder how many of those deaths were provoked by your cruelty, Captain."
"Oh, bullshit!" Yuliana leans towards him, both hands grasping his desk now, discomfort carried in a sharp breath. "She was mowing people down the whole time! She didn't even relent when that stupid kid gave her an excuse!"
"Sit down," the Major repeats himself, with a shade more steel. Yuliana sits back in her chair, grumbling -- then, and only then, does he continue. "The truth matters less than how it is reported. You should know that better than most." He sighs, settling back in his own chair. "... I understand you almost died, out there. You even needed help from Londo Bell. It's a... difficult experience, Captain. Even if you hadn't put us in the position of needing to save face, you'd still be referred for counselling -- I hope you understand that."
Saving face -- Yuliana remembers the Zabi wench, and scowls. "... you set me up," Yuliana mutters, quietly, fingers coming to rest on her wristbrace. Firmly, before he can call her on it, she repeats: "You set me up. You knew there was too much psychic activity out there. You knew my control would slip. You knew I'd enrage Zeon!"
"Not... entirely," Major Pham shakes his head. "We couldn't have predicted the -- anomalies you spoke of in your initial report. That man, again... I tell you, I knew nothing." He speaks seriously -- if he's lying, he's very good. "And while we did anticipate you would worsen the battle, we didn't count on your... particularly blatant approach."
"I'm not just some ravenous predator you can wind up and release, Major!" There are tears in her eyes, but Yuliana won't dignify them with a response. "Why didn't you tell me?!"
"It would not have mattered." Pham's voice, calm, falls like a gavel. "Even before the anomaly appeared, my preliminary estimates of this battle would have seen you overwhelmed. We were never sending you to destroy the Shamblo, Captain Dispersal -- only to sabotage it." He lifts a hand, in a light gesture. "Your grand aims and heroism were invented wholecloth in your mind. It is better for the Republic that Torrington falls -- and that Torrington requires aid. To achieve these ends, we sent the asset best suited to accelerate Zeon's destruction... and that's you."
He pauses, and concludes, sharp in the face of her pain: "Your failure was in making it obvious, but you aren't the type of predator who can control herself in the face of her prey, Captain. So, you see, disabusing you of your illusions would have only compromised operational security." Down the chain, he does not breath a word of doubt about the Republic's will. He is strong, because the Republic is strong.
"Y--you can't just treat me this way," Yuliana insists, presses her lips tightly together to stop them trembling. "I'm a Captain, damn it..."
"We've allowed you good standing and a long leash in order to pursue the Republic's interests with the proper veneer of legitimacy," Pham replies, disaffected, "but I hope you won't mistake your situation. You are an instrument of the Republic. No... the way you are now, the world will no longer accept you as a woman." He gestures to her, even as her own hands tuck about her elbows in a grasp which certainly isn't military regulation.
If they won't accept her as a woman, Yuliana thinks, weeping dark and dismal, they must accept her as a queen.
But Pham cannot see her heart; perhaps that's why he cuts into it, with a surgeon's precision, voice steady over her growing sobs. "You're upset because you've been staying with the Gwennangorn, aren't you? It's okay, Yuliana," her name, suddenly, gently. "They do things differently out there... even specialists like us can be swayed, in moments of weakness. Really, you're doing me a favour -- given there's just the one of you, Command sometimes fails to appreciate your limits. Rest assured... we'll fix you right up."
Yuliana's voice starts -- stops -- hitches on itself. "I could destroy you tomorrow... with a word... if I wanted," she chastises him, the words slipping from her, all bleeding out like a dozen torn holes. "Yooouu, wretched man... I-I'm a human being, I have feelings!"
"No. You are something humanity has created," Major Pham corrects her, "and God help us." He doesn't even flinch, at her empty -- empty? -- threat. He isn't worried she'll kill him. Not in her current state; not in any other state, either.
"You don't even have an EXCUSE to be so unsympathetic!" Yuliana snaps, head jerking up. "You're human, aren't you?! Why can't you act like it! The way you treat me is t-terrible!" She says it with so much more emotion and drive than she heard it said, but the intent is precisely the same.
"It's best we uncover all your negative feelings before I have someone address them," Pham explains. "All the... avenues of suspicion," and he lingers on that concept, for a moment, looking to her. "So that we can address them appropriately. Of course, I apologise for my callous approach... when you're feeling better, I will certainly congratulate you properly." He pauses, a moment: "... and privately. You understand."
Yuliana buries her face in her good hand, for a moment,scrubbing fitfully at her eyes. She hates feeling so exposed, now her bangs are trimmed down. "I... I get it... I get it, Major. I -- I didn't mean that -- I was out of line."
"You're under a lot of stress," Pham supplies her.
"I am under rather a lot of stress," Yuliana agrees, looking away. "How... considerate you were able to identify it so quickly."
And just as he doesn't question the Republic's will to Yuliana, neither does Pham suspect for an instant that Yuliana gave any other reason than her stress for his statement.
They're soldiers of the REA, after all.