by Lilly Cain
Sue bounced to her feet. “How dare you. I have done nothing wrong! I told the terrorists where the ships were meeting, but only because I felt certain that we could defeat them. And because if they didn’t know, they would have chosen some other target, one less able to defend itself!”
“What target?” He stood face to face with her.
“I don’t know! I can’t remember,” she cried out, tears of anger and frustration threatening to spill from her eyes.
“Did you have sex with them?” he yelled. “Did you fuck the terrorists and then the Inarrii to gain favors? I hope it was good, Captain, because it’s over now.”
She lunged at him, her nerves broken. Anger had pushed her where fear and frustration couldn’t. She grabbed the man but before she could strike him, the guards were on her.
“Take her away,” he said, his face calm. “In our next round of questioning, we won’t be as patient as we have been.” He turned away from her and looked at the Starforce officers attending the inquiry. “We need answers, gentlemen.” He addressed the Board, some of whom were now on their feet in alarm. “The Earth Council has given me the authority to disband the Board here and take control of this investigation. We need answers faster than you are going to get them, if you ever do. I will now be using a different method. You will be allowed to attend, if you feel the need, but I have every power to conduct an inquiry in any method deemed necessary. Are we clear?”
Sue struggled as the guard applied force bindings. Her mind rebelled. Not again! She couldn’t stand it again—not this, not torture. Some of her memories were gone, scrambled past repair, but she clearly remembered the pain, the desperation to make it stop.
She collapsed as the guards began to drag her. “Asler!” Her mind called for the only man she felt safe with.
Asler slammed his hand against the force barrier separating him from the inquiry. “How can they allow this?” he demanded to Salis. His Co-Examiner stood beside him, along with Commander Finar and the human emissary, Starforce Major David Brown. “Look at her, she’s terrified.” He couldn’t drag his eyes from Susan as she was brutally taken into custody.
“They must have answers, Examiner Kiis. The presence of an agent of the Starforce Intelligence Department is very serious.”
“We have to stop this. I can hear her fear. She is calling out for me and is terrified they will harm her. I don’t think she can stand to go through this again, Major Brown. Her mind is very raw at this point. Despite her bravery, we’d only begun to heal her.” Asler’s voice broke on the words. He shook his head at the grave expression on the human officer’s face.
“There is nothing we can do. It is only because of the Treaty that you can be here to observe at all. Diplomatic immunity is all that keeps you from being questioned as well, Examiner Kiis. Your position is tenuous at best.”
“Commander Finar.” Asler addressed his friend and commander. “We must do something. It was because of my choice of method that Susan cannot retrieve the memories that would now clear her name. She cannot answer their questions. Please, I will do anything. I will undergo questioning myself as to what was observed. You know very well that my word should be all that is needed to find her innocent.”
Susan was being dragged away, collapsing against the guard’s grasp, her arms in force bindings. Her mind reached out and called his name.
Asler slammed his hand again on the force barrier. He caught Finar’s quick gasp. “You heard her, didn’t you? She has m’ittar, strong enough to call out to everyone in the city, I’d bet. Her mind will be broken, that resource lost. We must save her.”
Finar broke the silence he’d maintained throughout the inquiry and Asler’s rant. “Yes, we must.” He stared at Asler. “Are you truly ready for the ramifications of being questioned on this matter? If your own memories are exposed, you may be forced to abandon your entire career before this is over.”
“I’m ready.”
“I hope so. What we do now may change everything.” Finar turned to the human emissary. “Major Brown, I hope you will accompany us. We must return to the ship and speak with our own Council before we interrupt the Treaty talks.”
“I would be honored, sir. I have had the pleasure of meeting Captain Branscombe, and I don’t believe she had anything to do with the terrorists. And of course I am familiar with Inarrii dress and custom, so I am not inclined to believe any incorrect behavior, or at least according to Inarrii custom.” He grinned.
Asler caught the quick hint of affection in his tone and knew the man was thinking of his own new Inarrii wife, the first official coupling of the two races.
The tight feeling in Asler’s chest began to ease for the first time in days. Salis rested a hand on his back and Asler took a deep breath.
“Very good. Let’s go.” Finar nodded and signaled the transfer bubble to activate, encircling the four men for quick transport to the ship Horneu. In moments the transfer was complete, the human officer barely staggering as they emerged.
“Examiner Kiis and Fiiten, please take Major Brown to communications level one and have him report in to his commanding officer. I will be informing our Council of the current situation, and then we will call for an emergency meeting at the Treaty Center on the Earth Base.” He reached for Asler’s shoulder, gripped him hard. “Be ready, Asler. You will need to conduct a display of m’ittar publicly. You will have to display your memories of working with Susan. You will be examined and your relationship to her…it may end here. It will all depend on what we can reveal. Be prepared.”
“Examiner Kiis, as a matter of record, until after this hearing, you are deemed to be in the care of Examiner Fiiten. He will be conducting all inquiries.”
“I understand.” Asler nodded to Jannii and Salis. His back stiffened despite the fact that he knew this was the only way. It was take the chance of ending his career or risk Susan’s sanity. There was no choice.
One thing Sue remembered clearly was being burned. The memory stood out where many others seemed blurred. Some of that was what she and Asler had done to her memories by reviewing them the way they had. But she knew that some of it was her mind playing tricks on her, wiping out what wasn’t healthy for her to see. She knew that, but it didn’t stop her from resenting the fact.
She paced the small room she’d been given during the inquisition. Inquisition seemed an appropriate term, filled with the possibility of violence and not necessarily the truth.
At least it wasn’t a dank dark room on the junker. She’d made it out of that, survived if nothing else. Don’t believe it. You and Asler have discovered something important out of all that pain. Something that will help your world. Sue berated herself. Wall, wall, bed, toilet, sink—Sue paced the room again. Why didn’t he come? Thoughts of Asler competed for attention and were thrust aside. He didn’t come because he couldn’t. She believed he would be there if he could, she had to believe in what they had found together, even if they hadn’t said the words aloud.
Her councilor, who’d been suspiciously silent over the last day, had finally told her what was happening. The SID, Starforce Intelligence Department, had taken control of her case. Things were going from bad to worse—first the Confederacy had investigated, then the human board, and now she’d been passed on like a hot potato to the SID. The newly created agency had already achieved a ruthless reputation.
Sweat formed cold and clammy down her back. She hadn’t been warm since she’d left the Horneu. And that thought brings me right back to Asler. Sue shook her head and sat on the narrow bed.
“Attention, officer on deck,” the guard at her door announced as the door slid open to reveal Base Commander Davies.
He smiled at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to return the welcome. He’d betrayed her.
She slowly stood to attention. The tilt at the corner of his lips faltered and disappeared.
“Captain Branscombe. You look well.”
“Sir.”
“Everything will
be fine, Sue. Just do your duty, answer the questions. You’ll be fine.”
“May I be frank, sir?” she asked. Her throat threatened to close in on the words as anger aligned with resentment.
“Yes, yes of course.” He seemed to be at a loss for words, surprise and dismay making the lines on his face deepen. A new experience for him, she guessed.
“How could you? How could you tell the SID that you found me half-naked onboard the Horneu? You don’t even know what was going on. You didn’t even ask. For years I thought of you as a father, someone I trusted. But you didn’t ask me what was happening, you just made assumptions and jumped right in. Now you want me to ‘do my duty’? My God, I’ve been captured, tortured, assumed to be a traitor. Then, when I worked to actually discover something that could help our world, you come in acting like I am an unsupervised and oversexed teenager?”
“I…I…” Davies stuttered over her revelation. “The SID? What do you mean?”
“The SID have taken over my case, apparently.”
He turned from her, sat heavily on the bed. “I had no idea it would come to this. I’d…heard some things about the Inarrii, and I thought…I thought you shouldn’t be coerced, or pushed into something after you’d been treated so badly. I just wanted you here with our people. I thought you would be safer.”
Sue took in his drooping shoulders and worn face. She believed him. This was the man who had taken her under his wing. Of course he’d wanted to protect her.
She sat beside him. “The problem is, I can’t answer their questions. I’m in big trouble, Commander.”
“I don’t think I can get you out. It was all I could do to get in here to see you.”
She swallowed. “Can you get a message to Asler Kiis? I…I don’t think he can get me out, but I’d like to tell him—I’d like to tell him I love him.”
Davies’s eyes widened in surprise. “You love him? He isn’t human.”
“I know. But it doesn’t matter, and I don’t care. They are so like us, and I can feel things with him that I never felt with anyone else. He helped me. He helped me to admit that I was so afraid I would do anything to get away from the torture, and he helped me to see that what I did was my only choice when I told them where the meeting was.” She closed her eyes. “They almost broke me. I got to the point that I wouldn’t even try escape when it was possible, I was so afraid.”
“Can’t you tell the SID that?”
“You know it won’t be enough. They need someone to blame, and it looks like I’m all they have.”
“What about what you said, about discovering something that could help?”
She sighed. “I don’t know that the SID would believe me. I can’t prove what I saw. I can’t even remember seeing it, just what Asler says we witnessed.”
Davies shook his head. “It won’t be enough.”
“No. Only the Inarrii will know what to do with the information anyway.”
They sat quietly for a moment. There was nothing left to say. She leaned slightly against his shoulder. It was the only comfort she could have from him, a man who’d meant so much to her but was still only her commander. The buzzer sounded, and her cell door swung open.
“I’ll pass on your message,” Davies whispered as he rose.
Sue watched him leave. Her heart sank as she wondered if he could get through to Asler, or if it would really matter.
Asler gritted his teeth as he watched Susan march into the room, a guard at her back. Their eyes met across the room.
“Asler!” Surprise and delight tinted her mental tone as she greeted him silently through m’ittar.
He pressed his lips even more tightly together as delight turned to confusion on her face when he didn’t answer. She didn’t know—he couldn’t answer.
The rules of the Confederacy were clear. They’d made their case for an interruption in the Treaty talks. The weight of two Examiners, along with a commander and the human ambassador, had been enough to ensure they could present their case, but he was now in the care of another Examiner. Outgoing m’ittar was not allowed, not even when the attending Examiner Advocate was a friend.
Salis gripped his shoulder in warning and in support, even as the thought passed through Asler’s mind.
“I must take objection to this meeting and remind each of you that Captain Branscombe is in the custody of the SID.” The Starforce Investigation officer had risen to speak to the room at large. The Human Council sat on one side of the room, their Treaty meeting table abandoned in the need for a larger audience, and the Confederacy officers sat on the other. A Confederacy projection platform had been erected at the front of the room, its low stage a circle of hope—at least to Asler.
Admiral Jeffers rose from his seat. Asler hadn’t seen him since the last meeting, but he knew Jeffers led the Human Council and had been officiating at the Treaty talks. “Your objection has been noted, but the reason for this meeting outweighs the SID objectives.” He motioned to Commander Finar. “Please continue, Commander.”
“As I was saying, Your Honors, our method of investigation differs wildly from yours. Our m’ittar, or mind speech, has deeper abilities in some of our people. Our Examiners in particular have the ability to review memories and pass judgment on motive, as well as retrieve valuable information. This was explained to the Human Council when Examiner Kiis took control of Captain Branscombe’s investigation. He was to review her memories leading to the first attack.”
Murmurs passed through the crowd. Admiral Jeffers voiced a question. “First attack? Have there been others?”
“There have.” Finar walked to the front of the room, standing before the platform. “As the attacks were directed against the Confederacy base and our ship the Horneu, it was agreed that until the investigation was complete, more information would not be passed on. More interruptions to the Treaty negotiations are not needed as I am sure you will all agree.”
The SID officer stood again. “No, we would not agree. This is exactly why the SID should have had control of the investigation—you admit that you are hiding things from us.”
“Sit down,” Admiral Jeffers barked.
“Please, if I may continue.” Finar spoke quietly, and the room fell silent to hear each nuance of his words. “This does involve all of us. Perhaps it was wrong of the Confederacy to keep silent on the subject of the attacks. But there is a further piece of information you must be made aware of. The Confederacy has long been troubled by members of a group we call the Ravagers. Destructive pirates of planetary resources, the Ravagers follow at our heels to snatch up and devour what they can grasp away from our protection. We feared they would be nearby, planning on attacking the Earth if for some reason the Treaty failed. Now we have proof that what we feared is true, and that the attacks have been instigated by them, been made more effective by their technology.”
Once again the SID officer stood. His skin had flushed to a livid purple. “You claim we must join with you or we will be attacked? I say you’ve likely staged these attacks yourself to force us to agree quickly to whatever terms that you have set.”
“We understand your doubts. We are prepared to prove everything.”
“With more alien technology? With more lies? How can we trust your proof?”
“We ask that you watch and listen to what we can offer as proof, and we ask that you consider that we did not need to offer this information. We could have let you interrogate an innocent woman, let you break her mind. We could have kept silent on the attacks and let the course of the Treaty make its way, one way or another. We do not need to protect your world. We do not have to have your agreement. But we have come to know some of you, and we have come to hope that we can be partners within the Confederacy.”
“Sit down, Officer. We will listen to the proof. And—” Admiral Jeffers gestured to the door, “—if you cannot control yourself, you can leave.”
Finar continued as the SID officer sputtered in his chair. “This platform is a m’itt
ar projection device. It will allow you to see the memories being reviewed, and the methods we use. Examiner Salis Fiiten will conduct the first examination.”
Salis stood, and Asler followed as he led the way to the platform. Asler’s heart raced. If Salis slipped only once and exposed a memory from a previous investigation, both their careers would be in jeopardy. If he exposed anything incorrect about his relationship with Susan, her trial might continue, despite what they could prove about the Ravager involvement. And if any of that came to pass, his chances of being with her again were gone.
“Physical contact is necessary for m’ittar.” Salis addressed the gathering. “Between Inarrii, where mind contact is common, only mild touching is necessary to access the memories by a skilled Examiner.”
The watching admiral made a motion with his hand, catching Salis’s attention. “Yes?”
“May we ask questions during your examination?”
Asler looked at the floor and worked to keep his face expressionless. This would make things even more dangerous. External influence could affect the choice of memories being reviewed.
“You can ask now, or immediately after, but not during the actual memory being played out. I must have quiet to concentrate. As you might imagine, the mind is a delicate subject, and Examiner Kiis has put his career at risk by offering to be publicly examined. If his memories are distorted or secure information is revealed, he will lose his position, both within the Confederacy and within his personal clan. Today he risks everything for the truth.” Salis looked out into the audience, but no further questions were posed. He laid one hand on Asler’s forehead, sliding his fingers against the roots of Asler’s hair and brushing the flat L’inar. “Are you ready?”
“Do I have to be?” Asler opened his mind for his friend. “Be careful in there.”
“We are initiating contact.” Salis slid his other hand around the back of Asler’s neck. The platform hummed beneath his knees. The room faded to an opaque gray. Then Susan’s face appeared before him with her luscious lips wet and parted, her skin flushed from his kisses. Her eyes glazed and he glimpsed himself sitting beside her on his office bench. He watched as he and Susan leaned closer together, his hands wrapping around her biceps, and recognized their stance as a m’ittar pose.
