by Richard Fox
“Speak plainly…sir.”
“Yes, you armor are the taciturn type.” He sat on the table and slapped a palm against the wood. “You’re on video fighting for the Ibarras, a video I swear everyone in the solar system’s seen. Perhaps the Ibarras forced you to fight? Threatened to hurt you?” Finkledge rolled his hand forward, encouraging Roland to go along with the suggestion.
“I volunteered. The Kesaht were attacking a colony. I couldn’t sit idle.”
“OK, do not say the V word. In fact, I’d rather you not even take the stand. So why don’t we—”
“Do I strike you as a coward?”
“No! You armor are something else. But this isn’t the time to be brave. This is a battle of wits, procedure, evidence. I’ll stymie the prosecution with motions for so long that the war with the Kesaht will end and this…Ibarra kerfuffle will blow over. The judges will want this over with and maybe you can get off with time served and an other-than-honorable discharge.”
“I will testify.”
“Did you…do those plugs mess with your hearing?” Finkledge squinted at Roland. “Your best shot for—”
“You heard me.”
The lawyer smacked his lips.
“And here I was planning to live on Mars for years. Ride out my service contract providing you the best defense possible and slide into one of the new firms popping up back on Earth. I might be home by Christmas at this rate.” Finkledge removed a slate from his jacket and tapped out a message.
“There are law firms on Earth?”
“Two things always survive: cockroaches and lawyers…and we’re about to start.” He tucked the slate back into his coat. “I’ve been rehearsing this for days. My big moment—and yours. Of course.”
Air shimmered around the table and a courtroom materialized: a long bench with three judges and a longer table beside theirs parallel to the bench but with a half-dozen military lawyers. Roland twisted around, and seated behind a rail was Gideon, Colonel Martel, and several men and women he’d never seen before. Judging by their uniformly bland clothes and stone faces, he guessed they were intelligence officers.
The holos shimmered as the room re-created another location around Roland and his lawyer. A grid shone beneath curved and irregular surfaces. The walls were pristine, but the holos of the people in the other room flickered with errors.
Martel beat a fist to his heart when he locked eyes with Roland. Gideon refused to look at his lance mate.
The middle judge rapped his gavel.
“Counsel, is there any change to the defendant’s plea?”
Finkledge stood and took a deep breath, as if he were about to recite a soliloquy from Shakespeare for a captive audience.
“Your honors, my client has been removed from the front line, where he bravely—”
The judge whacked the gavel. The sound came through a speaker in the roof, at odds with what Roland “saw” via the holo field.
“Binary question,” the judge said. “Change to the plea. Yes or no?”
“No change.” The lawyer pulled his chair out with a squeak of wood against the floor and sat down, dejected.
“Prosecution?” asked the judge on the left.
A naval officer, her hair in a tight bun, stood up. “Does the defense object to entering the video of the defendant in the guise of the ‘Black Knight’ as evidence? Chief Shaw has already confirmed under oath that it is him.”
Roland shook his head.
“No, your honor,” Finkledge said.
“Then the state has a second video,” she said and stepped out from behind the table.
Roland glanced at his lawyer, who frowned and bobbed his head from side to side.
The naval officer, Moore by her name tag, held a remote up to a wall and clicked it. Lights dimmed and a wide screen on the wall flickered to life. Camera footage of the Scipio’s makeshift brig came up, taken by a camera in the ceiling.
“So that’s why…” Roland’s hands gripped into fists.
Finkledge shushed him.
Roland watched as his entire conversation with the Ibarran armor soldier played out for the court, cutting off just before Gideon interrupted.
“Does the defense have any objection to this being entered as evidence?” the prosecutor asked.
“I…ugh…” Finkledge cleared his throat. “A moment with my client.” He hit a button on the desk and the holo court vanished. “You might have mentioned this?”
“I didn’t know,” Roland said.
“We can make a motion to have it dismissed as you didn’t consent to the recording…but you’re on active duty and a reasonable expectation of privacy isn’t really that reasonable.” Finkledge tugged at his bottom lip.
The courtroom rematerialized.
“Counsel,” the middle judge said as he scraped his gavel against his raised bench. “This is a binary decision.”
“Then…I object.” Finkledge stood ramrod straight. “That the prosecution can enter—”
“I know what you’re getting at. File a rejoinder as to the admissibility.” The judge leveled his gavel at the prosecutor. “Next witness.”
Roland’s lawyer sat down, visibly pale.
“Your honor,” Moore said, motioning to the gallery, “the state calls First Lieutenant Isiah Gideon, Terran Armor Corps.”
Gideon made his way to the witness stand and swore an oath on a hardback Bible.
“Lieutenant,” Moore said, “please state your relationship to the defendant.”
“I am Chief Shaw’s lance commander.”
“And how long have you known the defendant?”
“Since his initial training and selection at Ft. Knox.” Gideon kept his gaze on the prosecutor, never looking at Roland. “He was assigned to my lance to respond to the Vishrakath incident on Barada. Following that—”
“The court can examine the official deployment records later,” Moore said. “During the time he was under your direct supervision, did he ever express views contrary to his oath of service to the Terran Union?”
“While he was under my direct supervision…once,” Gideon said. The prosecutors’ table broke out into murmurs. “During operations on Thesius, he was overly concerned with the fate of Ibarran personnel while we were engaged in active combat with the Kesaht.”
“And this struck you as disloyal?”
“The Ibarrans are a renegade element. Full of mutineers and traitors. Any sympathy for the enemy is tantamount to treason. That he fought beside them—in armor!—on Balmaseda is proof enough that Shaw chose to ally himself with—”
“Objection.” Finkledge raised a hand meekly. “Speculation on the part of the witness.”
“Sustained,” a judge said. “Witness will keep his testimony limited to his direct observations.”
The side of Gideon’s face bearing Toth-claw scars twitched.
“Lieutenant,” Moore said, “were you there when Chief Shaw was captured by the Ibarrans?”
“You mean when he defected?”
The judge rapped his gavel and leaned over the bench to a stenographer robot. “Strike that from the record,” the judge said.
“Yes or no, lieutenant?” Moore asked.
“No.”
“Did the defendant voluntarily go to speak with the Ibarran prisoner, one Alannah Morrigan?”
“That he did.”
“Is there anything else you’d care to add that would shed light on the charges?”
Gideon slowly turned his gaze to Roland. The lieutenant locked eyes with his lance mate and his mouth worked from side to side slowly. Gideon’s mouth pulled into a sneer, then went neutral.
“I have nothing else to add.”
“Your witness,” Moore said and returned to her table.
Roland grabbed his lawyer by the elbow before he could stand up and shook his head quickly.
“But his testimony is—”
“Correct,” Roland said. Finkledge tried to pull his arm free, but Roland’s g
rip was like iron.
“Fine,” the lawyer hissed and Roland released him. “No questions, your honor.”
“Then the prosecution will enter the following recording into evidence,” Moore said. “This is out of order from what was submitted earlier but is apropos to the last witness’s testimony.”
“OK,” Finkledge said, leaning close to his client, “what didn’t you do on camera?”
“Armor camera footage from Chief Jonas Aignar,” Moore said as she opened a case and removed a data core the size of her fist. “This was recovered from the soldier’s damaged suit on Oricon Prime. This should clear up any issue as to the nature of the defendant’s entry into Ibarran service.”
Finkledge wiped sweat from his brow.
“Relax,” Roland said. “It’s embarrassing for me…but helpful.”
“Something exculpatory? Maybe I can catch a break,” Finkledge said.
Moore plugged the data core into a reader on the stenographer’s table and a static-filled holo screen appeared between the judges and the defendant’s and prosecutors’ tables.
The curved walls of the Qa’Resh station appeared along with Roland’s armor. Aignar’s point of view was from behind and to the side of Roland’s, and the two faced off against a smaller figure in the middle of a dais surrounded by rings of light. The figure, which Roland knew to be Stacey Ibarra, wasn’t the pure metal shell that housed the Ibarran leader’s mind, but was indistinct, like it was made out of smoke.
Roland’s brow furrowed as the holo screen advanced a few seconds, then froze completely.
“There seems to be a playback issue.” Moore tapped a control panel, then froze. The judges were stock-still, mouths stuck open. Roland twisted in his seat and saw Gideon half out of the courtroom, one foot locked in the air.
“What’s wrong?” Roland asked.
“Great…lag.” Finkledge tapped a red button on the edge of his desk. The holo field cracked, pixelating those around Roland before flickering on and off.
The holo courtroom fizzled away and the ceiling lights snapped on and off before finally going dark, plunging them into an abyss.
“That’s…odd,” the lawyer said.
A hidden door at the back of the room burst open and overly bright flashlights attached to the ends of gauss rifles flooded the holo suite.
“Prisoner! Hands up and freeze!” a guard yelled.
“Don’t shoot me!” Finkledge ducked under the table and covered his head with his arms.
Roland complied with the instructions and didn’t resist as his hands were jerked behind his back and cuffed. A pair of Rangers in skull masks led Roland out of the room.
“I’ll get to work on that brief!” Finkledge called out as the door slammed shut.
Chapter 9
In a maintenance tunnel beneath Mars, a Ranger with broad shoulders stood at an intersection where a drone cart zipped by him on mag-lev tracks. The Ranger looked up and down the tunnel, glanced around the corner, and found he was alone. He leaned against the rough-hewn tunnel wall and lifted his visor.
Medvedev put a vape stick to his lips, inhaled deep, and tilted his face up to a grate near the ceiling. He blew out a fog into the metal slits.
The grate came loose with a shimmy and tumbled out. Medvedev shot forward and caught it before it could clatter against the ground.
“Sloppy,” he said as a woman in a dust-clad bodysuit wiggled out of the hole.
“You know how tight it is in there?” Masha dropped next to him and ran a hand through short, sweat-soaked hair. “And just how nimble do you think my little tootsies are?”
“Eighty-four seconds until the next cart.” Medvedev reached up and set the grate back into place, then handed a shrink-wrapped bag to Masha. She ripped the plastic open and unfurled a set of work overalls.
The Ibarran spy tossed Medvedev a small black box and stepped into the overalls.
“Did you get it?” the legionnaire asked.
“I’m insulted. All I had to do was activate the implants Lady Ibarra left in the Terran armor’s data core just as it connected to the network and run a mapping program before the cyber defenses could detect the intrusion—then hash scramble every trace I was in their system. The Earth pukes have updated their coding. Most of our backdoors are nailed shut.” She took a small mirror out of a pocket and fussed with her hair.
“Where are our people from the Narvik?”
“Ulysses Tholis…I managed a scrape before the firewalls came back up. It’s not just the Narvik. It’s all our sleeper agents. The Black Knight’s being held there too.” She nibbled her bottom lip and gave the taciturn soldier puppy-dog eyes.
“No.” Medvedev walked down the tunnel, catching Masha flat-footed. “We’re not here for him.”
Masha hurried after him, skipping alongside him like an overexcited toddler.
“But he’s our hero. So what if he’s not in the mission specifics? Lady Ibarra would welcome him back with open arms…I bet she’d grant you a boon.”
Medvedev whirled around and jabbed a finger into her sternum.
“Ow,” she said.
“He’s not of the Nation.”
“He’s a Templar…we need them. The Lady needs them. If you help me get him out too, I’m sure they’ll let you transfer back to the Legions. No more crimping my style with that sour puss of yours.”
“You would have frozen to death on Koensuu without me,” he said and then turned and walked off.
“Remind me to send Lieutenant Hoffman and his puppies a thank-you card before we leave Earth space…is that a yes?”
Medvedev flipped his visor down and stopped outside a metal door with a metal cross handle.
“There’s no guarantee he’d come with us,” he said. “He’s pleaded not guilty to the treason charges.”
“Charges he’s not going to beat.” Masha wagged a finger at him.
“Martyrs are useful.”
“The Templar have Saint Kallen. They don’t need her and Roland the Hanged. Or shot. Or spaced. What is the Terran punishment for treason?”
“We’re not here for him.” Medvedev pushed the door open a crack and glanced into the well-lit hallway beyond.
“No sense of gallantry,” Masha huffed. “This mission is impossible. So what if we make it just a tad more impossible?”
“No.”
“I hate you so much.”
“No, you don’t.”
“A little! Phase two’s shuttle arrives in eight hours. Be there.”
Medvedev pushed the door open and went left. His partner went right.
****
Roland sat on a hard plastic bench, shifting his shoulders against his uncomfortable dress uniform and rubbing his wrists where the cuffs chafed against his exposed skin. The interior of his hood was getting stuffy, but the darkness reminded him of being in his armor’s womb and didn’t bother him.
“You’re sure about this?” a female voice asked.
“Course I am. Are you?” said a man who sounded familiar.
“Just do it.”
The hood came up and Roland blinked as his eyes adjusted. He was in a small holding cell. One of the Ranger guards stood outside the closed bars; the other was in the cell with him, unarmed.
The Ranger in the cell flipped up his visor and smiled at Roland.
“Jerry?” Roland asked.
“Told you he’d remember his old roommate.” Jerry gave Roland a quick hug around the shoulders that the armor soldier couldn’t return. “Haven’t seen you in the flesh since the selection center in Phoenix…you’ve been busy.”
“Was he really in an orphanage with you?” asked the woman Ranger from outside the cell. “He won’t shut up about that. Says you still owe him like twenty bucks.”
“Jerry? What the hell are you doing here? And…I think it was ten dollars.”
“Debt’s paid.” Jerry leaned back against the bars. “Beer’d be on me if you weren’t on trial and stuff. Gosh, told you going arm
or wasn’t worth it.”
“You don’t remember us?” Valencia asked. “You pulled our asses out of the fire on Thesius. We appreciate the save.”
“I’m sorry. I saw a lot of Rangers that day.”
“Yeah, what a goat rope that was.” Jerry shuddered. “I’ve had better drops and I’ve had worse.”
“What happened back in the courtroom?” Roland asked.
“The network went belly up,” Jerry said. “Protocol’s to secure the prisoner—you, sorry—whenever so much as a fart happens out of sequence. We’re heading back to the crater right now. Your trial’s on hold until they figure out what the hell happened.”
“Not like I had plans,” Roland said. “You just came off the line. Why aren’t you at an R&R center or at reconstitution training with your unit?”
“Genetic lottery.” Valencia flipped her visor up and Roland traded smiles with her.
“We’re true born.” Jerry jerked a thumb at Valencia. “And Tholis rates only true born for the prison guards.”
“Technically we’re ‘perimeter control specialists and personnel escorts,’” Valencia said, gesturing for air quotes.
“Because any proccie could somehow be tainted by the Ibarras,” Roland said. “President Garret’s circle of trust is pretty tight these days.”
“Commo’s tighter than Jerry’s budget the night before payday,” Valencia said. “Brass doesn’t want anyone knowing there’s a prison full of our proccies, Ibarran proccies…and two true-born armor.”
“Morrigan.” Roland perked up. “Is she OK?”
“Feisty.” Jerry rubbed a thigh and winced. “She’s with the Ibarrans. Leading prayers twice a day.”
Valencia crossed herself and beat a fist against her heart.
“Catching up on old times is risky for you,” Roland said. “What would this be? Fraternization?”
“What are they going to do?” Jerry asked. “Stick me in a hole on Mars and cut off all my comms? Look, Rolly-Polly—”
“Of all the things you could call me.”
“You’re not in your armor. I can get away with it. No one in the line units think you’re a traitor.”
