“Outrageous!” cried the Member from Aegis.
“This exploitation of a primitive race of people, kept isolated from the galactic community for their own protection, is the action of the basest sort of Corporate…I mean Royal greed,” the Member from Pacifica added, pounding on her desk and tossing a ream of papers in the air, “not to mention the exploitation of a poor, defenseless woman; a captive of the carnivorous genetic creations of a mad AI.”
I was doing okay up until that last little part, when I nearly choked on my own saliva as the Esteemed Member started to describe my girl as ‘poor and defenseless’. But the Member from Pacifica III wasn’t done yet.
“A woman without the education or exposure to understand just how absolutely she had been taken advantage of by the postulant little aspiring tyrant I see chained before us here today!” she finished, sitting back down in her chair for emphasis.
“I would like to take a moment to assure the Members,” Harpsinger began, but the Committee wasn’t done shouting us down and expressing their complete and utter outrage.
“None of this was in your personal or privileged files,” the Chairman glared, leveling an accusing finger in the direction of my Attorney.
My Lawyer looked stunned and was momentarily taken aback, and then his face hardened in a way I hadn’t seen before. “My privileged files?” he said in a rising voice, “The ones you are referring to right now, today, are kept locked under the Seal of the Caprian Lawyers Association, with an encryption they provided. Not only should you have been unable to access them, but you just admitted to violating half a dozen independent treaties my world has with each of yours, as well as breaking a Confederated Imperial law that promises the same. A similar statute was present in the Old Confederation Constitution before that as well; for shame!” he cried, glaring at the Members of the Security Council. The Ambassador from Capria had the courtesy to look shame-faced for a moment, before removing all expression and presenting a mildly interested, diplomatic mask instead.
“This Committee acts under a special writ—issued by the Provisional Assembly—and unfortunately, certain civil liberties must be suspended, for the good of the body politic, until such time as the current crisis is over,” the right honorable Guffy Balroon explained, putting his hands on his hips. The way he jutted his lower lip would have been comical, in any other situation, “I wouldn’t expect a fresh Lawyer, just out of night school, and who passed the Bar by the skin of his teeth, to understand such complicated issues.”
Harpsinger made a growling sound deep within his throat.
“It’s not too late,” I muttered to him in my raspy voice, “sit down, be quiet, and you could probably still throw me under the hover-bus and work out a deal. Sir Isaac, at least, seems less than impressed with everything that’s gone on today.”
He looked down at me with the slightly dazed look of a man rapidly changing mental gears, and then he shook his head. “How could I hold my head up around the rest of the crew if I just let them railroad you without even trying, Sir,” he said firmly, and despite myself, I almost felt like a real Admiral again. “I wouldn’t be safe walking the streets of Messene or Capria when word got out to the likes of Curtis Bogart and his royalist ilk,” he added.
“You’re a parliamentary man,” I said, with no small surprise.
“I make sure my vote counts each election cycle, Sir,” he said raising his chin, “but a belief in democracy doesn’t automatically mean that I believe a person should be judged on the merit of his blood alone.”
I caught the subtle dig at the Royal House, in which blood alone indicated who should hold what position in society. Then I leaned back flabbergasted; here I was, in the very lion’s den of the Rump Confederation Assembly, being vigorously defended by a stout parliamentarian, who actually seemed to have my back! Whether out of genuine loyalty, fear of royalist retribution, or a little bit of both, I couldn’t tell. Nevertheless, I was touched.
The Honorable Guffy Balroon looking more than a little peeved at the way we were studiously ignoring him, prompting him to loudly clear his throat.
Almost involuntarily, my lawyer and I glanced back at him.
“It may be hard for a Tyrant, and Royalist sympathizers to understand, but any responsible citizen of our Great Sector would have no issue following the new rules. Reliable polling has shown that our citizenry is more than happy to give up a few freedoms in order to gain protection from vile menaces, like those squatting on our Borders. Or for that matter, those sitting right here in our very Council Chambers today," the right Honorable Guffy Balroon proudly pontificated, spreading his arms wide like a man bestowing a great revelation upon us poor, benighted souls.
“Now-now, Guffy, there’s no reason to judge someone just because of their belief systems; it takes all types to make this galaxy of ours we live in,” the Member from Pacifica III chided.
“Sweet Murphy, did she really just say that?” I all but choked. I mean, I had encountered a few of the most judgmentally non-judgmental people back on my home world of Capria, in the various persons of several of my cousins back in the palace. Their passive aggressive philosophy went something like: ‘I don’t judge you, even though anyone else who did would probably say you deserved to die by slow torture for the things you’re currently espousing, but of course I’m too enlightened for such backward thinking.’ Truth be told, this particular woman took the cake in that regard.
“All of this is beside the point,” Harpsinger ignored me, as he focused his ire on the Chairman.
“Exactly,” Guffy Balroon, the right honorable civil rights violator said triumphantly, “The very point I was going to make. All of this is beside the point, as we’ve already gone through your files and discovered no such documents like the ones you claim exist. Other than the marriage document itself—which was stored both in your files and within a separate database within your Battleship’s DI—there is nothing to back up or verify your claim, unless of course you kept them in hard copy paper format.” The look he bestowed upon us, all but promised that if such paper documents existed at all, they would not continue to do so for long.
“Due to the highly politicized nature of the marriage, I felt it best to—” Harpsinger said only to be interrupted.
“Politicized! Is that some backward dig at the activities of this Council,” the Chairman said direly, looking like an evil toothy toad, ready to defend his little bureaucratic patch of soil until the death.
My lawyer looked at him with a wrinkled forehead and genuine confusion. “All dynastic marriages are highly politicized; how much more so when it involves what are essentially two completely Royal Houses. A Hold Mistress is kind of like a Ruling Queen, don’t you know,” he said, for the edification and elucidation of the Committee at large.
Sir Isaac raised a single eyebrow and looked mildly impressed. “I guess he has you there, Chairman Balroon. If there’s one thing we know about back on Capria, it’s how very politicized the Royal Family is, even when under the tightest of Legislative control,” he said with a wry note in his voice, “A Montagne Prince, marrying the Queen of another Planetary Nation State—without the blessing of his new King—is just about as close to a guaranteed political firestorm as you’re likely to get.”
The Chairman stood, his breath hissing in and out for a few moments, before he gave himself a shake, causing the great mounds of fat (poorly concealed under the baggy robes of his office) to move likes waves upon the ocean that was his body. It was all quite disgusting, if you were forced to sit there and look at it, like I was. I mean, I still had my neck brace on, and between that and my shackles, I could barely turn my head! Actually, I could move it a little, but only if it was important.
“As I was about to say, before I was so rudely interrupted,” cut in Harpsinger.
The Chairman interrupted, pounding his gavel on the podium, “Another crack like that, and I’ll find you in contempt!”
My Lawyer looked taken aback.
/> “Bailiff go stand over the prisoners and ensure that if they make another such disrespectful utterance they are both put in irons!” raged the Chairman.
“If I may continue,” Harpsinger said coldly.
“Be my guest,” grunted the Chairman, watching us with beady eyes.
“Out of fear that my most privileged documents might be compromised in just this fashion—although from an entirely different source—,” Harpsinger began, “the names in the documents were removed, and exchanged with Bill and Elena. Any references to the Admiral, or the Hold Mistress’s properties or holdings, were exchanged for something else. In the Prince’s case, it was just kept as generic properties; there were no significant changes, only minor ones. In the case of the Lady Akantha, all references to properties were labeled as her native rustic Hut, the small apple orchard, and her livestock—a small herd of goats—to specify the differences between her Messene Holding, her Heir-ship in Argos, and the Space-based assets to which she had laid claim.”
For a moment, I stared at my weak-kneed divorce lawyer with genuine respect. I don’t know if I would have had the guts to stand up, on principle, to defend a member of the House of Parliament (be he ever so honorable) in the face of all this.
“Fabrications of the moment,” sneered the Member from Pacifica, “no doubt there is a real Bill and Elena, and now the Tyrant’s councilor seeks to baffle us with a file which only he can return to its original format. How convenient that this enables him to make any such changes that might best benefit his client at this particular juncture, now that he has advance knowledge of these proceedings!”
The Committee Members were nodding their heads in slow agreement with this point, and I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. I mean, I knew that they were out to get me, but to throw out documents that might prove my innocence of at least these charges wasn’t just wrong; it was criminal!
But then again, what did I expect from Capria’s elected body? My school boyish belief (that while Capria’s Parliament might be out to get me, at least the Confederation Assembly wasn’t a corrupt and biased institution as well) guttered and died a slow, painful death.
Were all Elected governments destined to turn their members into lying, cheating criminals, who bandied around big words to disguise their—they assure you, very much legal—murders? Why did democracy have to equate to oppressing those of their subjects out there just trying to do the right thing? We could have the same thing with a Dictatorship or Monarchy; the whole reason for elections was supposed to be to listen to the people. To express their will, and avoid the excesses that came with a King or Queen.
If we were destined to have those excesses anyway, how was tyranny by the majority any better than tyranny by birth? It’s awfully hard to kill the majority if they go bad and start plundering the coffers; on the other hand, it’s a lot easier to assassinate one man or woman, if he or she goes bad and starts oppressing the masses.
Very much afraid that these thoughts were leading me right down the path of my Royal Ancestors—the very same ones known for their bloodthirsty natures, and who got our planet orbitally bombarded—I drew myself up short. It doesn’t matter in the long run; because there is no long run, I reminded myself sternly. For now, I just needed to keep clinging to my college student-inspired ideology and belief in the goodness of my fellow man…at least until Jean Luc left the system. After that, I could be free to give in to despair, and it wouldn’t matter any longer. The amount of damage I could do if I got my head all spun around would be limited to myself and possibly a few other prisoners, assuming I was released into the general population of the Dungeon ship.
The Committee was just putting the matter of rejecting the electronic documents in their possession to a vote. They argued that they could not apply to my case, because the method of encryption used was accessible only from within my lawyer’s brain. All of this caused Harpsinger to chug another tall glass of water.
“I’d hoped to avoid doing this,” he said, a little shame-faced when he looked at me. I was confused, but decided to roll with it as he turned to face the assembly. “As it pleases the gentlemen and ladies of the Security Council,” my lawyer spoke into the sudden, deafening silence as everyone here—myself included—waited for the other shoe to drop, “the electronic documents in your possession are not the only ones that exist.”
The look of pure rage on the face of the Member from Pacifica III took me something aback, and then I shrugged; all I had was the barest surface understanding of these people. Just because someone came from a world of dedicated pacifists didn’t mean they personally shared every facet of that ideology, nor did it automatically make them peaceful and nature loving; that was a trap I now realized I had unconsciously fallen into.
“Where are these electronic documents, and how can this council be assured of their veracity?” the Co-Chair demanded, suddenly getting to his feet. His expression was as grim as possible, for a trained diplomat.
“The possibility of tampering alone increases the chance we’ll need to invalidate these also,” said the right Honorable Guffy Balroon, nodding his head in agreement.
“I can personally attest to the validity and uncompromised nature of these documents,” Harpsinger said, closing his eyes and swaying.
“Well go on man, explain yourself,” Sir Isaac said in a deep baritone, his voice much lower than previously.
“Fearing that my database might be compromised, I created a series of bonded files on a miniature data crystal,” Harpsinger explained.
“Where is this crystal, and how long has it been outside your possession,” Sir Isaac asked evenly.
“It never once left my possession; I had one of the ship’s doctors extract my tooth and place the chip within it while I watched. I was awake while he reinstalled it—the tooth I mean. It was quite painful, given the restrictions I placed upon acceptable pain medications, so as not to invalidate my testimony in this court,” said Harpsinger who, I dare say, cracked the barest hint of a predatory smile as he added, “After all, certainly no member of this esteemed Council would wish to see such testimony invalidated.”
“Blast you, Montagne,” shouted the Member from Aegis, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “Wheels within wheels, and plots with counter-plots built into them; you’re just as dangerous to this Sector as the worst armchair alarmists claim!”
“You want to blast me,” I tried to jab my thumbs into my chest, but my wrists were too tightly bound, “simply because I have a dedicated lawyer who isn’t willing to allow law and the truth to be twisted at the whim of some trumped up committee? Or is it because the Security Council finds these new revelations an inconvenient truth too difficult to sweep under the rug?!” I demanded.
“Baliff, slap the Prisoner in irons and have him escorted back to the Dungeon ship for contempt of Council!” snapped the right Honorable Guffy Balroon, who then rounded on my lawyer, “and let us pray, that all your munching on ship’s rations hasn’t ruined the information hidden within your secret little data crystal!”
“This is an outrage,” Harpsinger glared, with all his pale-faced might.
“He who speaks truth to power, had better have a battleship to back him up next time,” I shouted, then what felt like a pile driver slammed into the back of my head, and I pitched forward out of the chair. My nose slammed onto the table, and the side of my head did likewise on the seat I had occupied, on its way to the floor.
“Show some respect when the Chair is talking to you,” grated the Bailiff, who was now looming over me.
“A clear case of witness abuse and intimidation if ever I’ve seen one,” cried Harpsinger, scrambling away from the bailiff and me.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” the Bailiff said stiffly, “but the prisoner is already in irons; do you want me to escort him back to the ship now?”
I didn’t feel at all intimidated; abused and seriously ticked off, maybe…well, almost certainly, and also strangely unable to breathe. I started jerking
as soon as I realized I couldn’t get any air.
“Take care of it, you fool,” the Chairman said, waving his arms in the air.
Sir Isaac stood up. “I didn’t come here today to see my countrymen verbally assaulted and abused,” he said stiffly, his face an iron mask of disapproval. I only wished I was able to focus on it more, but I was only able to give him part of my attention as I jerked and spasmed, trying to get some air. “As Co-Chair and an Ambassador with decades of experience, I will personally oversee the extraction of the data crystal to ensure that no tampering takes place; you have the word of Ambassador and Co-Chair, Sir Isaac LePierre on this matter, and if you know anything about LePierre, it is that his word is good,” he said with ringing finality.
The mortified outrage on the Chairman’s face was enough to do my soul good. In the few, waning moments before my vision finished tunneling into complete blackness. After losing my vision, the words of those around me started sounding like they were coming through a metal tube.
“Thank you, Sir Isaac; a man of your proven integrity and reputation is beyond reproach,” Harpsinger said, a level of respect in his voice that filled me with fear. A man like Isaac’s reputation was that he would keep his word…unless he was deathly certain no one would ever find out about him breaking it. Say, if that someone was about to be dead.
“Bailiff, why is the witness turning such a dark shade of purple,” Sir Isaac asked with what sounded like mild concern.
The Bailiff leaned down, and I could sense the motion of my body being shaken.
“Medical emergency to the Security Council Chambers; we need a rapid response team in here stat!” someone said within range of my hearing. There was some yelling, and then everything spiraled and I heard nothing.
Chapter 24: A Rude Awakening
I came back to consciousness with a gasp, sucking in as much breath as I could comfortably get away with, and then expanding my lungs some more. Eventually, it got to the point of mild pain, but I did it anyway, just to prove I could.
Admiral's Trial (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 20
