A Galaxy Unknown

by Thomas DePrima

  "I can prove it, Commander."

  "Can you?"

  "Easily. Open up the top of my tunic and blouse. I'd do it if my hands were unfettered."

  "Open your tunic and blouse? And what is that going to prove?"

  "Open it and see."

  Spence appeared flustered. He glanced quickly towards the guard, then returned his attention to Jenetta. "Uh— that's not appropriate behavior. I can't alter or adjust the clothing of a female prisoner in restraints."

  "Commander, the guard is five-meters away. He can attest to your proper behavior and that I asked you to do it."

  Spence looked at Jenetta for a few seconds and then said, "Very well. Marine, you heard the ensign request that I do this?"

  The guard nodded. "Yes sir, Commander. I heard the request."

  Spence reached over and separated the sides of Jenetta's tunic, then unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse.

  "Now pull the folds apart."

  "My God! What is that?" Spence exclaimed loudly as he first saw the imprint.

  The guard was straining to see without moving from his position. When he realized Jenetta was staring at him, he straightened back up quickly.

  "The Raiders imprint the women that they capture and intend to place in their brothels with a serial number for identification. You'll find similar identification marks on all of the female captives I brought back."

  "I see. I'm sorry I doubted you."

  "No problem, Commander. I hope that you can have these ridiculous charges dismissed. I was not AWOL."

  "I believe you, Ensign. Don't worry. Give me the names of the people that you've had contact with since the escape pod was opened. I'll need to contact them so that we can prepare a list of witnesses for the hearing."

  Jenetta spent the next ten minutes recounting every name that she could remember, until Spence said, "That's enough. It brings us up to the present."

  "How long do you think it will take to clear this up?"

  "The hearing is scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow."

  "Two weeks? I have to sit in a jail cell for two weeks?"

  "I'll talk to my commanding officer at JAG and see if we can't get you simply restricted to quarters, instead. It isn't as if you killed someone."

  Jenetta chewed on her lower lip for a couple of seconds before responding with, "Thank you, Commander Spence."

  "I'll try to stop by this afternoon to let you know how I made out."

  "Thank you, Commander."

  "You're welcome, Ensign. Uh— I'd suggest that you remove the captain's bars from that uniform before you get into deeper trouble."

  After lunch, Jenetta was informed that her attorney had returned. She was shackled hand and foot again and led to the interview room where she was greeted by a somber faced Lt. Commander Spence. Another officer, a female lieutenant about Jenetta's height, slim, with short brunette hair, appeared equally disturbed.

  "Hello, Ensign. This is Lieutenant Julia Marlo. She's been assigned to assist with your case. Have a seat." Spence pulled out the chair and held it for her.

  Jenetta sat down and the JAG officers took seats across from her.

  "I don't understand," Jenetta said. "Why is assistance necessary on a simple AWOL case?"

  "I have bad news, Ensign. It's not a hearing anymore," Spence said. "They've waived the hearing based on the evidence that you provided to Intelligence and they're going straight to a general court-martial."

  Jenetta just sat there with her mouth hanging open for several seconds. "What? A General Court-Martial? For being AWOL?"

  "The list of charges has been expanded. There's a lot more to this case than I was originally informed. Let me read the charges. Desertion, impersonating a superior officer, appropriation of private property without Space Command authority, torturing prisoners that you had taken into custody, and 18,231 separate counts of murder.

  Jenetta jumped to her feet, knocking her chair over backwards. "Murder? They were Raiders."

  The Marine guard was behind her in a second, stun baton at the ready in case she became violent.

  "Sit down, Ensign, and remain calm so we can get through this preliminary stuff," Spence said.

  The guard picked up the chair and Jenetta sat down slowly, shock and anger registered clearly on her face. The guard moved back to his former position near the wall.

  "I think that you left a few things out of the story you told me."

  "I answered every one of your questions honestly, Commander."

  "Perhaps, but you certainly didn't elaborate on the facts of the situation. Now what about these new charges? Are you guilty or innocent?"

  "Well— well— a little of both, except for Desertion. But I had good reasons for everything I did."

  "But you did do them?"

  "I guess so. I'm not sure about the number of deaths though."

  "That information was extrapolated directly from the evidence that you provided to Intelligence in the form of data rings. They were able to compile a roster of everyone that was reportedly in the space station when it exploded. Since you're being accused of mass murder, there's no chance of getting you out of here, and all the restraints stay on when-ever you're out of your cell."

  Jenetta sighed and slumped in her chair, "I understand, Commander."

  "Why don't we start from the beginning and you can tell us everything that you remember, from the day of the explosion on the Hokyuu. Don't skip anything." Spence pulled a tiny vid camera from his pocket, touched the bottom with a saliva moistened finger, and placed it on the table. Shaped like a coin and smaller than a man's wedding band, it would stick where placed until pulled up. Pulling a thin view pad from another pocket, he used it to aim the self-focusing device so that Jenetta would be perfectly framed in the recorded image. As he started recording, he said, "Proceed, Ensign."

  Jenetta began with the end of her last duty shift on the Hokyuu and related every detail she could remember. As the dinner hour approached, Spence called for an end to the session. They had only gotten as far as when Jenetta climbed into the stasis bed because Spence had constantly interrupted with questions to clarify various points.

  As the JAG officers left for dinner, Jenetta was taken back to her cell where the restraints were removed and she received her dinner. Afterwards, she lay down on her cot and thought about the charges. "18,231 separate counts of murder," she said aloud. "They're trying to crucify me for some reason." She thought about the words of the Raider Commander on the Prometheus, ‘you're dead, bitch, you're dead.' Before they had taken away her holo-magazine cylinders, Jenetta had read about the Space Command officers imprisoned following their convictions on charges of complicity in the theft of the two battleships. How many other officers did the Raider organization have in their pocket? In Intelligence? In JAG? Was she being railroaded to a murder conviction on orders from the Raider ‘Lower Council' that Arneu had talked about? Just how much power did the Raider organization actually wield inside Space Command?

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ~ January 6th, 2268 ~

  Captain Quinton Carver dropped the landing pads and leapt out of the ‘oh-gee' vehicle before it had even settled the final quarter-meter to the ground. He sprinted to the front door of the two-story house where he lived with his wife. and pressed his hand against the palm plate, pushing open the door as he heard the lock release.

  "Who's there?" he heard his wife say from the kitchen as he stepped inside the front door.

  "Just me, dear," he called back excitedly.

  Annette Carver noted the excitement in his voice and came to greet him, her smile widening as she saw the huge grin on his face. As her husband lowered his head, she stretched to meet him, and they kissed lightly in their habitual greeting manner.

  "You're home early, dear. Did you score a hole in one?" she asked.

  "I only played five holes. I got a call from Jack McDormott at the base. He had some important news and asked me to come
right over, so I found someone to finish the round for me."

  "Well, don't keep me waiting. What is it?"

  "It's going to be a shock. Would you rather sit down first."

  "No, I don't want to sit down, dear. What is it?" she asked anxiously. "Are you being reactivated?"

  "No, it's about Jenetta."

  "Jenetta?" his wife echoed in complete surprise, her face instantly becoming a blank mask. "What about Jenetta?"

  "She's alive."

  "Alive?" his wife mouthed silently, a look of utter shock on her face. Tears instantly formed in her eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. She felt her throat constrict and her sinus cavities began to fill. It had been so many years. She couldn't be sure she had heard correctly. "Are you sure?" she asked shakily as her heart pounded and her chest began to heave.

  "Absolutely. She's at the Higgins Space Command Base at Vinnia. She's been positively identified."

  "How— how is she?" Annette Carver asked as the trickle of tears became a stream.

  "I understand that the base hospital has released her with a clean bill of health. She's been in stasis since the accident, so she still looks almost the same as the day she left."

  Annette had remained strong as long as she could. She wrapped her arms tightly around her husband and let the tears of joy pour from her eyes and dampen his shirt as she sobbed loudly. Her baby was alive. Not only alive but safe and well. Her prayers from so long ago had been answered.

  * * *

  Jenetta slept fitfully that night, at one point seeing the faces of her parents and brothers as they looked upon her with revulsion when she was marched out for execution following a speedy trial. She tried to tell them that she had only done what she had to, but she couldn't talk because her mouth was filled with a gag like those used in the detention center of the Raider space station.

  As she was led to the gallows, she realized that she was dressed in a black leather outfit from her Raider detention cell closet; one with the arms stitched together behind her back and so tight that she couldn't raise her legs to walk up the thirteen steps. She had to be lifted to each by the guards from the Raider detention center. They were all there, and each took his time groping her body as he raised her and turned her over to the next. Reaching the top, she found Mikel Arneu waiting to place the noose around her neck. He was wearing the large gold medal given to him by the ‘Lower Council' for helping to bring Jenetta to justice.

  As the trap door opened and Jenetta began to fall, she awoke suddenly and sat up on the brig cot. Soaking wet from perspiration, she rose to wash and dry her face.

  "It was just a dumb nightmare," she said aloud. "They don't even execute people anymore, except for particularly depraved acts of piracy, treason, or sedition. I think that I've watched too many old westerns. These days they just put you into a penal colony for life. But life in prison will be a very long time if Arneu was right about my living for five thousand years."

  * * *

  Jenetta spent every one of the next eight days working with Lt. Commander Spence and Lieutenant Marlo in the interview room while she related almost everything of importance that had happened, and her motivations. The only information that she held back was Arneu's statements about her living for hundreds or possibly thousands of years. It sounded crazy, and was better off omitted from a story that already severely tested the boundaries of credulity.

  On the tenth day, she wrapped up the story by talking about the Commander from Intelligence and her examinations at the hospital by the doctor.

  "That's about it. I think that I've covered everything," Jenetta said finally.

  "I have to say Ensign," Spence said, "that in my fourteen years in JAG, I've never heard a story even one-tenth as incredible as this one; and I've heard some whoppers."

  "You don't believe me?"

  "I didn't say that. There's no doubt that much of what you've told us is factual and will be acknowledged by the prosecution without question. Our job will be to prove the rest of it, and what your intentions were. Now that we have all the facts, as you know them, we'll have to construct our case."

  "I don't understand the reason for the charges against me, sir. One of the things I particularly don't understand is the preference of murder charges. Those people, with the exception of Captain Starnos and his mate, whose accidental deaths I deeply regret, were all Raiders. They were the scum of the galaxy; thieves, murderers, drug dealers, and slavers."

  "I admit to some confusion as well. The fact that you acted without orders would seem to be the prime motivation behind the prosecution's charges, Ensign. Headquarters doesn't like its ensigns running around killing tens of thousands of people and blowing up space stations without orders."

  Jenetta grimaced. "Are they afraid I'll start a trend?" she asked facetiously. "Do they fear that ensigns everywhere will suddenly rise up and begin waging a private war against the Raiders? Oh my God— we could see the enemy dying in such great numbers that our Admirals will have nothing to do."

  Commander Spence scowled and said, "I sincerely hope that you won't act this flippant in court, Ensign. I'm sure you understand concerns about following the proper chain of command."

  "You mean they're doing this just to teach me a lesson?"

  "Not just you. By making an example of you, they'll teach all young officers not to go off on their own."

  "But I didn't go off on my own, Commander. I was cut off from communication with Space Command. I had to take the actions that I deemed appropriate."

  "And that will be our basic defense position. You were only doing what was necessary for the survival of yourself and those under your protection, while also attempting to gather intelligence that would benefit Space Command."

  Jenetta leaned back in her chair and sighed. "What do you think my chances are, sir?"

  "On the matter of desertion, excellent. It's only desertion because you were gone for more than ninety days. We have a deposition from the doctor on the Vordoth that awoke you from the stasis bed, and a video log from the sickbay that shows your extremely debilitated condition following recovery of the pod. In fact, Dr. Erikson has written a paper about the effects of long-term stasis sleep on a very physically fit individual, and the rate of recovery by such a patient. Our base engineers have determined that the escape pod you brought back did come from the Hokyuu, and that the retrorocket never fired, although an automatic command was sent, followed by multiple manual attempts. We have your daily log entries, and if the court accepts that you went into the stasis chamber when you say you did, then the most that you'll be found guilty of is AWOL. And probably for only that portion of time after you accepted command of the Vordoth and decided not to come straight to the nearest base."

  "We had to save the Nordakians. And then we couldn't just leave them there, defenseless."

  "That will be for the court to decide, but AWOL is the worst that I would expect. On the matter of Impersonating an Officer of Superior Rank, it will be entirely up to the court. By your own statements you identified yourself as Captain Carver."

  "I was in command of the ship and the officer in command is always referred to as Captain. Even a lieutenant(jg) flying a single seat patrol craft is technically the captain of the ship."

  "But they don't put on captain's bars, as you did."

  "Uh— that's true, but we were on an extended voyage and the crew seemed to feel that it was appropriate."

  "What's appropriate for the merchant services and what's appropriate for the military are two entirely different things. The court will decide if your action was appropriate."

  "Aye, Commander."

  "In the matter of appropriation of private property without Space Command authority, it will probably depend upon how hard the owners of the freighter push, and how much the service wants to back you. You don't deny that you didn't have permission to take the tug and explosives?"

  "No. I couldn't contact the freight company offices for the same reason that we couldn't
contact Space Command. It could have given away our position."

  "In the matter of the 18,231 counts of murder, I think that the charge is absurd. We're officially at war with the Raiders. At most I believe they'll only find you guilty of the manslaughter deaths of Captain Starnos and his first mate."

  "But I didn't know that the space port was going to explode."

  "You did leave instructions for the Vordoth to send the detonation code?"

  "Yes, but the charge shouldn't have destroyed the entire space port. It was only intended to cause a diversion. I didn't believe that it would destroy anything beyond a kilometer's distance from the device. The detonation point was in a cargo storage area, easily twenty-five kilometers away from the habitat buildings."

  "Regardless, the entire space station was destroyed as a result of your specific orders?"

  "Aye, sir. Apparently."

  "On the last charge, that of torturing a prisoner, I think that we can show just cause, and that you were only inflicting the same level of pain that you and the others had been subjected to on a regular basis. Also, you had just been wounded. We'll try to convince the jury that pain affected your judgment."

  "What kind of sentence do you feel that I might receive for everything?"

  "That's impossible to say. The two manslaughter charges alone could mean life."

  "What's your best guess?"

  "I never make guesses about the outcome of a general court. I just do my best to have all charges dismissed or my client found innocent. Keep your chin up, Ensign. Oh— I'll be sending over a dress uniform for you to wear in court."

  "Thank you, Commander," Jenetta said dejectedly.

  "Lieutenant Marlo and I will be working on this case exclusively until the court date. We'll be back if we have any more questions, but you may not see us before you're brought to the courtroom. I don't want you to feel that you've been abandoned just because we'll be devoting ourselves to talking with witnesses and planning your defense."

  "I understand, Commander."