August 3rd, 004 SDE:
Sali followed her fellow work crew into the room, and looked around. The last time she had been in this room, she’d been on the stand, this time she was just here to watch. Looking around she found the chamber was packed, virtually every seat was filled. She and her fellows found themselves standing on the rear wall, as the guards came in escorting the prisoners to the dais. They were quite the sight, moving in unison and encased in power armor.
The prisoners wore little in comparison, as they were brought before the podium, where several figures stood. Sali understood them to be leading members of the officer council. The lead governing body of the human race, or what was left of it anyway. She noted the captain settled in a chair, the scientist Ruri beside him and an older man she didn’t really know. Greyman, if she recalled correctly. A distinguished older woman took the podium and began to speak.
“Commander Mary Williams, General Albert Evanov, Commander Frederick Jameson, Commander April Cutter, and Lieutenant Maria Sanchez. All of you stand accused of conspiracy to mutiny and overthrow the current council and its leadership. Furthermore, you’ve been accused of sowing dissent, sabotage, undermining the council, and espionage.”
The woman paused. “Commander Williams, step forward. The council has identified you as the ringleader, how do you plead?”
Williams spat, “You’re all fools! That damn machine never should have...”
“The prisoner shows no remorse and refuses to plead. Note that for the record.”
Someone nodded and wrote something down, as the trial moved on. Movement caught her eye as Robert joined her, “Sorry I’m late. Did I miss anything?”
“Not really, just listing off the charges and collecting pleas.” she frowned, “So um, any guesses on the sentence?”
“Well there is little doubt they are guilty, I can still remember the gunfire.”
“Oh?”
“I was in engineering when the lackeys tried to take it over. I spent the entire time hunkered behind a console, while the guards and the lackeys were shooting up the place. Not fun, I tell you, not fun.”
She frowned, “What were you doing in engineering?”
“Well, after you left hydroponics, I stayed to help a little longer.'' He shifted, “Well, um, long story short, something broke, and Redfox needed me to pick up a part from engineering. Simple enough, I thought, and it should have been.”
She chuckled, “Sounds like some rotten luck.”
“Rotten indeed,” he agreed.
She gestured to the podium. “So any guesses on the sentence?”
He shrugged, “Sorry, that’s way above my paygrade, but I doubt they’ll be let off easy for it. Mutiny is a pretty big deal, especially on a starship.”
“Right,” she said.
Her gaze turned back to the podium, where they were discussing evidence. Much of it sounded pretty damning, especially the recordings of conversations between these ringleaders. Sali didn’t catch where they got them, but they seemed real to her. She turned back to Robert and spent a good chunk of time just chatting with him and enjoying the chance to socialize.
Then before she knew it something interesting seemed to happen. As the captain took the podium. He addressed the crowd, quickly drawing their attention. Sali took a moment to digest his speech about the need for unity and how mutiny couldn’t be tolerated, as Williams was brought forward again.
The woman seemed angry as she yelled obscenities at Countryman. Sali didn’t think that helped her much at all.
“Commander Williams, this council has found you guilty, and as the ringleader you have been summarily stripped of honor and rank. Furthermore, you have been sentenced to death by firing squad. However, I’m not going to ask that of the troops.” Declared Countryman as he raised his right arm, a series of plates folding back to reveal the mechanical structure beneath. A weapon emitter popped out. “Instead, I will carry out your execution myself.”
The woman said something, but it was muffled by the discharge of an energy weapon. Sali gasped as the blue bolt ripped into Williams, she burst into flames as her flesh disintegrated in the blink of an eye. The remaining energy of the bolt harmlessly splashed against the armored floor.
Someone used a fire extinguisher on her charred corpse, and two guards picked it up and ferried it out of the room. A room that was suddenly quite silent, not one person spoke. Sali shivered a bit, and made a mental note to never get on his bad side. She knew the captain was generally pretty kind afterall, but it was something else Then the captain spoke up, addressing the next member of William’s council, “General Evanov you have been found guilty by the council, given your limited involvement over the last year the sentence of death has been commuted. Instead, you have been stripped of all rank and honor. Furthermore, you will spend the next one hundred years working in waste reclamation.”
Sali gulped, as her mind flashed back to her own trial. At the time she’d thought her sentence was rather unfair, but perhaps it wasn’t so bad. It was only fifteen years, and it was subject to review in five. For a moment she wondered how long that would be, as sometimes it was hard to keep track of the time. She’d ended up in jail a good three years ago, so she had about two more to go for that review. Not that she was sure of the exact timing.
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Setting her thoughts aside, she focused back on Countryman. As Evanov was pulled away by the guard and Commander Jameson was brought forth. “Commander Jameson you have been found guilty by the council, but since you were not the ringleader, the sentence of death has been commuted. The Council has stripped you of all rank and honor and you will be spending the next two hundred fifty years in waste reclamation with no chance of appeal.”
Then Countryman turned to the two remaining women, as the men were sharing looks. Likely contemplating life as laborers in waste reclamation, that didn’t seem like a pleasant sentence. “Lieutenant Sanchez, as Williams’ right hand and chief advisor you have been found guilty by the council, however your act of helping prove the guilt of your comrades by turning over key materials to the council has been noted and recognized. As such the sentence of death has been commuted, you will spend the next one hundred years working in the ship’s factories and have been demoted to the rank of crewman..”
Finally Countryman addressed the final woman. “Commander Cutter, your involvement in all this has been found to be rather limited. But you remain guilty, you will be joining Crewman Sanchez in the factories for the next hundred years and have been reduced in rank to Leading Petty Officer.”
Sali watched the group be led out of the room and caught their downcast faces as they made their way out of the room. The guards escorted them out. It seemed the trial was over, that was one of the nice things about the Human legal system. The Valorian one took days and was a bit of a nightmare. Now that she thought about it, the human one might be better. She remembered more than one case where a guilty man got off scot-free just because they had money. Bribing the court was a tradition back home. Perhaps that explained a few things about her people, at least it explained the current state of things.
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The Commander leaned forward as she studied the monitor. Search duty was proving rather boring, they’d been out here for days and their first sign of someone else out here proved not to be who they were looking for.
Still any ship was a bit of excitement. “So is that what I think it is?”
“Yep, that’s a D-6 Heavy Explorer. They stopped making those decades ago.”
The commander nodded, she hadn’t seen one outside of a museum. D-6 Heavy Explorers were, as the name implies, scout ships, reasonably well-armed with modest defenses. They’d been designed for long-term exploration missions into possibly dangerous space. They were also fast and she recalled that they used to be fairly popular with pirates. Some were still used by pirates, just not as many these days since the ship class was old and no longer in production.
“So remind me again, what were those things outfitted with?”
“According to the computer, the D-6 carried two pulsed laser batteries and a single multipurpose magnetic launcher. Typically they stored up to six torpedoes and a dozen probes in a small magazine bay. Defensively, it had a single light shield generator, but most captains upgraded that first chance they got.”
“Propulsion?”
“Dual Oscillation drive, and class II warp drive, top speed warp three point six, with a cruise speed of three point four. They are pretty agile on sublight though.”
“Not that threatening then, and any idea who owns this one? And what upgrades they have?”
“Looks like they’ve upgraded the shields, armament appears to be eight pulsed laser batteries... type eight? Interesting, that’s a lot of firepower for a D-6. Looks like they upgraded the launcher as well, she has a dual forward launcher and she has thirty six warheads. She seems to have a few engine upgrades as well.”
“I see, they’ve been upgrading her combat ability.”
“As for who owns her, I can’t find her registry, but her transponder ID’s her as the Graceful Bandit.”
She blinked, she’d heard that name but where? Still it sounded like a pirate, “Recheck the wanted pirates' database.”
The officer nodded and went looking, after a minute, she found something. “Here it is, the Graceful Bandit. Warrants about eighty years old, wanted for raids on 32 different colonies and 854 transport attacks, owned by the pirate Spectre Queen, name and clan affiliation unknown, but she’s pretty much a ghost.”
Well so far this ghost didn’t seem to have noticed them.
“Move to intercept, with any luck not only will we catch ourselves a pirate, but maybe net ourselves a lead.”
If anything, this Spectre Queen likely knew the area and might be able to help them find the Menace.
A moment later, she was being informed, “We’ve been spotted, bandit’s raised shields and is arming lasers.”
The ship shook.
Evidently they were already in range of her weapons too, the commander glanced at the range, ten seconds to pulse cannon range. The Ship shook again, as another hit glanced off the shields.
“Shields at 80%”
Another shake, then came the announcement she was looking for, “Entering pulse cannon range.”
“Forward batteries! Fire!”
The batteries whined and released a barrage of fire on the target.
“Minor damage to target, she’s returning fire.” The ship shook in response, as the Graceful Bandit came about. Her torpedo port glowed slightly before firing, followed by another pulse of laser fire.
“Forward shields draining fast!” then the torpedo hit, “Shield failure, hull damage deck four!”
“Return fire, rapid fire all batteries!” said the commander as she began to realize those laser batteries were stronger than she expected. She was taking more damage than she planned for.
The ship shook, someone shouted, “Torpedoes!”
Suddenly she found herself on the floor, her head ringing, “Report!”
“Shields are down! Heavy damage to decks four, six, eight and twenty-three. Forward pulse batteries are offline, damage to main engines.”
“She’s gone to warp.”
The Commander cursed, that was a valuable opportunity lost, but what the hell was she packing in those tubes? Sadly the answer would have to wait, she had damage control to do.