Calista screams as Marshall locks her in a set of cuffs I was unaware that he had. Does my armor come with a set of cuffs or is that just the commander version. The others rush towards the commotion curious to see what is going on. Against my better judgement I stand between Marshall and the crowd.

“Everyone wait, this isn’t what you think it is,” I try to shout over them.

Marshall has one hand on Calista and another on his side arm, prepared for things to go south. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that but Enda and Tamara aren’t calming down. If anything, they’re getting louder. Upset that Marshall has arrested their friend.

“Please listen, I can explain,” I plead again.

“Everyone, let’s hear them out,” Aaimina tries to calm everyone.

“Yeah, let’s hear them out,” Niko says from Thore’s shoulders.

“What is there to hear,” Enda calls out. “They’ve brutalized and restrained Calista.”

“I’m sure they have good reason,” Aaimina continues to plea.

“There is no good reason,” Tamara shouts.

“Duane, what’s going on here,” Aaimina almost begs me.

Perhaps it’s due to the fact that this feels like the end of the world as I know it. Her eyes seem disappointed in me, and it hurts. For some reason I don’t want to say the wrong thing and upset her. I try to choose my words carefully, words that’ll bring some peace to the oddness of this situation.

“We have reason to believe that Calista set the building on fire,” I keep my explanation as simple as possible.

Calista, Enda and Tamara all continue to shout and proclaim her innocence. The others aren’t so sure if they’re to be believed. We’re still strangers to them, but we haven’t lied to or manipulated them. We’ve been honest about everything from the start. The same can’t be said for Calista or even Enda. Tamara plays background but she’s guilty by association. The others must be thinking the same as the emotion in the group has changed. Their rage is now aimed at Calista.

“We’re not going to just kill here,” Marshall speaks up, drawing attention. “We will have a trial. It’s not an official trial, but she will be judged by her peers. In the tradition of the past, we’ll hold the trial right here. Right now.”

There’re whispers, they spread like wildfire even among eight people. The idea of a trial doesn’t seem to be popular but we’ll do what we need to do. We’ll push forward, despite the objections. We have to push forward, because there’s no place we can go back to.

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“A trial is ridiculous,” Enda sounds more afraid that against the idea.

“It doesn’t matter if you think the idea is insane, it has to be done.”

“You can’t just choose to be the leader,” Tamara argues.

“Yeah, nobody chose you to be a leader, we vote in this group,” Enda adds.

“I, Duane Benjamin, vote Commander Marshall Randolph to lead this drumhead court martial against Calista, last name unknown. The charge is arson in relation to the burning of the hospital. Do we have a second?”

“I second,” Thore speaks up, his warm eyes have gone cold.

“Then we have the right to proceed. I shall represent the prosecution since I levied the charges. Do we have representative for the defense,” I ask.

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” Tamara responds defeated.

“Then we shall reconvene in twenty minutes. Calista is released to your custody to prepare her defense.”

Marshall and I step aside to discuss the case. He’s the highest-ranking officer here so he’ll function as the judge, he’s the only officer. He fills me in on the details, the evidence that Calista is guilty. There’s nothing solid, it’s all circumstantial. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t be doing this right now with the sun beginning to set. We’d find a safe place to hold up for the evening and deal with it later, but he rushed ahead. I didn’t have a choice but to back him, because he was already too far gone.

We reconvene for the court. Marshall sits off to the side as Calista sits on a bench in front of us all. I step forward, trying to remember my ten minutes on the college debate team as my only reference for law. It’s not much of a reference, and I’m not even a fan of law procedural television shows.

“We all know the charges are arson, we can all see the building still smoldering,” I point to the hospital behind us. “We all witnessed Niko get burned, Aaimina pass out from inhalation. We all ran from the same starting location when the fire began. All of us, except Calista,” Enda as well, but we’ve decided Calista is the better person to take the charge. He’ll take himself out with her.

“I object,” Calista speaks up.

“On what grounds,” Marshall asks.

“I did it,” she looks away from everyone.

Outrage immediately fills the air, “Quiet down,” Marshall calls.

“For what reason,” I ask.

“Because I don’t trust you two, I don’t like you two and you were going to get us all killed with your stupid little mission.”

“So you decided to kill us all,” Aaimina calls out.

“Nobody died,” Calista smugly responds.

“Look at Niko’s leg, it doesn’t matter if no one died, you hurt people with your recklessness,” I respond.

Nobody stops Aaimina as she storms forward to slap Calista. Tamara finally steps forward to shield Calista after a few good slaps. Thore steps forward to separate the two. Enda consoles Calista and I want to take his head off his shoulders.

“Well, if that’s all there is to it, the sun is setting,” Marshall stands up. “I find you guilty. There are two sentences you can face. Death or excommunication.”

It doesn’t take long for Calista to settle on excommunication. With no weapons, it’s essentially a death sentence. We let her leave with everything she brought out of the fire with her. Nobody is surprised when Enda and Tamara choose to go with her. I don’t wish any harm on them, and I hope they find a place to survive. However, I wouldn’t care if their little cult didn’t do anything but keep the grubs full for a few hours while we find somewhere safe.

As soon as they leave, we head in the opposite direction. We moving towards the beacon but the main goal right now is finding shelter for the night. The streets are empty, but things are rarely as they seem. For now, we move as fast as we can with Thore carrying Niko. Thore is strong, and despite being scrawny, Niko is still a grown man and a lot of weight to be carrying on your shoulders. Niko spots a hair salon that seems to be mostly intact. We make that our destination for tonight.