A cell door creaks open. Two officers greet the man inside, and got him to stand and exit the cell. The prisoner is escorted through a long and narrow hallway, where the footsteps from 3 pairs of legs echo throughout. The prisoner, still in his jumpsuit, is in the center between the officers as a safety precaution. It is a while before they encounter a solid steel door, of which the leading officer pulled out a keycard from his shirt pocket and tapped it on the reader beside the door. The reader recognized the card, beeping and turning the red indicator light green, and a mechanical sound can be heard from the door, as if being unlocked. The leading officer huffed, before putting in all his strength to open the door, slowly revealing a pitch black room with a small stand in the center, lit up by a spotlight. Once the door was wide enough, the rear officer nudged the prisoner to enter, which he promptly does. Then, just when he approaches the stand, the door behind him closed, and he lost sight of the officers. With no other choice, he goes to the stand.

With his first step, a light immediately came to life in front of him. It was a screen, showing a silhouette of an anonymous person. And then another similar screen lit up. And another. Until 7 screens lit up that surround the stand in a semicircle. The prisoner is startled by this, but it could not prepare him for what came next.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"The defendant is Soldier #9283453 Tancred Adams of the now out-of-action 74384th Squad. He is in front of us now to defend himself for deserting the line of duty and abandoning his teammates to die to the Void Beasts. Is what I just said true?" A booming voice asked, originating from the center screen right in front of the prisoner. Tancred nodded in agreement.

"HAH! A nobody! Aren't we wasting our time with someone like him? Just execute him or something!" Another voice rang out, this time more immature sounding and young. 

"We need to follow protocols around here, especially for something as serious as desertion." another voice chimed in, with a hint of a general of an army in his tone.

"Let him defend himself, guys!" this time, a woman's voice suggested.

Someone cleared their throat right then. It came from the center screen.

"...Tancred Adams, as you have noticed, we have other things to take care of. Not only that, matters regarding our troops means that we cannot execute you as of yet, seeing as you are a soldier here. So for your sentence, the Council has decided that you are transferred to the 13th Squad, effective immediately."

With that, the screens shut off one by one, all clearly satisfied with the sentence. Tancred just stood there, horrified at his punishment.