Alex
I looked around the gray, featureless walls of the cell that I found myself in, and considering my previous accommodation not twenty minutes before, this was downright comfortable. There was a small table bolted to the floor in the middle of the room flanked on two sides by hard metal chairs that were just as bolted to the floor. In the corner opposite of the cell door, there was a small cot with no pillows or blankets, just a hard piece of foam in place of a pillow. There were strips of lighting throughout the room in all the corners, and it lit the room to the point where there weren’t any shadows that I could immediately see. No doubt there would be cameras in the room to keep an eye on me, but if there were any, I couldn’t see them.
Once again, I found myself in a place where I couldn’t tell the time, and boredom quickly set in. It’s funny how when you think your life is in danger you get bored right after. I didn’t have to wait long, however, before there was a sharp banging on the door, and a harsh voice from the hallway shouted, “Stand away from the door!”
I looked at the door with half hearted interest as two guards flanked a man. He was in his late 50’s with close cut curly hair that was graying. The clothes he was wearing screamed businessman as he was wearing a smartly appointed and well-tailored suit and the ancient briefcase that he carried supported that idea. He had a stern look on his face that betrayed frustration, probably at the idea that he was meeting with me, “Thank you, gentlemen, but I think I can handle myself from here.” The two guards nodded and quickly left the room. As soon as we were alone, he sat down at one side of the table and popped open the briefcase. Out of it, he took an actual ink pen, some paper, and what looked to be an audio recorder. Noticing that I hadn’t moved from my position on the cot, he sighed and said, “My name is Wilson Jefferson. I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say, as this pertains to your defense in court.”
I paused. “You’re my lawyer? Why the hell would they give me a lawyer?” I asked.
He gave me a look. “As a citizen of United Terra, you are entitled to a lawyer for the duration of your legal proceedings, unless you would like to represent yourself?”
I sat up, and quickly strode over to the table and sat opposite my supposed lawyer. “And how do I know that you won’t try to sabotage my defense?”
He didn’t even look at me as he ruffled through the briefcase again and pulled out a tablet and started tapping away on it. “Back when we figured out that aliens were real, most of the population was in support of the provisions that would have eventually become our current day policy on interaction with aliens. There was a smaller group that believed that was a waste of time, resources, and the trust of our galactic neighbors. I happened to be one of them.” He turned the tablet over to me and showed me a news article from ten years ago.
I slouched in my chair. “I had heard about you guys, how will this help me?”
He leaned forward in his seat to stare into my eyes better. “Because we have been preparing for something like this happening for the last ten years.”
I scoffed. “Really? You’ve been prepping for this for ten years? Including the Strength Through Diplomacy being hit?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Obviously not that, I don’t think anyone would have predicted the Yalayans hitting us like that. No, I’m talking about your potential legal defense.” He picked up his pen and pointed it at me. “We have several angles for this defense, and a good likelihood of getting you out of this, but before we get into that, I need you to tell me everything that happened, and leave nothing out.”
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I nodded and got started. This was going to take a while.
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We had been at it for several hours, me telling the story of the last couple of days, and Wilson stopping me every once and a while to clarify a point or two. The only stop that we took was when dinner came, and he had to leave to make some calls to his colleagues. He said it was to come up with the soundest strategy that they could think of. Before he left, he told me that my trial was in a week, and that I should be on my best behavior before then. The meal was nothing to write home about, honestly it was slightly better than the MRE’s that I had been eating back on the Shooting Star.
Soon after the meal, however, there was another bang on the door and once more the demand that I stay away from the door. Once again, the door slid open, and this time it was the same two guards as before, the left one carrying what looked to be a data pad.
“What’s going on?” I asked. My lawyer had advised me not to say anything to the security that could be potentially damaging.
“You’ve got another visitor, you’re mighty popular today,” the right guard said.
“Where are they?” I asked. I tried to get a glance into the hallway to see if I could see if there was someone waiting there but couldn’t see past the two guards.
“It was deemed that they were a security risk, plus, I doubt they would even be able to fit in here, much less have a conversation afterwards.”
My heart nearly skipped a beat as I heard those words, because there were only two or three people that I could think of that fit that description. My suspicions were confirmed when the guard turned over the tablet and I saw the familiar feather crested face of Aeva staring intently at the screen. From the background, I could clearly tell that she was probably on the Shooting Star right now.
Her expression immediately softened as when the camera was turned over to me, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank the Spirits you’re ok, after what those soldiers said to me after they took you, I feared the worst!”
I shook my head and looked over to the soldier holding the tablet, gesturing to take it from him. He handed it over to me and turned to leave. “Knock on the door when you’re done here.”
“Aeva, how’d you even know that it was possible to contact me in jail?” I asked.
“We’re docked on the Strength Through Diplomacy right now, and a human visited the Shooting Star and wanted to know my side of the story. He said he was your lawyer, and he was gathering some facts,” she explained.
“Wilson you son of a bitch!” I said out loud. “Is he there right now?”
“You know, that’s a very rude thing to say to your legal counsel,” he chimed from outside of the field of view of the camera. I could hear the sound of metal on metal, meaning he was probably in a mech right now.
“Either way,” Aeva said before I could get another word in. “He told me that I would be able to watch the court proceedings remotely, because there wouldn’t be a way for me to be there in person.”
I nodded. It was a bit of a relief to know that she would be there, the first xenos to see a human without the mech suits. “Will anyone else from the Shooting Star be able to make it?”
“From what Wilson has told me, the captain’s also going to be there, mainly because he wants us both to testify in court. And besides,” she gave a small trill, “I’ve always wondered what Terran courts were like, it’ll be a first for everyone!”
I grimaced. “It might be a bad representation of what Terran justice is like, we don’t usually go for the death penalty.”
“Well, this is a landmark case!” Wilson piped up from the background. “My people have been fighting against the policies for dealing with xenos for ten years now, if this goes through, then the precedent set will be used to justify whatever else that the policy makers of United Terra want!”
“Bold of you to assume that they don’t already get away with whatever the hell they want.” I scoffed, shaking my head. “But getting back on topic, we have a week to prepare, how are we going to do this?”