by Drew Briney
She is nervous, Evelia silently whispered to Blaze – but she looked anything but nervous to Blaze. She appeared to be the icon of confidence and poise.
How can you tell? he softly shot back with no small degree of curiosity. Can you read minds now?
Probably if I tried hard, she confessed, but I can tell because of her aura – it is erratic.
Her what?
Really? You don’t know what an aura is? she teased. Of course, she knew that auras were little more than silly superstition to members of their Order and that they were not part of their standard education but she couldn’t help but play the tease from time to time. Blaze looked at her with a heavily cocked eyebrow and no small degree of playful petulance. Okay, she conceded – game over.
I can see the energy that surrounds and flows through everyone here – including you. When you are calm, energy flows more freely. When you are stressed, energy gets sort of blocked – it jams up – it looks more like swirling mists of smoke underneath a whirlwind rather than wisps of clouds moving in the sky.
“We have a very unusual circumstance to address today. Here, on trial for treason, is Blaze. Not formally charged but under investigation is a fellow member of his Order, Evelia. Not here for the trial is Blaze’s formal accuser, Jerron, who … as you all know, died in a simulator matchup after trying to manipulate the tournament in his favor. Under normal circumstances, the charges against Blaze might be dropped …”
What are normal circumstances, Blaze wondered to himself. We do not have any idea what normal circumstances are outside of our own individual Orders…
You are right! Evelia answered with enthusiasm. You are very observant to notice that – I would have missed that detail.
Blaze gave her a look between a smirk and snarl and tossed a somewhat playful scowl in her direction. I wasn’t talking to you, he scolded.
Really? she asked a little embarrassed and a little surprised.
So much for needing to try hard, Blaze retorted, a little stressed that it didn’t seem to be very hard for Evelia to read his mind whenever she wanted. It was kind of fun to be able to speak to someone silently like this but it was also unnerving not to have any privacy at all. It left him feeling a little vulnerable – a feeling that is not especially well liked by warriors, a feeling that was relatively foreign to Blaze. Looking back towards Aria, Blaze quickly snapped his attention deep into the proceedings. He sat not more than ten feet away from her but he could easily smell her alluring perfume and couldn’t help but to notice that she was especially beautiful. Without any cognitive thought at all, Blaze knew that had she been in his Order before all of this happened, he would have been very interested in getting to know her better. At the same time, he now found it strangely awkward to be so strongly attracted to the person who was apparently leading the prosecution against him.
“… and given the fact that several people have corroborated Jerron’s testimony, we will proceed with trial. I have not seen evidence that is to be presented by Blaze but I – as well as many of you – have seen the recording of Dr. Boyd’s heart attack – perhaps no one besides Blaze knows precisely what he said to Blaze as he parted from us. I expect that we will hear that testimony today.”
Both Evelia and Blaze wondered whether or not Aria was the chief prosecutor or if she was simply acting as some sort of trial emcee. She almost seemed a different woman than she had the day before – as emcee of the tournament, she seemed a little insecure and thoughtfully compassionate – despite showing a great degree of composure. Today, she seemed poised, confident, and rather emotionless. The contrast was more than a little striking to Evelia. Blaze barely noticed, focusing on several other, more pressing details that might severely affect his future.
As she rambled on, Evelia thought that she noticed Aria’s apparent emotional detachment from Dr. Boyd’s death and wondered again why this very poised woman was so nervous. Trying to read her mind, Evelia found a mass of confusion. She quickly discovered that as long as Aria was speaking, Evelia could only hear what was being said, interspersed with quick side thoughts that didn’t make any sense, including something that had to do with a blue elixir and some blond haired biologist. Everything in Aria’s mind seemed just as jumbled as the erratic energy that surrounded her. For now, Evelia could only conclude that either she needed a lot of practice in reading other people’s minds or Aria’s mind was simply a complete mess. Then, a memory slipped into her consciousness: she remembered the magic woman telling Blaze that mindreading was an all or nothing deal. As quickly as the memory passed by her consciousness, she wondered then how she had read Blaze’s mind moments before when he hadn’t intended for her to do so. As she got lost in these thoughts, she realized that she was demonstrating a very poor level of self control, focus, and concentration. Evelia determined to refocus on what was being said to the general assembly of crewmen and to shun other thoughts from her consciousness.
“The narrow question that you are all to consider is whether or not there is sufficient evidence to connect the magic woman’s ability to telepathically control other people with the physical death of Dr. Boyd. If, after considering all of the evidence, you believe that she caused Dr. Boyd’s heart attack, you will then consider whether or not Blaze was involved in her plot to kill our dear friend, colleague, and Captain. If you determine Blaze was involved, you thereby determine that he was guilty of treason; if however, you determine he was not involved in any plot to kill Dr. Boyd, he must advance from the rank of First Commander to our new Captain.” Her voice trailed for a moment as she let the consequences sink deeply into the minds of the crewmen. “The stakes are very high,” she concluded with a degree of ominousness that Evelia suspected was no accident.
Despite his lack of training in legal proceedings, Blaze was thus far unimpressed with the hearing. There were other options that Aria – or whoever was in charge of this hearing – were not considering or that they were leaving out. However, as Blaze considered options that appeared to be missing, he noticed that they were apparently not in his favor so he determined not to object – not that he was sure he had any standing to object. No one had given him the slightest instruction as to what procedure would be followed and he hadn’t thought ahead to look anything up on the database. He silently cursed at himself for lacking foresight. At least he had conferred with a few crewmen the day before – and being a trusting individual, he believed that they would help him when they would be given the opportunity to do so.
“Your votes as jurymen will be anonymous. As is customary to avoid threats or suspicions of data manipulation, you will be given three strips of paper: one white to vote for innocence, one grey to request further investigation, and one black to vote for treason. They will be placed in this clear box in front of you.” She pointed to a clear box that stood upon a very slender, yet clear pedestal. The box was in front of the podium and stayed there throughout the proceedings so that everyone could be assured that the results were not tampered with in any way. Blaze briefly wondered whether or not the strips of paper could be chemically prepared to change color if they were exposed to a clear vapor located inside the box – that could leave him condemned regardless of the actual sentiments of the crewmen. Suddenly, he found himself wishing that the results were not anonymous. He would rather see a raise of hands voting for or against an outcome like they used to do in his Order.
“The sides of the clear box will be covered while voting takes place so that voting remains anonymous.” Blaze’s stress increased as Aria explained this detail. Maybe I’m a sitting duck, he worried.
“When everyone has voted, the strips of paper will be counted in front of everyone and a verdict will be given before anyone leaves this assembly hall.”
How many votes to convict? How many grey strips are needed to require an investigation? How … Questions by the bazillions raced through Blaze’s head. Part of him was nervous and that part was dominating – but part of him was very confident. He squashe
d the nervous part as best he could – he was trained to do that, he was used to doing that. Then, he inflated the confident part, gripping his cloaked staff slightly tighter for a moment. When he got up to speak, he would leave it leaning on his chair next to Evelia but for now, he kept a careful hold of it.
Hours passed.
Everyone present watched the recording showing Dr. Boyd’s heart attack multiple times. They watched a close up of the magic woman before, during, and after their leader had fallen; they watched a close up of Dr. Boyd speaking to Blaze but the audio recording was unable to clearly pick up on what was being said – only a few words came through. They watched the recording once while focusing on Blaze the entire time, noting when his eyes focused away from Dr. Boyd and towards the magic woman and noting his apparent discomfort during Dr. Boyd’s toast. They watched the recording once to watch Evelia’s eyes shifting back and forth between Blaze and the magic woman and Dr. Boyd and to watch her mourn over the death of the lithe little alien. The prosecution dissected every little detail of the recordings.
During the entire proceeding, Aria sat one seat away from Blaze and said nothing. There was one single chair between her and the prosecution as well. Blaze wondered whether or not she was supposed to be a neutral party or if she was simply going to give the closing argument once this was all over. After all – there didn’t appear to be any other place to sit. And she continued to smell heavenly to Blaze. It was distracting and it made him feel awkward. He wished he could ask her to sit somewhere else, perhaps to sit on the opposite side of the prosecution’s table. But then, if she was a neutral party or a mediator-type figure, that might play out against him. Better to say nothing. He only wished he could think nothing about her as well. Then, he remembered how she had played a significant role in helping him get out of that sticky situation during the tournament. He remembered her tears and felt sorry for her.
As the hearing continued, they heard the testimony of several people who heard the magic woman say that Blaze should take his place as the rightful leader of the crew and they heard the testimony of a few soldiers who shared experiences on the battlefield when they felt confused over whose orders they were supposed to follow: Blaze or their appointed Commander. On cross examination, those soldiers confessed their belief that following the orders of Blaze had helped to save several lives but that side detail was missing the point of the prosecution: Blaze, they claimed, was power hungry; he wanted the death of Dr. Boyd; he wanted control over the crew.
When Blaze’s turn to present his case came, he felt like a toddler trying to stay steady on his feet. His training was in an area where negotiation, compromise, and argument were irrelevant – this was as foreign to him as squishy ground on an alien planet void of intelligent life. It seemed most logical to him to respond to the prosecution’s case in the same order that it had been presented and he had every intention to do so but as he began piecing together things in his mind, he couldn’t help but to think that the recording of the fight with the “Master’s” men would be most helpful. So, he began there.
Everyone listened to the recording preserved by Evelia the day before. After the recording finished, Blaze felt a little disappointed. The most helpful things that were said had little context to establish their meaning. Rather than clearly strengthen his case, he realized that the gravelly voiced man had suggested that the thirty-some men killed by Blaze were sent to negotiate terms of agreement with Blaze – that was hardly helpful. But, then again – and with fairly clear context – that same man threatened to have Blaze, Evelia, and Elayuh executed outside of the bounds of whatever legal system was to be had aboard ship and he seemed to express little remorse over the loss of thirty men if Blaze would swear allegiance to the “Master” – whoever that was. Blaze explained the common mark found on the upper forearm of every person Blaze killed the day before – and that same mark was found on the gravelly voiced man. Evelia could only testify that she had seen it on some of the men. Between her injury and caring for the child, she hadn’t been able to see the pattern as strongly as Blaze had but, Blaze explained, the dead bodies would bear out that fact.
Then, there was Jazz’s testimony. Although he was not allowed to speak in front of the crewmen, his recounting of the events had been recorded so his story was heard by everyone present. But while that testimony supported Blaze’s contention that there was another conspiracy going on, Blaze began to understand that proof of another conspiracy would not be enough to exonerate him from his own, alleged involvement in the death of Dr. Boyd. In his mind, the second conspiracy clearly proved that he was not guilty but as members of the prosecuting team asked follow up questions, he realized that the crewmen could believe that Blaze was simply one man in a line of conspiracies to take control of the ship. In the midst of this divisive battle of word-smithery, Blaze found himself wishing he was back home – living a peaceful life with Evelia somewhere away from all this strife. For the moment, his sense of adventure was nonexistent.
Nevertheless – and before hearing the context of what happened before Evelia began recording the battle scenes from the day before – the vast majority of the crewmen felt scales falling from their eyes as they perceived a conspiracy that did not involve Blaze at all and they began to understand that even if they were to convict Blaze of treason, there appeared a larger, more dangerous conspiracy that threatened their safety.
More hours passed as Blaze presented his case. He explained Dr. Boyd’s final words in context of what the magic woman had learned from him. He explained how the magic woman had been offended by Dr. Boyd’s plan to blow up the Orders and to colonize her moon’s planet and how she had been especially offended by Dr. Boyd’s decision to send a couple hundred men to needless deaths during the battle with the natives – all because there were inadequate supplies aboard ship and because he wanted to test Blaze’s skill in battle.
Despite his growing understanding that such pleas appeared pointless, Blaze all but begged the crewmen to consider the conspiracy to kill Blaze at the tournament and again to kill him after the tournament not because it exonerated him but because the very people who had been accusing him were involved in a conspiracy to enslave the rest of the crew. Without thinking about it, Blaze’s defense began to demonstrate his genuine concern for their communal well being. They began to see into his heart and began to understand that he was just as concerned for their safety as he was for his own safety – perhaps more so. Logical or not, those pleas were making a difference in his defense.
Both he and Evelia testified about the “Master’s” supposed approval of the magic woman’s success in killing Dr. Boyd and how that saved the “Master” the need of killing Dr. Boyd himself. Soon, Evelia was arguing that if the “Master” wanted both Dr. Boyd and Blaze dead, that was a strong reason to keep Blaze alive.
But while Evelia testified, she understood that her new powers were of no use or advantage to her here. She had no hopes to influence the decisions of all of these people unless they could see the sincerity of her heart and so she opened it widely to all of them, explaining from her own perspective how they had learned about Dr. Boyd’s plan, how the magic woman was offended over that plan and how she and Blaze had determined to follow the magic woman’s plan to slowly reveal that information to the crew so that they could determine what to do with Dr. Boyd. She explained how the magic woman wanted the crewmen to feel more established in what they were doing before burdening them with this information – so they wouldn’t need to endure the deep psychological turmoil Blaze and Evelia had suffered all at once. A trained word smith herself, Evelia painted a verbal picture of the tender mannerisms of the magic woman and of her tears – how they freely fell as she learned what Dr. Boyd had been plotting all along – and how he had killed both friends and family who were left behind in the Orders.
Without announcement and as a complete surprise to both Blaze and the prosecution, Greydon stepped forward and testified about what he had seen after the e
xplosion – how Dr. Boyd had executed several people, including an officer who had been unwilling to euthanize members of his own Order – people that Greydon later learned were dear friends of that fallen officer. Although only tangentially important to the treason case, the crewmen were beginning to understand the gravity of their situation. Treason or no treason, they were nearly all victims of deception and they had no idea what they were really doing in space in the first place. Until the hearing, they believed they were travelling in the name of science – they were promoting an increase of knowledge, they were here to learn. If they were really travelling through space to colonize a new planet, that presented them with an entirely new paradigm to consider. Their understanding of the very purpose of their lives before the explosion and their very purpose of living now was being turned upside down.
As the hours passed, Blaze began to realize the complexity of his situation. Everything he explained to the crew was somehow twisted and misdirected by the prosecuting team. Conflicting perspectives were becoming extremely difficult for members of the crew to follow. Apart from the cause of Dr. Boyd’s death, they had to consider their personal feelings about Dr. Boyd’s death – it made sense to them why someone would be so emotionally damaged by his actions that someone might want revenge. And even though Blaze claimed that he was not seeking revenge, it seemed justified to some. Other members of the crew – those with simple minds and soft hearts – found the whole situation so thoroughly disturbing that they didn’t even want to consider Blaze’s involvement one way or the other. They just wanted time to sort things out for their own benefit. As the prosecution continued to mount counterarguments and to spin details of the case, it soon became irretrievably difficult for crewmembers to focus on the narrow issues Aria had presented earlier in the day.
Late into the afternoon, Blaze was nearly finished presenting his defense. He had offered every detail he could think of that would show that the magic woman’s belief that Blaze should lead the crewmen had nothing to do with Dr. Boyd’s death – at least, as far as Blaze was concerned. He explained that he believed that those behind the other conspiracy had set him up as a scapegoat and that really, the prosecution had nothing on him besides blanket allegations – although the situation merited investigation and inspection, there really wasn’t any substance behind their charges – he simply represented a stumbling block to the real conspiracy.