by Ryan Krauter
"Your Senator Dennix murdered his Priman advisor!" came the cry from the outspoken council member.
"You're the ones who made the bargain with him," Loren countered evenly. "It goes to character, members of the council. My own people can't trust him, and neither should you. We will have a new government soon minus this man, with or without your help. That new government will bargain in good faith with you to end this war."
Now Commander Tash stood up. "Members of the council, I have had enough. We see here evidence of the murder of one of our people in cold blood. According to our customs and the articles of war, I am placing this Commander Stone under arrest for this injustice. It is within my responsibility as the military commander and I will do so now."
He turned to snap his fingers and four guards filed through the hatch he'd used earlier. The council members looked shocked, some even standing up in protest.
Loren knew what was coming. He turned to Ravine and stepped past Velk to do so.
"Representative," Loren said urgently as he grabbed both of her hands in his, "you can't let this end. They have to see the rest. The Commander has to be exposed; your people need to see what he's done!"
By that point the guards had arrived and roughly grabbed Loren, pulling him away and standing him still in the middle of the gallery while he was fitted with stunner cuffs.
"If you arrest him, I will accompany," demanded Velk, standing tall and facing the Commander up on the council dais.
"As a Representative or his accomplice in detention?" countered Tash.
"Whatever you require, Commander," Velk finished with a sneer. "I fear for his safety without my supervision."
Tash only nodded at his guards, and they slapped stunner cuffs on Velk too, much to the dismay of many on the council.
"What is this?" the chair woman demanded as she stood up. "You don't have the authority to make decisions of this nature! Representative Velk is a respected leader among us, a former Commander. You do not have the right to simply arrest him!"
"If he is an accomplice of the Confed spy," Tash said, voice raised in a dangerous show of defiance to the council, "then he is guilty as well." He spun to face Loren. "Do you deny you sabotaged the military outpost where Representative Velk was captured?"
"Of course not," Loren said without hesitation. "First of all, it's no doubt among your own records. Second, we're at war; that's my job. I assumed you understood that."
"Take them to my ship while we decide their future!" Tash yelled. Loren and Velk were pushed ahead of the group of guards towards the exit and out of the chamber.
"I will attend to their detention personally," Tash addressed the council with a look of disdain. "Your fears about their treatment will no doubt be put at ease by my presence there, I assume?"
Without waiting for a reply, Tash turned and stormed out of the chamber. The members of the gallery were now in an open uproar over the entire turn of events, while the council by contrast was silent, completely at a loss for words.
Representative Ravine stood there in shock, still in the same position she'd been when Loren was ripped from in front of her. She clenched her fists in frustration, not knowing how this could get any worse. Not only was there more doubt than ever about her Commander's corruption, but there was now no way to prove it. Loren was gone, there was no evidence, and the council would probably never let her petition them again. Perhaps her future as Commander was in doubt as well.
She felt a small pain in her right hand as she flexed it. She lifted her hand, palm up, and opened her fingers. There, sitting in her grip, was another data chip. Loren had palmed it to her when he'd grabbed her before his arrest. What in the galaxy?
Loren and Velk had both claimed the Confed officer had more evidence, something that would sway even the Priman council. This had to be the evidence in question, was it not? With both of them gone in the Commander's custody, no doubt already on their way up to the fleet, she had no guidance from them.
She watched the gallery, the council, trying to decide if she should take the leap of faith. Then she caught the eye of the chair woman. She was staring right into her eyes, perhaps trying to gauge Ravine. She wanted to look away from the old woman but couldn't; now was not the time to appear indecisive.
She held the device in her hand, rolled it around and around. It was about the size of a multi sided game piece from one of the more popular children's games among her people. It felt familiar in a way. Maybe that was all the inspiration she was looking for.
The council woman was still looking at her as she raised her hand, data chip in the middle of her palm. Ravine was giving the chair woman one last chance to speak up, wave her off, do anything to give her a sign of what to do, but she received nothing. Maybe this was a test of her own conviction. Would she act without waiting to hear from the council? Could she make the hard decision? Ravine was still tinkering with the chip when she finally activated it. It almost surprised her.
A holographic image sprung to life in midair; by some stroke of fate the nanite recordings from SAR operatives looked incredibly similar to the ring data Priman technology captured.
The council chambers hushed as people noticed the image hovering before them. It was a residence, obviously the scene of a serious fight. Bodies lie still on the floor, broken furniture scattered about, even a few cracks in the wall panels from what must have been recent violence. The image resolved further and Ravine started to recognize faces; Velk, Loren, the Priman operative named Tana Starr whom Velk had mentioned and Ravine had learned about by reading mission debriefs about covert ops on Delos. It was some sort of point-of-view device, as evidenced by the fact that they saw the face of the person making the recording as she briefly glanced at a broken mirror to inspect her own injuries. The sound was muddled and accompanied by an odd pulsing in the volume. Ravine thought it seemed much like a heartbeat; the thudding changes in volume decreased as time passed.
Tana Starr was secured to a chair, Velk sitting on the floor just down the hallway from her and watching under the glare of Loren Stone and another Confed soldier.
Ravine heard a voice, realized it was coming from the woman whose perspective they were seeing. "It's an interrogation drug," she said. "It's an effective, noninvasive and nondamaging way of extracting information."
Some members of the council started to object, wondering both where this was coming from and whether it was real or a Confed fabrication. The chair woman motioned for them all to sit down and be silent.
Tana Starr spoke some more to the camera's view point. "He's the former Commander, and as a Representative holds a lot of valuable intel. The Council virtually demanded a rescue mission."
"And how were you going to get him off-planet?" the camera's voice asked.
Tana said nothing, just looked away at anything other than the camera. The woman's voice asked again and again, finally raising it sharply enough to startle the Priman operative.
Tana Starr muttered something so softly the camera didn't hear. The woman leaned in and told Tana to speak up. Ravine risked a glance at the council and saw every last one of them leaning forward, riveted by the conversation.
"He wasn't going to make it."
Several of the council started glancing around, looking at each other as if seeking confirmation that they really heard what they thought they had.
"You were going to kill him?" the heard the voice state softly, as surprised as the council itself was. "Why kill him?"
Tana Starr continued. "We, the Primans, came back to this galaxy to take over, to restore order. We also planned to return those lesser races that we'd helped back to their place below us. Representative Velk was always of the more tolerant persuasion when it came to dealing with you. He ordered the DNA research, but our current Commander, back when he was simply Representative Tash, was the one who weaponized it. Representative Velk seemed fascinated by the ability you had developed to defend yourselves and the cultural identities you'd formed. He almost ad
mired you, as much as a patriot can admire a foe." She paused to take a breath before continuing.
"The new Commander-"
"Tash," the voice interjected, to which Tana nodded in an annoyed fashion.
“The Commander has no place for disobedience amongst you. We came to rule, and if you aren't going to be a part of that, you will be eliminated. He wants swift and total domination; there is no place for compromise or amnesty. You can join or be destroyed. Representative Velk, however, was known to being willing to entertain all the options. He was more open to an alternative beyond simple subjugation. There are many on the Council who would have allowed that method to be explored, for while we are clear in purpose, there are already some who want the war over.
"This presented a problem for the Commander. If Velk was allowed to return to Priman space, he would have been reinstated as Representative. He would have had the ear of the Council and a great deal of influence. His platform of tolerance and willingness to explore other options would have weakened the resolve of many and put the positions of the hard liners in jeopardy. Remove Velk, however, and now the Commander is undisputed. Nobody would speak against him, and with the alliances he's made, he will get his way. And that is to scorch any planet that doesn't fall in line. He couldn't have Representative Velk jeopardize his plans for success."
The camera panned around the the others present at the interrogation, including Loren and Velk. Their shocked glances said it all at they made eye contact with each other, two sides of a conflict realizing they had more in common than they'd ever thought possible.
"Commander Tash would rather assassinate a respected warrior like Velk than risk the chance that he wouldn't get to annihilate us in his own way?" the voice summarized.
Tana simply nodded.
"Were you going to pull the trigger?"
"I planted a bomb on their transport," admitted Tana. "It would have detonated as they fled the planet."
"Kill the whole team and everything," said one of the unidentified Confed soldiers, a shocked look on his face. "For a group of people who claim to be so evolved, you sure seem to be picking up a lot of our dirty human habits."
"Yes," was all Tana could say. The camera's operator got up and turned to approach Loren Stone, then the video paused its playback.
There was silence in the council chamber. Ravine could hear her own heart beating. The Commander of the Priman military, conspiring to kill his own people in order to get his way? To rule and command as he saw fit, perhaps protect his own power base in doing so? This was a humanoid defect, not something the Primans were capable of. Wasn't it?
"A lie, planted by the Confederation," the outspoken council member spat.
"To what end?" asked the chair woman. "With Representative Velk here, he could verify or dispute that evidence."
"Is he still a Representative?" another member asked.
"That is a relevant question. We will vote. Reinstate or ban; fill out your submissions now."
The council wrote their choices down on old fashioned slips of paper, collected by a page who presented them to the chair woman in front of the whole assembly. It was a point of tradition that everyone on the council tabulated the numbers to verify the count. Ravine, having no vote, was left to stand at attention and wonder.
The chair woman read off the votes, reinstatement carrying by a safe margin but by no means unanimous.
"He is officially reinstated," noted the chair woman. "Representative Velk returns."
"Then we need him to verify this recording."
"Indeed. Whether he is a prisoner or escort for the Confederation captive, he must return to us.
"There is a greater question to address," the chair woman continued solemnly. Ravine watched the members faces, and those she'd pegged earlier did indeed look as nervous as she thought they'd be. "Has the Commander committed a serious enough breach of authority and role that he should be removed?"
One of his supporters gathered enough courage to speak out. "The Commander has wide latitude in accomplishing the objectives we've set. We need to hear him out before accusing him of trying to kill the Representative."
"I think his actions as of late have spoken for themselves," said a new member, one who had as of yet to utter a single word. "He has, according to this evidence, conspired to kill Representative Velk. That is beneath us as a people, and we should expect better of our leaders. In addition, he is the one who chose to back Senator Dennix of the Confederation, a deceitful and dishonorable man who will mire the Confederation in turmoil as well. Perhaps they are too much alike? In any case, I no longer think the Commander should be in control of our entire military."
New members spoke up, all the way down the table until everyone had said their piece. In typical Priman fashion, the speeches were not long winded, and averaged only a minute or two.
The council voted: remove the Commander or state their confidence in him.
The votes were finally counted and Ravine held her breath as they were tallied.
It was a tie: five to five.
"We have two members absent," stated the chair woman to the gallery, who had never seen this before. "We still have a quorum, however. In a tie, the deciding vote falls to the Commander." She looked around at the other council members, eyes finally settling on Ravine.
"Since the Commander is not here, his proxy will vote. Representative Ravine, you are a senior Representative, next in line for the role of Commander." The chair woman nodded and the page walked around the table, scrap of paper, writing stylus, and a tablet to write on in hand. He set them on the table off to the side of her lone, creaky chair.
"Please vote."
Ravine looked around at the gallery and was met with silence. She spun her head back to the council. "But my vote could result in my own promotion to Commander. I must abstain!"
"It is an honorable gesture, Representative, and I am happy to hear you express it. But it falls to you. Are you not ready to assume the role, should that be what you choose?"
"No," Ravine admitted, trying to keep her voice strong. "I have only been a senior Representative for a few months. The role of Commander is one of honor, dedication and experience. I am not yet qualified."
"Who is qualified?" asked the chair woman.
Ravine made to speak but stopped. Who was in fact most qualified? Who had all the traits she admired, that would suit a person for the job? She knew instantly, of course, but realized she had a hard time saying it.
"Representative Velk," Ravine replied.
"And yet tradition dictates he cannot resume his duties as Commander," the chair reminded her. "However, considering the severity of the current Commander's charges, should he be found guilty he would not return as a Representative. There would be a place for Representative Velk to advise you, should you see fit to do so."
"To be clear," Ravine said, thinking out loud, "my options are to let the Commander continue on a path that I believe is in the wrong, or effectively promote myself to Commander."
"Those are your choices."
Ravine's mind raced. Of course she wanted to be Commander someday. If you didn't want that responsibility eventually, you shouldn't be a Representative in the first place. But to do the job well she needed more experience. She couldn't afford to do the job badly; her people were already wandering astray and needed a strong will to bring them back to their simple path. Still, it seemed fairly clear what needed to be done.
She leaned over the table and scribbled her answer on the paper, the page then carrying it to the council chair woman for review. She read the words on the paper.
"Representative Ravine votes to remove the Commander." The gallery's noise level rose as people talked, sometimes animatedly so. The chair woman waited a minute for the din to die down, then looked at Ravine with a hint of a smile. "I knew you'd made the right choice."
"I won't let the council down," Ravine assured them as she stood tall in front of them.
The chair woman r
emoved a pendant she wore around her neck. It was made of gold, a precious metal since the beginning of Priman legends. The chain was old, thousands and thousands of years so; long since past anyone keeping track any more. The chain and pendant were dull now, scratched and scuffed after all the years around the necks or on the desks of council members.
"This totem is one of several the council uses to display our mandate," she began, holding it high for the gathered Primans in the gallery to see. "It has been passed down for so long we no longer have any written history that does not include its reference. I give this to you, Commander." The council chair held the chain out with both hands across the table. Ravine realized she was supposed to approach. She stepped to the table, then leaned forward for the chair woman to place it around her neck. The pendant sat heavy on her; gold was a substantial metal, and she imagined that one could not help but draw the connection to the weight around one's neck and the power that person also held.
"What are my orders?" Ravine asked.
"You will take Representative Tash into custody to face this council. There is the chance he could be exonerated, should this evidence prove false or testimonies coerced. If that were the case, you both would revert to your previous roles as Representative and Commander. But he is officially relieved of his duties and title until that has been accomplished."
"What of Representative Velk and Commander Stone?"
"Take them into your custody. As Commander, you may deal with their situation as you see fit until they are called to return to the council."
"And what of our position regarding the Confederation?"
The chair woman paused at that. She clasped her hands, set them on the table, clasped them again as she looked up and down the table as her peers. "Our cease fire will remain in place. Should their government change, we will evaluate all new options at that time."