“Fortunately his new command didn’t force Valnor to choose between career and family,” Tulasi announced as she stepped back into the living room. “He insisted that I be able to join him aboard his ship, and they agreed. We leave tomorrow morning.”
Javer leveled a knowing smirk in Valnor’s direction, as if Tulasi’s announcement had just proven his point. “They allowed your spouse onboard? That is an extremely rare, nigh almost unheard of, privilege for any officer of the fleet. They must have wanted you in command of that ship in the worst possible way. I wonder why?”
“I think that rare grasp of the conspirator’s mind you possess has granted you a theory or two,” Valnor responded as he arose from the couch. “Why don’t you tell me about them over dinner.”
“No politics at the dinner table,” Tulasi pretended to scold as she assisted Valnor in helping their son to his feet. “There will be plenty of time for that nonsense later. Tonight we celebrate our family reunion and nothing else.”
“I suppose it can wait until later,” Valnor agreed.
Chapter 30: Test Flight
“Command of your own starship,” Tulasi sighed as she moved an empty packing crate out of the way to place another on the bed. This one contained a plethora of skin care products that she made ready to carry into the adjoining bathroom, but stopped to look at her husband. “Did you ever think this day would come?”
“Considering only a week ago I still technically held the junior officer rank of Ensign, I’d have to say no to that question,” Valnor replied with a playful wink.
Tulasi pretended to be taken aback by the answer. “You mean to tell me after four thousand years of service you never received a promotion? After that much time you should be the Supreme Commander, or Grand Admiral, or Master and Commander. Something with a lot of big adjectives in front of it to let everyone know how important you are.”
Valnor could do nothing but stand there in complete adoration of her, shaking his head with a laugh. “Well then Gallono and Tonwen would have come away from Earth as Supreme Master Commanders then since they outranked me from the start.”
“Do you think that will cause any problems?” Tulasi asked in all seriousness.
“I highly doubt it.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“When you serve together as long as we did, you kind of get to know each other. Besides, they could have chosen to retire or serve on any ship in the fleet. With all those other opportunities available to them, they chose to volunteer for duty under my command.”
“Now that might give some a big head, but my personal theory is they wanted to make sure I didn’t need training wheels for my first command experience,” Valnor said as he pulled Tulasi in for what must have been the hundredth hug between the two since arriving aboard the ship an hour ago. “Speaking of that, I should pay a visit to the bridge and see if this ship is fit to leave the shipyard or not.”
Tulasi broke the embrace after a few second, spun Valnor around, and gave him a good, hard shove heading for the door. “Now go be the best captain in the fleet. Rising from Ensign to Captain in a week’s time, who knows, you just might reach Supreme Commander by the end of the day.”
“Alas, there’s no such rank my dear,” Valnor bantered back on his way out the door.
Tulasi called out before the door closed behind him, “They’ll make one up for you then.”
That parting comment kept Valnor laughing to himself all the way to the bridge. When the lift came to a stop and the doors parted down the middle to open, he was somewhat surprised to find Gallono seated in the command chair barking out orders to the rest of the bridge crew.
The scene caused Valnor to consider for a moment if having Gallono under his command might actually be an issue. That absurd notion left his mind the instant Valnor’s movement around the perimeter caught the commander’s attention. Gallono sprung to his feet, stepped down from the chair, and announced in a booming voice, “Captain on the bridge.”
In that moment, everything stopped. Every butt in the room rose from its chair, and every right arm crossed their body to make a fist over their heart in salute to their commanding officer.
“As you were,” Valnor managed to say with a surprising amount of authority backing his voice while making his way across the oval shaped bridge to his command chair.
“Captain Valnor, the ship is yours,” Gallono said with an approving wink. He stepped aside to allow his former subordinate to enjoy his moment.
Some might pity Gallono’s lack of ambition, view it as a weakness even, but Valnor knew better. The commander’s measure of self-worth was not tethered to his rank. Gallono knew his strength was implementing complex plans rather than devising them. The commander knew it, and he took great pride in being the very best at it.
As Valnor sat down in the command chair, he viewed Gallono with the utmost respect. It took a special kind of loyalty and humility to set ego aside and not only allow, but encourage and even cheer for, a former subordinate to take command ahead of them. Gallono was one of a kind, and he was thankful beyond words to have him as his second in command.
It was tempting to revel in the moment, but Valnor also knew that such an indulgence was a rookie mistake. It was time to handle the business of his new command, not pat himself on the back for attaining his own command. “What sort of condition have the engineers been able to get this bucket of bolts into?”
“I’m afraid three hundred years spent in mothball status being picked over for spare parts was not kind to her,” Gallono responded with a frown.
Valnor expected as much, but the foreboding lines around the commander’s eyes hinted at some profoundly bad news in the near future. “How bad?”
“You remember what condition the Lazarus was in after that last battle? It’s not quite that bad, but not that much better either. We have propulsion, a functional if not twitchy space fold drive, and some fusion torpedo launchers working right now, and that’s about it.”
“Three weeks of round the clock repairs and that’s the condition of this ship?” Valnor said while shaking his head in disbelief. “Makes you wonder why they even bothered refitting her if it was going to take so much work.”
“Paints you a pretty telling picture about the state of the fleet after the fight Hastelloy gave them in the Alpha system,” Gallono commented. “The admiralty had their collective heads handed to them and are now desperate for ships, no matter how outdated, to be pressed into service to help hold the line.”
“Yes, I read the action reports last night. It seems every space faring race is mobilizing to test the Novi’s diminished capacity to oppress,” Valnor mused.
Tonwen paced over from his workstation to add his thoughts to the conversation. “Every single one of those races has tried to contact the council with overtures of diplomacy over the past few weeks. It appears they are far less interested in warfare than they are in just wanting their grievances to be heard and resolved for an amicable outcome on both sides.”
“The problem is that Chancellor Malum and the rest of the council are too accustomed to being the thousand pound alpha male in the room who gets his way with no questions asked. They’re too proud or arrogant to acknowledge that the situation has changed now thanks to Captain Hastelloy. They can’t fight everyone, at least not anymore. They’re going to have to negotiate with some of these races,” Gallono stated in a firm voice.
“Not until they have tested the combat readiness of these reserve ships. Simply having barely functional hulks like these bolstering the ship counts in the fleet could be enough,” Tonwen pondered.
“Knowing the current council, I have a feeling we’ll find out soon enough,” Valnor concluded and opted to change the topic. “On a separate, but related matter, I didn’t expect to see either of you two on board until the captain’s trial concluded later today. Why aren’t you there instead?”
“The outcome of the trial is inevitable, therefore I saw no point in atten
ding,” Tonwen answered without emotion.
Gallono’s reaction to the question was just the opposite. In fact, he looked almost on the verge of tears. “We all know what’s going to happen. He’ll be found guilty, escorted over to the isolation chamber, and executed for his crimes. I didn’t trust myself to be able to just sit there and do nothing while that happened to him. Instead, I chose to bury myself in my work. What about you?”
Valnor contemplated his response for a moment before letting loose a heavy sigh filled with regret. “My new duties as captain of this ship aside, my testimony all but buried him yesterday. I didn’t feel my presence was appropriate after doing that to my captain.”
“You gave an accurate account of events,” Gallono countered. “The captain knew that and he even saluted you on your way out for performing your duty. A man carrying a grudge wouldn’t do that.”
“All the same, like the two of you, I didn’t want to see the outcome in person,” Valnor admitted.
Gallono nodded his head in agreement. “May I request that the broadcast of the trial be shown on the main viewscreen. I really would like to hear his closing testimony; I think we all owe Captain Hastelloy at least that much.”
“Put it on screen,” Valnor ordered, “Then take us out of space dock into orbit around Novus. Let’s see how she holds together on her own before taking her for a proper test drive.”
“Aye, Captain,” a new ship’s navigator replied from Valnor’s former position on the bridge.
Chapter 31: Kangaroo Court
As Hastelloy was escorted to the courtroom doors once more, he felt an unexpected sense of serenity fill his mind. There was no fear or regret, only a deep inner peace with what he had done during his long existence. He reached the courtroom doors and once again found them barred by a pair of military police.
“They’re not ready for you yet, Sir,” the guard Hastelloy scolded the prior morning said with every speck of disdain he could force into the last word.
“Fate will have to wait a little while longer then,” Hastelloy sighed while staring straight ahead at the flawless white doors. The media circus was still present, but this morning he had no problem at all tuning out the paid Republic mouthpieces masquerading as unbiased news outlets.
A piccolo voice shouted from the door’s other side, “The accused may enter,” which prompted the doors to open and the guards to stand aside as Hastelloy took measured strides into the courtroom.
He emerged from a short tunnel at floor level into the half-moon shaped chamber. Just as before, the seats contained several thousand prominent Novi leaders loyal to the Republic’s aggressive policies. Everyone who was anyone within the current government was there to have their name and image associated with making this vile traitor pay for his crimes.
If the crowd’s shouts and jeers upon seeing Hastelloy the day before were in the category of unfriendly, this morning’s reception reached the level of a vigilante mob. Many in the room, principally Chancellor Malum, had wanted to see Hastelloy dead for a very long time, and they knew today was finally that day.
Chaos reigned over the chamber for a handful of heartbeats until the magistrate’s thunderclap laced with the crackle of electricity pierced the din. “The accused will take his seat to give his account of the events brought into question by his fellow crewmen yesterday.”
Amid the hush, Hastelloy found himself guided to sit in the chair directly across the table from the magistrate with Chancellor Malum seated on the adjudicator’s right in the designated seat for the People’s advocate. The man carried the look of a anaconda constricting around its future dinner.
“Yesterday’s testimony by Commander Gallono…” the magistrate began but found himself interrupted.
“Testimony that the accused in his own words described as accurate,” Chancellor Malum emphasized.
Before continuing, the magistrate shot the Chancellor a fiery glare to let him know such interruptions would not be tolerated.
“Yes, thank you. Commander Gallono testified that you altered form while on Earth. Do you have anything to add to the testimony given on this charge?”
Hastelloy took the time to draw a deep breath, clasp his hands together and place them gently on the table in front of him before speaking. “In that circumstance, altering form was the only way to still adhere to the council’s non-interference directive when dealing with a primitive race. We were stranded with no hope of leaving the planet, and the Alpha threat needed to be dealt with immediately.”
“We had to take the fight to them,” Hastelloy went on, “ and we could only do that in one of two ways: looking like Novi or looking like humans. I chose the latter because it posed the least risk of cultural contamination.”.
“Why didn’t you just release the Novi inside the Nexus and overrun the Alpha with your superior numbers?” Chancellor Malum demanded. “I am certainly not a military tactician on your level, but even I can see that was the obvious course of action to take.
“With what the Alpha had already done to enslave the local populace and establish themselves as gods in the eyes of those primitives, the cultural contamination you speak of was already done. That being the case, altering form was not a necessity as you allege,” the Chancellor concluded with a satisfied smirk.
“I would challenge your rather jaundiced opinion that the human culture was irreversibly altered by the Alpha. The humans worshiped many gods at that time, what were two more?” Hastelloy asked and continued his testimony before any answer was possible. “As to your notion of overrunning the planet with Novi released from the Nexus…well…it was a different time for the Novi back then. Our ideal respected the sanctity of all life and other cultures, not just that of the Novi. You remember those days don’t you Chancellor?”
“I remember a long war with the Alpha that dragged on needlessly for generations because of those liberal ideals you espouse,” the Chancellor responded before the magistrate could cut off the exchange with a bang from his dark sphere.
“I have heard enough on the charge of altering form. Moving on, Lieutenant Tonwen gave this court testimony that you again agreed with,” the magistrate said while shooting Chancellor Malum a knowing look. “Do you have anything to add on your behalf as to the charge of violating the council’s non-interference directive by sharing advanced technology with the humans?”
“My answer is the same as before, my actions were necessary to preserve the integrity of the council’s directive not to interfere with a local culture or their Neo Scale developmental path,” Hastelloy answered.
“How so?”
“The Novi Republic fleet arrived with the intention to eradicate the humans from Earth using the Yersinia Pestis Virus bio weapon. I deemed that to be a clear violation of the original council directive, and I think we can all agree that intending to cause the extinction of a thriving culture qualifies as interfering with said culture. I’m just going to state that obvious fact for the court even though it is self-evident to anyone with two brain cells left to rub together.”
“You gave the humans an advanced weapon that managed to destroy four of our ships and has now rendered that dangerous planet untouchable by our fleet,” Chancellor Malum shouted on the way to his feet in a rage.
“Was there any other way to protect that culture from you?” Hastelloy shouted back, but remained in his seat so that he and the Chancellor were at eye level with one another. “I made the best of an impossible situation that your reckless policies forced me into. We can keep a close eye on the humans from here on out, and if they do eventually pose a viable threat to us some day, I’m sure I can think of a few ways to penetrate their defenses.”
“Do you seriously think that holding a possible way to reach Earth over our heads,” the Chancellor declared with a wide sweep of his arms to encompass the entire audience, “will spare you from the justice you deserve to have rendered against you? You’re truly pathetic. Our Novi scientists will find a way with or without your l
ife force still in existence.”
Another crack from the magistrate’s sphere ended the argument. “The people’s advocate will please take his seat.” When the Chancellor complied, the adjudicator went on. “As to the charge that you murdered Tomal, a crewman under your command, do you have anything to add before I render my judgment?”
“If there had been any chance at rehabilitation for Tomal, my decision might have been different,” Hastelloy began with a grave voice, “but his mind was gone, contaminated by a degenerative condition unique to human physiology. Tomal became more erratic, delusional, and dangerous with every passing lifetime.”
“In the end, Tomal’s crimes against his own crew and the humans were too great and far too numerous to ignore or forgive. A sentence of death by a jury of his peers was the only just outcome. Sound familiar?” Hastelloy said with a razor sharp edge to his words while staring down the magistrate.
“Indeed it does,” the magistrate confirmed. “As to the final charge of treason by conspiring with the enemy, specifically the Alpha, do you have anything else you’d like to add?”
“Yes, I most certainly do,” Hastelloy answered. “Every action I took from the moment the Fifth Fleet fell victim to the Alpha’s trap to this very moment has been in service to the Old Republic and those noble ideals being ruthlessly stamped out by the current leadership. The true enemy of the Old Republic is this new Republic steeped in the ideals of tyranny. This government is the enemy of freedom and justice the galaxy over.”
Origins: A Greater Good Page 20