Justice Kuberev’s tone hardens, sharpening like the dagger she is about to plunge into our hearts. “The reprehensible criminals who are responsible for this travesty have been apprehended and will face the Supreme Chancery in the morning.”
I can almost feel the crowd seething with her as she carries them along on her wave of mounting anger, gesturing with a grandiose sweep of her arm around the arena. “I swear to every citizen of Aristozonex that we will seek the fullest penalty of the law and that no mercy will be shown to those who so blatantly led our fleet—your sons and daughters—to slaughter.”
Before I have time to register what’s happening, the gates to the arena open and our cage trundles through them into center of the packed stadium.
3
Our cage comes to a sudden halt. The crowd erupts, sending a tremor through the tiers of seats and a stake of fear through my soul. Velkan’s face goes slack, and even Phin looks stunned for a moment before he regains his composure. The digital voice blasts out again from the loudspeaker, but I’m too distraught to catch what’s being said over the jeers of the crowd.
Terror spikes through me anew when our cage jerks forward again without warning. The impact throws me backward and I almost lose my footing. Velkan grabs me, his strong fingers gripping my arm to support me, his other hand locked onto the bars of our cage to balance his stance. Clinging to him, I pan the packed balconies as we commence a lap of shame around the stadium. The thunderous roar of the multitude vibrates in my ears, sapping my last reserves of courage. Phin mouths something to Velkan, but I can’t make it out above the unrelenting boos of the manic masses.
Velkan presses my face to his chest so I don’t have to watch the hate spewing from every twisted mouth as we make our way around the arena. When we complete a circuit, the gray-haired guard directs our cage to the left of the dais and parks us next to a row of vendors’ booths. Two sentries take up position on either side of our cage. I dart a wide-eyed glance at the nearest stalls elaborately draped in Syndicate flags and sporting memorial souvenirs of the Fleet Commander; everything from hydration flasks with the fleet insignia to engraved pins and commemorative BodPaks.
My throat tightens. This is so much more than a funeral to mourn the Fleet Commander. This is a production that has been orchestrated down to the smallest detail to stir up patriotism and garner hatred for the traitorous group of individuals who betrayed him, not to mention evoke sympathy and support for his grieving widow. I’m beginning to wonder if there is more to it than we are being told. Does Justice Kuberev have her sights set on leading Aristozonex in her husband’s place?
I glance up at one of the VidScreens, momentarily taken aback when I catch sight of a close-up of Phin, Velkan and me projected on every screen in the arena. Velkan and I look like wild-eyed rebels—unkempt and covered in a sheen of sweat and grime; Phin like a soldier fallen from grace in the crumpled uniform he slept in. No wonder Justice Kuberev insisted we were brought in shackles to her husband’s funeral. The unflattering visual alone will do more to solidify our guilt in the minds of the rabble than any condemnatory speech she delivers.
A cold sweat breaks out over me when the poignant funeral procession begins and the VidScreens focus in on a stone-faced Ayma. I struggle to pull a breath, as a chilled silence falls over the stadium, broken only by the occasional sobs of mourners. Tears stream freely down my face too, but not for the great leader I scarcely knew. My tears are for his only child, Ayma, who walks behind his empty casket with measured steps, alongside several other high-ranking military personnel clad head-to-toe in black uniforms, their braided caps denoting their rank, leather boots polished and gleaming. My heart breaks for my friend who risked so much to help us. Ayma’s father may not have spent as much time with her as she would have liked, but I sensed he loved her dearly. And, ambition aside, I suspect Justice Kuberev is genuinely grieving for her dead husband too. I can’t help but feel a measure of guilt for this family’s sorrow. Unwittingly, I have torn them apart.
I’m jerked out of my gloomy reverie when our cage is rocked violently back and forth as vendors abandon their stalls and vie for position to see the processional go by. I cling with my fingers to the bars and try to peer over their heads. All around the stadium, drummers begin a rhythmic beat to pay homage to the prominent military hero soon to be laid to rest. The sentries charged with guarding our cage face forward as the casket goes by, saluting their fallen commander.
I flinch and almost let out a yelp when sharp fingernails dig into the flesh on my arm. A tall, hooded vendor beckons me to the back of the cage. A flash of panic goes through me when I imagine I’m about to get my throat slit by some crazed Syndicate vigilante, but I could have sworn I heard my name whispered. Keeping my eyes downcast to avoid attracting undue attention, I retreat to the back of the cage.
“Trattora!” Buir mumbles.
The hairs in my ear electrify. For a moment I’m gripped with confusion, wondering if the voice is coming from my MicroComm. But then I catch a glimpse of shimmering silver strands of hair peeking out from beneath the vendor’s hood. Suddenly, my heartbeat is thudding faster than the drummers. “Is Ghil with you?” I rasp back when I find my voice.
“Yes, at a stall.”
I clutch the bars between us. “Can you get us out of here?”
“Impossible. Not before the trial.”
“They’re going to sentence Velkan and Phin to death tomorrow morning,” I say in a low urgent tone.
“Ghil’s working on something,” Buir mutters.
Before I can respond, a sudden surge of vendors, jockeying for position to get a better look as the flag-draped casket passes directly in front of us, swarm past the cage sweeping Buir away with them.
“Velkan! Phin!” I tug at their sleeves. “Ghil and Buir are here.”
Velkan darts a glance in the direction in which the tall, hooded figure disappeared, comprehension dawning in his eyes. “Can they break us out of here?”
I grimace. “Not here, but Buir made it sound like Ghil’s got something up his sleeve.”
Velkan and Phin exchange skeptical looks, as unconvinced as I am that Ghil will be able to pull anything off that will save us at the eleventh hour. Not even Ghil’s knife tricks will be enough to rescue us from a heavily guarded, sensational trial. A grieving Justice Kuberev and a public hungry for blood mean that our fate is as good as sealed once we leave this stadium.
“Whatever Ghil’s planning, he’ll need help.” Phin wipes his bound hands across his brow. He peers over the heads of the vendors, trying to spot Ghil or Buir in the crowd. “I have to get a message to him to let him know which of my men he can trust.”
“He won’t be able to get near us with this crowd,” I say, eying with increasing apprehension the bodies pressing in around our cage, eager for a closer look at us now that the funeral procession has passed by. They spit, shake their fists, leer, and yell obscenities at us, backing off only when the sentries threaten them with ElektroProds.
Moments later, the eulogy begins over the loudspeakers, but I don’t pay any attention to the star priest delivering it. My mind is working furiously to come up with a plan of escape in the increasingly likely event Ghil doesn’t come through for us. I’m skeptical that he’ll succeed in bribing any of the guards after such an emotional funeral. His life will be at stake if anyone discovers he aided the criminals responsible for the Fleet Commander’s death. And if he does find any guards willing to help Phin escape, I doubt they will feel the same way about letting me or Velkan go free, at any price. They owe us nothing, and they have nothing to gain by betraying the Chancery.
The priest’s voice rises to a crescendo and I catch a few emotion-filled words.
“… to remember that Fleet Commander Kuberev crushed fear and tyranny and built a nation of prosperity and peace. A shining city on a star far from here awaits him …”
I exchange a loaded look with Velkan. The fawning tributes delivered by the star priest only
serve to reinforce the rabble’s demand for justice. I’m more convinced than ever that if we can’t find a way to escape before the trial, we’ll never be able to pull it off once the verdict is announced. That leaves us only tonight.
The ceremony drags on under the blistering heat of the sun and the stench of sweat rises up all around us, until at long last a salute of volley shots rings out and the Fleet Commander’s casket, accompanied by a goose-stepping military honor guard, departs the stadium to a standing ovation.
While the crowd’s eyes are on their fallen leader’s remains, our cage is discreetly whisked behind the vendors’ stalls and out through a side entrance. I let out a relieved sigh when the gates close behind us and we reach the relative safety of the LevAuto waiting to return us to our holding units. We’ve been spared a public massacre. It remains to be seen if we’ll live to see our trial.
“We need to make a plan before they separate us again,” Velkan says in a hushed tone, as soon as the LevAuto doors close on us.
“I sent a message through Branthorx to Ayma, asking her to bribe the guards on duty to leave our doors unlocked tonight,” Phin says.
“And if she can’t?” Velkan asks. “It might be difficult for her to procure any credits to bribe them with. We don’t know if she has access to a computer while she’s under house arrest.”
“That part’s easy.” The hint of a grin flits across Phin’s lips. “Ayma can always find a way into the network.”
Morning dawns, and between pacing maniacally, banging on the viewing glass with my fist, and screaming at the guard on duty, I barely slept. Evidently, Ayma was unable to bribe the guards because my door remained locked throughout the long hours of the night. Which means any last-ditch escape attempt depends entirely on Ghil now, and he doesn’t have long to make it happen before our trial begins.
My spine stiffens when two masked guards approach my unit. They say nothing when the viewing glass retracts, waiting like silent observers, but they don’t need to tell me why they’re here. Head held high, I step, unbidden, out into the corridor and wait for them to escort me out of the building. My heart flutters uncontrollably in my chest. Our trial looms, and with it the certainty of a death sentence, in one form or another, for all of us.
Unless I can make a convincing case for an appeal.
Justice Kuberev can’t deny me that right. After all, she made a point of telling everyone what a civilized planet Aristozonex is—a leader of galactic nations in the process of law. I will wield her own words against her. Over the years, I attended enough of the Cweltan elders’ proceedings to know how to conduct myself in matters of court. At the very least, an appeal will stall the process and maybe give Ayma or Ghil enough time to bribe our way to freedom.
Phin and Velkan are already seated inside the waiting LevAuto, the gaunt look of condemned men in the defeated flick of their eyes as they acknowledge me. None of us have the heart for trifling conversation. We lift off and settle into the LevTransport pathway again, only this time it feels like we’re heading to our own funerals, watching the last minutes of our lives peter out to nothingness. Below us, the tension in the air is palpable as the citizens of Aristozonex throng the streets, eagerly awaiting the inevitable guilty verdict that will restore their wounded pride and offer some semblance of justice for their slain Fleet Commander. Public VidScreens display our unsmiling faces, doctored to look as guilty and treacherous as possible. A shiver runs across my shoulders as I stare into our haggard eyes, the size of saucers.
The LevAuto descends after a short trip, and the guards hurriedly pull us out and shepherd us past the hordes of reporters pushing up against the barricades at the bottom of the steps leading to the Supreme Chancery. By the time we stumble inside the building, I’m half-deafened by the threatening yells of Kuberev Killer, and half-blinded by the glare from the VidScreens transmitting live footage of our trial around the planet.
I try to clear my thoughts and focus on how best to present my appeal to an unreceptive jury of Justice Kuberev’s peers. After a brief exchange with the sentry on duty outside the main hall, the masked guards take us inside an imposing courtroom hung with tapestries depicting the Syndicate’s conquests throughout the Netherscape. A resentful hush falls over the room as we are marched up the center aisle and locked inside another cage to the left of the justices’ empty dais.
My heart sinks as I survey our surroundings and the hostile spectators who have packed the room. Guards are posted on either side of our cage, ElektroProds at the ready—I suspect as much for our safety as for our compliance. All around the perimeter of the room, armed guards clutching heavy duty plasma blasters stand at attention. I resign myself to the fact that there is no hope of escape. All that is left is to plead for clemency.
I search the crowd for any sign of Buir and Ghil, but I can’t spot them anywhere. Maybe they couldn’t get a seat inside, or maybe they were too afraid for their own lives to come. My heart skips a beat when I see Ayma seated in the front row, her head bowed. No doubt she was forced to attend the proceedings, but she has no desire to watch our sham of a trial runs its course.
Although my veins throb with apprehension as I wait for the court to begin session, I school my expression to neutral. I will appeal our case with every ounce of passion left inside me—not in the hope of lessening my own sentence. This isn’t about me. Velkan and Phin don’t deserve to die for the decisions I made that took us to Mhakerta and that sent the Fleet on its ill-fated mission to Cwelt. It is every chieftain’s burden to fight for their people, and I accept that responsibility, even now when facing the direst of circumstances.
After a few minutes, another hush falls over the room and everyone stands. I look up to see Justice Kuberev enter through a side door, followed by eleven other justices, dressed in long, shimmering purple robes depicting various regions under their jurisdiction within the Netherscape. My lip curls in disgust. They wear the color of royalty, yet their rule is imposed upon the Syndicate planets they lay claim to, not unlike the Maulers. They file silently up the steps of the dais and take their carved seats of power overlooking the room.
“And now let the trial commence,” one of the justices announces, waving a robed arm over the crowd to indicate they should be seated. After a moment or two of shuffling as everyone settles into their benches, Justice Kuberev moves to the podium and addresses the room. “As you are aware, the charges brought before the Chancery today are consequential acts of treason against the Syndicate.” She pauses and pins a reptilian stare on Phin. “Including, but not limited to, intentional and willful betrayal of military allegiance by aiding and abetting terrorists from frontier planets outside the jurisdiction of the Syndicate.”
A charged current of disapproval whips around the room.
Justice Kuberev draws back her shoulders and grips the podium. “We will begin the proceedings with the trial of the Kuberev Killer, as she has been dubbed, the Cweltan chieftain’s daughter, Trattora, who knowingly and willfully lured the Syndicate fleet into an ambush to weaken our reach in the Netherscape, resulting in our beloved Fleet Commander’s assassination by Maulers, and the subsequent deaths of some forty-three Syndicate soldiers.”
I wrap my fingers around the bars of the cage. “No!” I blurt out before I can stop myself. Instantly, a searing pain arcs through me and I drop to the ground. I lay there, stunned by the merciless pulse of a guard’s ElektroProd, unable to move or speak.
Velkan drops to his knees beside me and lifts my head off the floor, cradling me in his arms. “Are you okay?” he whispers.
My lips flap open and closed, but I can’t make a sound. I give the tiniest of nods, and sink back in his arms to listen helplessly as my fate is determined. I blink back stinging tears. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut until it was my turn to speak? I swore I would carry myself with dignity at these proceedings, and here am I sprawled on the floor of a cage in front of the entire court. So much for my grandiose plans for a coherent appeal.
Justice Kuberev throws a disdainful look my way before proceeding to lay out the Syndicate’s case against me. She calls upon several high-ranking military personnel to bear witness to my request to the Fleet Commander to come to Cwelt’s aid. Each one testifies to hearing my plea firsthand, and describes in excruciating detail the ambush that awaited the fleet upon arrival at Cwelt and the subsequent slaughter at the hands of the Maulers. I count off the votes in my head as each of the justices in turn proclaims the Kuberev Killer guilty.
The courtroom hums with whispered expectation. Reporters lean forward on the edge of their seats, eager to record and beam to their live VidScreens every syllable of the sentence that Justice Kuberev will now impose on me.
She raises her robed hands for silence, even though everyone in the room is already holding their breath. “In light of the unanimous guilty verdict passed down by the Supreme Chancery,” she says, pausing at just the right moment for maximum effect, “the justices deem that the Cweltan chieftain’s daughter, Trattora, be banished for the remainder of her natural lifespan to the penal colony Skytus.”
The courtroom erupts in applause, vindicated citizens stomping their feet in unison at the news. Reporters babble rapidly into their CipherSyncs, transmitting the verdict and my woebegone picture to every region in the Syndicate’s jurisdiction.
I lay immobile on the cage floor, my head resting in Velkan’s arms, drool dribbling from one side of my mouth, looking every bit the savage from a primitive planet. Any hope of rationally appealing my sentence has been obliterated by the debilitating effects of the ElektroProd.
“And now we move to the trial of the indentured serf,” Justice Kuberev drones on. “On the testimony of the honorable witness appearing before us today, the serf known as Velkan stands accused of willfully and fraudulently concealing his legal identity by hiring the services of a dark market dermal sculptor to remove his holographic marking. Will the witness please come forward?”
Girl of Blood: A Science Fiction Dystopian Novel (The Expulsion Project Book 3) Page 3