“It’s a digital file, Your Honor. They are notoriously easy to tamper with,” the prosecutor said.
“Point taken. Mr. Kawaguchi, we will need the original file and the computer it is on for analysis.”
“You will not have me,” Nelly snapped from Kris’s chest.
“Nelly, down,” Kris snapped right back.
The gavel came down. “The witness will control herself or face contempt.”
“Pardon us, Your Honor,” Tsusumu said, doing a poor job of suppressing a smile. “It is not my witness who objects, but her computer.”
“Her computer?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Kris said, turning to face the bench. “My personal computer seems to have achieved a certain measure of self-awareness.”
“Certain measure, my eye. I am fully self-aware.”
“Hmm,” said the Chief Justice.
“Hmm,” echoed most of the justices, though a couple were seen to smile openly.
“I must object, Your Honor,” said the prosecutor. “A self-aware computer that clearly feels close attachment to her master is definitely not a good source for data.”
The Chief Justice gnawed on that conundrum for a moment. “You say you have other recordings of the council.”
“Yes, Your Honor. The commander of the Marine detachment on the Wasp, the intelligence officer on Kris’s staff, as well as her maid, and, so it seems, a thirteen-year-old girl whose presence in the meeting was not observed.”
“A thirteen-year-old girl!” the Chief Justice said.
“It’s not as implausible as it may sound,” Kris pointed out. “She is my maid’s niece. The Wasp had several hundred civilian scientists aboard, and Cara was kind of adopted as the ship’s mascot.”
“This Council of War. I assume there was some security about it?” the Chief Justice asked.
Kris could see where this was headed. “Yes, Your Honor, we posted Marines at the only entrance to the room.”
“Yet this little girl got in, you say?”
“If she has a recording of the meeting,” Kris said, “then it would appear that the Marines did let her in. The Forward Lounge that we were using made a superb ice-cream sundae.”
“It seems that this so-called Fleet of Discovery’s command structure was weird not only up, but down,” observed one judge dryly.
“The Wasp, Your Honors, had been as much of a research ship as a warship for several years. The blending of those two missions made for some interesting outcomes,” Kris said, trying but failing not to grin.
“Moving right along,” the Chief Justice said, “Mr. Kawaguchi, do you intend to offer these other recordings in evidence?”
“I have them here, Your Honor,” Tsusumu said, turning toward the defense table.
“And the computers they came from.”
“Have a similar problem, Your Honor.”
“The computer has cloned itself!” the prosecution yelped.
“I did no such thing, Your Honor,” Nelly shot back.
The Chief Justice rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but will the computer please explain itself?”
“Herself,” Nelly corrected. “My personality is decidedly female though I lack any of the bodily functions to go with the attitude.”
“I’ll certainly agree on the attitude,” the Chief Justice was heard to mumble.
“However, my children are not simply clones of me. Each of them has developed a personality of his or her own. For example, Sal, who works with Captain Montoya of the USMC, is much more subordinate to him than I am to Kris. In my own defense, I would point out that Jack rarely gets himself into any mess as wild and crazy as Kris tends to get us in.”
“Thank you, thank you, I think I’ve heard enough,” the Chief Justice said. “I’m going to call a brief recess. I don’t know about anyone else in this room, but I need to recover my . . . something. We are in recess for fifteen minutes,” he said, and brought down the gavel.
The judges were observed to be in animated discussion as they left the bench.
Careful not to wrinkle her whites any more than was necessary, Kris removed herself from the witness stand.
“Do you need me?” she asked Tsusumu. “If not, I need to step out.”
“Go ahead. I think you and your Nelly have created quite a stir.” He glanced at where several clerks of the court were eyeing their own computers as if whatever Nelly had might be contagious. “Quite a stir.”
“Always glad to be of help,” Kris said, and was grateful when Jack and Penny served as blockers to make it through the milling crowd.
Jack halted at the ladies’-room door, but Penny followed Kris in.
“A fine mess you’ve got us in,” Kris muttered to Nelly as Kris did the necessary things.
“Would you have let them take me? Heavens knows what they would have done to me. Would I ever get back to you?”
“I know, Nelly. I know. But you could have let me handle it. I’m only human. I needed a few more seconds to respond.”
“I keep forgetting that, Kris. Sorry. In the future, I’ll try to hold my tongue for a few seconds to let you take the lead. Humans seem to like it when another human does.”
“Especially judges,” Kris observed.
Penny was waiting for Kris as she washed her hands. “You know, Kris, you filed a report with King Raymond before we launched out to battle. I can’t believe that the other admirals didn’t make similar reports to their governments. Have you heard anything about Kota’s report?”
“I’ve been looking for such a report since I first talked to the Mutsu’s skipper. I’ve also asked Tsusumu. So far nothing,” Kris said, and they hastened back to the courtroom. But Kris got no chance to say anything to her lawyer; he had his head together with several of his associates. Kris settled back into the witness box with not a word spoken.
The judges returned, some of them still chuckling, others of them most dire of face. The Chief Judge rapped his gavel. “We will accept as evidence, under objection,” he quickly added as the prosecutor started to jump to his feet, “the files submitted by the defense. They will be turned over to the court’s computer experts for review and analysis. The bailiff is charged to remind the technicians that these files are to be reviewed not only for inconsistencies, but also for too much consistency between them.”
One of Tsusumu’s assistants provided the bailiff with five separate storage devices, and a junior bailiff hustled off with them.
“Mr. Kawaguchi,” the Chief Justice drawled, “you will have witnesses to enter all five of those files into evidence, won’t you?”
“Ah, four of them are in court today,” Tsusumu said. Jack, Penny, and Abby had front-row seats. Cara had declined the invitation as threat of death by boredom. With a glance from Kris, Abby headed off, a woman on a mission.
“Ah, yes,” Tsusumu finished. “We will have all five for you, Your Honor.”
“May I ask a question?” Kris said.
“It is customary to leave that to the court officers,” the Chief Justice said.
“Yes, I know sir,” Kris said, ignoring the clear intent of his words, “but I filed a report to my king with the ships that were returning to human space before our battle fleet sortied. Didn’t Admiral Kota?”
“Objection,” came from the prosecution.
“That is a very good question,” Tsusumu muttered as he turned to the Chief Justice. “The defense has petitioned the government for just such a report. It seems that one was filed, Your Honor. There is even a receipt for it in the files.”
Tsusumu paused to eye the prosecutor. “Unfortunately, there is no report present in the file. Just the receipt for a hundred-megabyte report. But no report at all. I find that interesting.”
“So do I,” said one of the judges well down the bench.
“You’ve tried to get the report?” the Chief Judge asked.
“Several times and via several people. It seems that the r
eport has vanished.”
“Or it was a defective file when it was sent,” the prosecution offered.
“Such a report would certainly explain Admiral Kota’s actions, but without it, we are left with only questions, aren’t we?” Kris’s lawyer observed with a shrug.
“Enough suppositions,” the Chief Justice rumbled. “Do you have any more questions for this witness, or can we get this trial moving?”
“I have one question,” a judge from well down the bench said. “I’m not sure if this is for the commander or her defense, but we are much bothered by the source of the files we have from the War Council. Certainly the good ship Wasp must have some recording of this exchange.”
“I can answer that question, Your Honor,” Tsusumu said. “The Wasp returned from its circumnavigation of the galaxy in little better shape than a wreck. It is officially reported that the ship is being broken up at the first space station it docked at.”
“But its logs and records must be on file somewhere?” the inquisitive judge insisted.
“Of course, Your Honor. It is normal for governments to maintain such official records. We have asked the U.S. government to provide them. We have petitioned. We’ve tried everything we know to do. Every query results in a reply that they can not find any such record in their archives.”
“So Musashi is not the only planet where things about this voyage of discovery are not discoverable anymore.”
The Chief Justice looked like he would dearly like to gavel his own associate to order, but didn’t. Instead, he glowered at Mr. Kawaguchi.
“I do have just one question left, Your Honor,” Kris’s lawyer said. “Commander, every one of the witnesses faulted you for the attack you made on the small mining site just one jump from the system where you fought the alien base ship. They fault the attack itself and your being so far forward. Would you care to inform this court just how it all came to take place?”
Kris couldn’t suppress a grin. She had so wanted to shout at each of those witnesses, never more than when they brought that up.
She took a deep breath. “It is true that we were unsure of how much time we had before the base ship would enter the next system, and we absolutely had to be in a position to ambush them before they got there.”
“So why did you attack the mining site?” the Chief Justice interrupted.
“I didn’t,” Kris spat out. “Admiral Krätz headed for the planet with the mine, insisting that his Marines would take it down and give us some aliens to talk to. The aliens had been decidedly unwilling to say a word to us, and none of us involved in the operation were very happy with repeating what happened to us and the Iteeche when we went to war with no idea of who the other side was or what they wanted.”
“So Admiral Krätz of Greenfeld took off with half your battleships, leaving you to do what?” Tsusumu asked.
“I could either try to carry out the ambush with half my battleships or follow him. I chose to follow him because I had doubts his Marines could handle the assault on the mine head. They’d been in a lot of shooting situations lately, but not so many with people who had guns and could shoot back. Admiral Kota happily agreed to have his Imperial Marines join my company. Mine were the most combat experienced in the fleet.”
“And you ended up being shot down?” Tsusumu said, raising an expressive eyebrow.
“All of you who question me being in a Ground Assault Craft buzzing the mine head should be happy to know that my chief of security, Captain Jack Montoya, said any and all of the things you would have told me.”
That brought a laugh from the gallery and several of the judges. Jack’s poker face devolved into a look of pure helpless disgust.
The Chief Justice reached for his gavel, and order was restored.
“I take it you did not agree with your security chief’s opinion,” Tsusumu said, a most scrutable smile on his face.
“No, sir. We were committing our Marines to a situation that, despite our best efforts, was still totally unknown to us. I borrowed a Ground Assault Craft from the Greenfeld fleet and proceeded to do my own recon. For what it is worth, the mining site only opened up with its huge firepower when I made a low pass over it. If they hadn’t opened up until our Marines were on final approach, it would have been a massacre. Even Jack has come to agree with me on that.”
In the front row, Jack sadly nodded.
The court was very silent.
“What happened next, after the aliens opened fire?” Tsusumu asked.
“My craft was damaged. I began exiting the area as fast as I could, applying all the evasive actions this girl has learned in her short life.” Chuckles from the courtroom were not enough to get the Chief Justice reaching for his gavel. “The aliens also launched rocket and laser attacks on the ships in orbit. They had more firepower hidden in that mining site than any of us would have guessed. They also began deploying several battalion-size ground-fighting units. Jack and I noticed all that as we were dodging more fire.”
Kris took a deep breath and tried to slow her heartbeat. She was flashing back.
“Somewhere in all this, Admiral Krätz decided to lase the mining site from his high orbit. My hog was barely holding together, and the blowback from lasers that close would very likely destroy it, so I pancaked into a marsh area, and Jack and I beat as quick a retreat as our injuries allowed. Fortunately, my Marines had left behind a small detachment that retrieved us before the aliens arrived. For a while there, it looked like I might get my chance to talk to them as their prisoner, rather than them as mine. Assuming they took prisoners. From the looks of things both before and after that action, I don’t think they do.”
“One final question. Commander, did you declare war on the aliens?”
Kris and Tsusumu had spent several long hours debating the fine points of international law before he had announced himself ready to ask Kris this question. Now Kris took a deep breath.
“As an individual, I cannot start a war. However, it’s true that as an individual I can take an action that results in two sovereign entities launching themselves into a war. It’s happened too many times in history to count. However, it takes two sovereigns to go to war. There have been situations where one sovereign chose war, and the other side didn’t get the word for a while. I believe that this is what I encountered.”
Kris risked taking a breath. Someone should have, likely, objected to her using the witness stand to philosophize.
No one did. Kris went on.
“It is my conclusion, from my contacts with these alien space raiders, that they are at war with all life in the universe that is not of their own gene pool. Had they stumbled upon Earth five hundred years ago, they would have plundered and murdered us before we got into space. Had they found the Iteeche two thousand years ago, they would have done the same. For some reason, they haven’t been out in this arm of the galaxy for a while.
“That’s changing. When the Wasp found itself bone-dry on fuel and in a minor system in the Iteeche Empire, our refueling was interrupted when an alien scout ship shot into the system. We tried to establish communications with them, and they shot up the message buoy. We destroyed them after that, recovering only two tiny infants that a couple had desperately tried to save. I imagine they’ve been misfiled by now, too.”
Surprisingly, the prosecution had no questions for Kris, and she soon found herself dismissed.
Jack and Penny were quickly run through the witness stand. They vouched that the recordings provided by their computers were as true and accurate as they could remember. Their computers followed their mother’s lead in refusing to submit to examination by the court’s experts, and one judge whispered that he doubted any of the court’s experts was up to examining the likes of these computers.
That did get him a rap of the gavel.
Abby returned in time to be quickly sworn and questioned. It was Cara who seemed to get the most questioning. By now, her record had been given an initial examination. At the criti
cal part of the discussion between Kris and the admirals, Cara had been ordering a chocolate sundae with three cherries on top. She’d also been playing a game that covered over the recording, but not enough that the background could not be accessed perfectly.
Several of the judges seemed to find her disinterest in the history taking place around her a source of more verity than Kris’s direct recording.
“Why were you on the Wasp?” one judge asked as the questioning drew down.
“My auntie was there, and I liked the people on the Wasp,” Cara said, then seemed to deflate a bit. “And there’s nowhere else for me. My mom and gamma are dead. If Auntie Abby and Auntie Kris didn’t take me in, where would I go?”
The prosecutor did not cross-examine the girl.
“Is the defense prepared to rest?” the Chief Justice asked.
“Ah, just a moment, Your Honor.”
There was a flurry of activity at the courtroom’s doorway. One of the senior associates almost ran back to meet the young woman who had called Kris from the restroom the first day . . . and another young woman in a Navy uniform.
“The defense wishes to call one last witness. The one we advised the court we would call if we could. Will Ishii Yuko please come into court?”
The gavel came out as the room lost its hush, and people speculated on this surprise.
The woman was quickly sworn, and Mr. Kawaguchi asked the usual question. “Could you please state your name and position.”
“I am Ishii Yuko. I was a Petty Officer third class Communication Technician on His Imperial Majesty’s ship Haruna when she sailed on the voyage of discovery. I was the last to leave the ship.”
All silence fled as talk thundered through the room. The Chief Justice’s hammering gavel was ignored until he threatened to empty the gallery. Even then, it took a while for the room to quiet enough for Mr. Kawaguchi to continue.
54
“Your Honor,” Mr. Kawaguchi said, “I would like to offer into evidence a list of the crew of Haruna when she sailed for Wardhaven. It has Miss Ishii’s name on it. I also have a copy of her orders that allowed her to return from the Fleet of Discovery to Musashi. In case there is any doubt that she is who she says she is, we have made an active copy of her Ident.”
Kris Longknife: Furious Page 29