Accord of Honor (16 page)

“The trick will be getting a counter story out there which the media likes as much, or even better, than the ‘party line’ coming out of the United Nations offices,” said George.

“What sort of story did you have in mind?” asked Glenn. I could see his curiosity.

Hell, we were all curious. My best idea so far involved a smash-and-grab attack to yank my father out. Which was a terrible plan because I’d have to knock him out to get home to come with us. George seemed to have something else up his sleeve. We all wanted to know what it was.

“I intend to set Admiral Stein up as a hero,” George said.

“How’s that going to work?” Sam asked.

“The only thing the public loves more than a villain they can hate is a hero they can adore. When a hero comes at a time that the people are desperately afraid, he has more power than the villain. I intend to make your father into such a hero, Thom. He may hate me for it in the end, but it might just save his life.”

He looked around the table. “And make no bones about it, friends. We need him alive as much now as ever. Mars needs him and humanity needs him. Some of those ships got away, and we still have no idea where they came from. This is not over. You were all very brave, but what you fought was just the first battle. Admiral Stein is a rare man, a coupling of visionary insight with a personal honor I have never seen matched. We will need him in the time I see ahead.”

We ended the meeting late, eating food we ordered in while continuing to make lists of media contacts, and setting up interviews. George was on the phone constantly through the last few hours of the session, and he said he would be spending all the next day calling on contacts and setting the stage for the court battle.

“Because it will be a stage,” he insisted, “and the side which performs best will win.”

I finally headed off to my quarters, exhausted. It had been a long day. I laughed, stripping off clothes it seemed I had worn for eons. Hell, it had been a long couple of weeks. The gravity soup on Earth wasn’t helping either. It was exhausting after being used to low or zero gravity for so long. I knew I’d re-adjust in a few days, but until then I was going to be tired a lot.

I lay down, thoughts spiraling through my mind. It had been such a complex day. I’d despaired at finding a way to help my father. And then George had arrived with his plans, and I thought that we just might have a shot after all. If we raised enough public awareness of my father’s heroism in saving the planet, they couldn’t just execute him. The people would rise up.

And then there was Kel. I’d thought she was dead! Now she was back and I felt more conflicted than ever. Holding her in my arms today had been...amazing. I remembered how it felt when she’d hugged me back. My eyes began to tear up a little at the memory. I had no idea how I was going to fix things between us.

But I knew I wanted to.

I was beginning to drift off toward sleep at last when I heard the door to my room quietly slide open. I tensed for a moment, instantly alert again, but remembered that our security would have sounded an alarm if there was an intruder. So who was coming into my room? I picked my head up from the pillow and looked over my shoulder toward the door.

It was Kel. She was standing there, framed in light from the hall, as if uncertain whether she wanted to come in or leave. She was still in the clothes that she’d been loaned by the Navy ship after she’d been rescued, but she’d taken off the beige top, leaving only a white tank top on with the khaki slacks.

“Did I wake you?” she asked. “I’m sorry.” She blushed a little, her cheeks shifting to match her hair in the dim light. “You need your sleep.”

I started to sit up, but she stepped into the room, put her hand on my shoulder, and shook her head. The door closed slowly behind her, cutting off the hallway light. We were left in the faint blue light coming in through my window. She unzipped the slacks and slipped out of them.

I stared. Speech was too damned difficult just then. She folded the slacks and lay them on the bedside table, then slipped under my sheets next to me. She slid in so that her back was against my chest. She gently laid my arm over her and turned her head to face me.

“Life is too short to miss,” she said, then kissed me gently before turning back and laying her head down on the pillows.

We slept well that night, both exhausted from the events of the days before, but determined to make the most of the moments ahead.

T
he trial began was
two days after George visited me. I wasn’t sure what he had been doing in with those days, but I got an inkling when I was driven by car to the side of the court building and then hurried in a back door. I could hear roaring and chanting over the engine noise from someplace nearby. A massive crowd was gathered to watch the spectacle of my trial. But was the mob for my pardon, or my execution?

Inside, I took my place at the defendant’s bench, and was allowed a brief time to confer again with my lawyers. I had two of them there with me, both men much younger than myself and both seemed very frustrated. I smiled. They were too used to winning to enjoy the high risk involved in this case. You never knew how good you really were until you lose something, and these kids were too hot, too sure. They’d do for today though. Maybe it would even do them some good.

The judges entered the room. An International Criminal Court proceeding had three judges. The center seat belonged to the president of the court, who did most of the speaking. After they had seated themselves, the president’s name was announced as Adrian Thorne.

He was a black man, and older than me. Thorne was bald, with just a bit of hair left at the temples. His mouth was drawn in a grim line, like he really wanted to be just about anywhere except here. It was an emotion I could readily empathize with. He cleared his throat, then spoke.

“Admiral Stein, you stand accused of capitol offenses regarding alleged violations of the Lunar Accord treaty. These are serious crimes, sir. Were you informed of the seriousness of these actions and the possible penalties which may be applied?”

“I was, your honor,” I replied.

“Then sir, how do you plead to these charges?”

“Guilty, your honor.”

“Guilty? Just that?” His eyebrows rose. “Should we move directly to sentencing, then?”

At that, one of my lawyers stood. “Your honor, if it please the court, we would like to present the case in detail, in light of mitigating circumstances which are involved.”

“You may proceed,” Thorne replied. “Be aware that the commission of good deeds, no matter how worthy, in the process of committing a crime does not remove the guilt of that crime.” The young man gulped. I couldn’t tell how much of his planned defense had just been shattered with that statement, but he looked pretty distressed.

My lawyers began telling my story to the court. We’d prepared the statements in advance, and I’d been careful to ensure all the blame for everything illegal landed on my shoulders. I didn’t want anyone else going down with me. They called various witnesses to the stand, among them my son, to corroborate or fill in various parts of the story. As the day waned and it became evident that this would take longer than one court session, Thorne called a recess. “Until tomorrow morning,” he said. “Prisoner will be returned to his cell, and we will proceed from here tomorrow.”

I stood up, and two United Nations guardsmen walked over and stood by my side, guiding me out a side door of the courtroom. Instead of heading out the front, or even out the back door I had entered though, this time we went up a flight of stairs. We had gone up two levels before I asked, “Gentlemen, where are we going?”

“Helipad, sir. We’re taking you out by air. It’s too congested on the ground.”

A few minutes later, we were on the roof, where the cool evening air was a relief after a long day sitting in the courtroom. The sun had gone below the horizon a while before, and full dusk was setting in – that pre-twilight when it’s not yet dark, and you can still see the red blaze where the sun set. I climbed into the waiting helicopter, escorted by my guards. The pilot spun the engine up. We took off, and I finally got a look at the streets.

The building was surrounded. Thousands upon thousands of people were there. I looked as far as I could see down the blocks in each direction as we gained some altitude, and there were people standing in those streets. They held candles, many of them. Maybe most of them. Thousands upon thousands of candles, lighting the streets for miles in every direction.

The guard sitting next to me saw me looking and smiled shyly at me. “You didn’t know, sir?” he asked. His nametag said Rosario.

“No.”

“They’re for you, sir. All of them. There for you. My wife is out there in that crowd somewhere.”

“Thank you,” I whispered almost silently. Those people in the street couldn’t hear me, but I said it anyway and my heart felt lighter for it. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rosario said. “One of those rocks you stopped was aimed at New York. She and I would both be dead without you. So would our two year old son.”

I watched those candles for the entire trip back to the U.N building where my cell awaited. Somehow, it didn’t seem as gloomy as it had before.

I
was
in awe when I saw what George had wrought, the day of Dad’s trial.

We knew we’d get some supporters, but the raw numbers who showed up surprised us all. Even George seemed a bit taken aback. The crowd was a thousand people strong before Dad was even driven in. By lunch, the media was saying it was more like five thousand. We went out the front doors after the judges called the recess for the night.

“I guess we did it,” Sam whispered, looking out over the mass of candles.

As far as the eye could see, it was nothing but candles. Down every street, in every direction.

“The candles were a nice touch,” George said.

“I just can’t believe a website did all this,” I said, slapping an arm at the mass of people.

“Never underestimate the power of giving people what they want,” George said.

The website was his brain-child. First, he had James transmit down all the data on the battle from the Defender’s log. George uploaded the raw data to Earth’s internet and made freely accessible to everyone. But then, once thousands of people were going over the data, verifying it and talking about it – George unleashed step two. He had a website coded on the fly, which showed the way the Earth would have looked without the Defender and Indefatigable in orbit. He plotted the impact of every asteroid strike, and showed every crater. The website tallied up every dead body mercilessly. Stop by the site, enter your address, and you could see in a few second if you’d have been incinerated by one of those rocks.

Then George and I took that site to the media. They went wild and suddenly everyone was linking to the site. Millions of people visited, that first day. And it was still growing. Someone made a computer generated video of an asteroid hitting New York City. It showed the city, the bright light streaking down from the sky, the asteroid detonating and leveling several city blocks, then the fireball expanding outward from there. It showed the smoldering crater left in the center of the city, the surrounding buildings ruined, half melted, twisted and burning.

The New York Times got the rights to the video and put it on their front page.

The outpouring of gratitude was incredible. Looking out over that sea of candles, I felt real hope.

“We might actually have a chance of beating them,” I said.

“It’s early to say,” George said. His voice was sober, calm, cautious. “But I’d say we’ve given your father a shot, anyway.”

The press that had been covering the crowd turned and made a beeline for the courthouse doors. What was up? It took me a moment to pick faces out of the crowd. President Shaunesey was on his way out the doors and was speaking with the press. I made a face. The man was holding his own little press conference. Doubtless he was going to try to spin things around somehow.

“George, what should we do about him?” I asked. Then I realized George was walking toward Shaunesey’s impromptu stage. What was he doing? I eased closer to listen.

“...and in the end, justice must be done,” Shaunesey said. “If every person who thought they knew what was best for others picked up a gun and used it to exact their own idea of justice, it would be a disaster. No one has the right to be a vigilante. Not even when it is justified. Not even when it saves lives.”

He sounded so calm. So rational. So convincing. Damn! I was hoping he’d be frothing at the mouth like he had been on the radio with Dad. Nothing would win us more points than a man who was clearly out of control leading the opposition. I should have expected as much, though. You didn’t get to Shaunesey’s level in politics without being able to control your emotions. He was good with the crowd, too. I could see some of them nodding.

And then George reached his side. He strode right through the media like he belonged there, and they parted for him. Enough of them recognized the governor of Earth’s most important colony that a bunch of cameras shifted their focus from Shaunesey to him.

“President Shaunesey!” he said, offering his hand for a handshake. Shaunesey took the offered hand, looking not especially pleased to see George just then. Of course, he knew who his opponents were, just as we did.

“Governor Clarke,” Shaunesey said, smiling. “I’d heard you were on Earth. It’s so nice to see you back with us after so long away.”

“Always good to come home for important matters. Like offering you my congratulations, sir!” George said, still pumping Shaunesey’s hand for the cameras.

“If you’ll excuse me, Governor? I should be on my way,” Shaunesey said.

“Of course!” George replied. “I just overheard you talking, and wanted to say – I agree with you completely.”

“I’m so glad,” Shaunesey said, his eyes narrowing.

“Of course we can’t have people taking justice into their own hands. And you, sir, are the best example of that one could ask. Your own wife died during the last war, and you didn’t act the vigilante against the person who killed her.”

Shaunesey froze. His eyes shot daggers at Clarke, and I think that if he’d been carrying a weapon, he’d have used it just then. His eyes seethed with open hatred. And the cameras caught every second of it.

“How dare you?” Shaunesey said.

Immediately, George looked contrite. “I’m so sorry. Reminding you of your loss was thoughtless of me. Please accept my apologies.”

Shaunesey looked like he was about to say something, then looked at the media whose cameras were all trained on the discussion, broadcasting every word. None of the reporters were nodding now. They were intent, their focus trained forward. They knew a hot story when they heard one. Some of them had already whipped out tablets. It would take them about fifteen more seconds to look up where and how Shaunesey’s wife had died. And then the questions would start.

I could see the moment that Shaunesey realized that too. He whirled and stalked away, his guardsmen blocking the reporters from following him to his car. They turned their attention to George instead, who launched into regaling them with the tale of the Battle for Mars. Since he was the first eye-witness for that event they’d been able to interview, they ate it up.

But the seed had been planted. I was willing to bet that by morning the newsfeed columns would be talking about the personal connection between Shaunesey and my father – and asking whether Shaunesey was after justice...or revenge.