No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three (20 page)

To put it graciously, Raena thought.

“So the judges will be introduced. The court clerk will read the charges. We can choose to deal with the charges in any order that we like. We ask to see the evidence they have against you, then we are required to prove your innocence. As you’ve noticed, you are presumed to be guilty and the burden is on us to demonstrate that you are not. It’s quite likely that additional charges will be brought during the course of the trial. We will deal with those as they arise.”

“What outcome is Kai hoping for?” Raena asked.

“This is all about money. Kai does not have a prison for long-term incarceration, so prisoners who cannot defend themselves against the charges are heavily fined. If they cannot pay the fines, they are transported to Farrington Prison at their own expense and incarcerated until their fines can be met.”

Raena didn’t know that prison by name, but as she was not going back to any prison ever, it didn’t really matter. She would kill herself first.

“Kai has very little in the way of violent crime—the lack of weapons and the general wealth of the visitor population limits the sorts of trouble that occur here.”

“What about the workers?”

Both the lizard’s eyes rotated to look at her.

“When Captain Chen worked on Kai,” Raena said, “he was harassed by anti-human bullies. Did he have any recourse?”

“No. In cases where violence is discovered amongst the workers, both parties are fined and exiled from Kai. Since they’ve allowed Captain Chen to return, it’s likely he never pressed charges.”

No wonder Mykah had been so eager to get out of here when Raena initially offered him command of the
Veracity
.

The courtroom guards marched toward Raena’s chair. “Ah, good,” Corvas said. “Time to get started.”

Both his eyes rotated back toward Raena. “Trust me,” he said. “I’ll get you out of this.”

*   *   *

The guards frogmarched Raena into the courtroom. This time they locked her shackles to the legs of the defendant’s chair so that she could stand when addressed by the judges, but she couldn’t roam.

The courtroom Mistress of Ceremonies was a feline creature with overdeveloped feminine attributes that threatened to spill from her tiny tightly-laced dress. She introduced Raena as the former bodyguard of a Melisizei “businessman” and a ward of the humanitarian Shaad Family Foundation. The cameras buzzed over to close in on Ariel, who smiled at them and waved.

The court clerk was a shiny black bird, maybe the same who’d attended the arraignment hearing. It read over the charges being brought by the Business Council and noted that Raena had requested a trial, as was her right.

Two cameras buzzed over to get a close-up of Raena’s face. She ignored them, looking instead at her judges. As Corvas promised, there were three of them: a gray-skinned female with oversized blue eyes, a twiggy insect creature, and a rock creature similar to the one that attacked her in her cell. That couldn’t be good. For all that Raena could tell them apart, it might be the same rock creature. All three judges wore matching white robes that flowed to the ground. They sat on thrones facing the courtroom.

“We can begin as soon as the defense is ready,” the gray female said.

Corvas looked to Raena, who nodded.

“The first of the charges against my client that we would like to challenge is that she stole an Imperial-era diplomatic transport.” The defender pressed a key on his desk to show the image of Raena’s wanted poster.

The audience in the courtroom reacted to the sight of the little woman in a short parrot-blue sheath dress, her knee-high leather boots, and the Stinger pistol in her hand. Raena heard grumblings about the violent nature of humans, about making yourself feel bigger with a gun in your hand.

“In the image, is your client carrying a weapon on Kai?” the rock judge asked.

The defender turned to Raena, who spoke up: “Yes, sir, I was.”

Corvas said smoothly, “She hasn’t been charged with that, your Honor.”

“I’m sure the Business Council will rectify that,” the insect judge rasped.

The defender glanced down at Raena, who shrugged. Corvas said, “We will not contest the charge.”

Raena wondered how much the fine would be. Was there any chance it would equal time served without charges being filed?

“Where are you in this image?” the rock judge demanded.

“A docking slip at Kai City Spaceport,” Raena said.

“What’s the designation of the ship visible behind you in the image?”

“I’m not sure of its designation,” she answered. “The ship is called the
Veracity
. It’s been my honor to serve on it since I left Kai.”

“The dockmaster of Kai City Spaceport claims this ship is in fact the
Raptor
.”

Corvas asked, “The
Raptor
is also an Imperial-era diplomatic transport?”

“Apparently.”

“I’m not familiar with the
Raptor
, your Honors,” Raena said.

“It landed on Kai the same day as you left.”

Raena looked to her defender, unsure how to respond to that. Corvas said, “I have not been able to find any evidence linking my client to the
Raptor
. Will the court show us the basis of the theft charge?”

The clerk played the recording of an Imperial-era ship landing in a docking slip. After the engines had cooled, the Thallian crew disembarked. Raena got her first unguarded look at Revan Thallian, older brother of her nemesis.

Oh, she’d seen Revan’s video log aboard the
Veracity
, after Coni had broken its encryption. In those recordings, made privately and intended to be viewed only by his younger brother, Revan had spoken as if to his commander. The video recorded on Kai left no doubt he could rise to command when needed.

Revan was clean-shaven, where Jonan wore a spade-shaped beard. Revan held himself like a prince as he dealt with the dockmaster and ordered his hit squad around, but he didn’t have the air of complete disdain that his psychotic little brother used to affect. Raena wondered if she would have liked Revan if they’d ever had a chance to talk.

The recording cut, then resumed when Jain Thallian raced into the docking slip on a jet bike. He parked his bike, hopped off of it, and scurried up the ramp to the ship’s lock.

A moment later, Raena leapt down atop the hull of the ship. She appreciated her own three-point landing, with the stun staff held behind her at a precise angle. “Such a badass,” she heard Haoun say, somewhere in the gallery to her left. Raena kept her face blank, but she agreed with him.

In the recording, she slipped over the edge of the ship’s hull and went after Jain. The camera was in the wrong place to see her stun him and drag him onto the ship.

Not much time passed before she came back off the ship and shot out the surveillance camera in the docking slip. The screen filled with snow. The clerk turned the recording off.

“Looks like the Business Council needs to charge you with carrying a stun stick, too,” the gray judge said.

“We will not contest it,” Corvas said. Raena was glad. If he had wanted to challenge that charge, she would have to explain where the stun stick had come from—and she didn’t want to admit she’d taken it from a member of Planetary Security when she stole his jet bike to follow the boy. Better to defuse the whole explosion.

Corvas seemed just as eager to get the trial back on track. “To clarify,” he said, “we have a recording of the
Raptor
landing on Kai. Has the court identified the men who stepped off of it?”

The clerk consulted the dockmaster’s records and read a list of names. Before Raena could say anything, the defender spoke up for her. “Your Honors, my client would like to correctly identify the leader of this group.” He turned to Raena.

“The man issuing the orders is Revan Thallian,” she said.

Corvas swiped his crabbed hand across his handheld and put Jonan’s old War-era wanted poster up on the screen. “The court no doubt recognizes Jonan Thallian, architect of the genetic plague that annihilated the Templars.” He ignored the angry outbursts from the courtroom audience. Beside Jonan’s photo Corvas put up a still taken from the footage of Revan Thallian on the Templar tombworld. Finally, he added a still image of Revan taken from the recording they’d just watched. “This is Revan Thallian, as identified by my client and the documentaries about the looting of the Templar tombs. You can see the obvious resemblance to his infamous brother.”

The insect judge said, “You’re telling us that one of the Thallians came to Kai.”

Over the racket behind her, Raena said clearly, “Yes, your Honor. In fact, if his body has not been destroyed, it is lying unclaimed in Kai City’s morgue right now.”

A roar of outrage greeted that remark.

The judges exchanged a glance, then stood as one. The gray female said, “This court will adjourn for the rest of the morning or until we can establish the truth of this allegation.”

The defender leaned over to tell Raena, “Nicely done.” Then he stepped back so that the bailiff could unlock the shackles that held Raena’s legs to her chair. The bailiff and a guard with a stun staff marched her out of the courtroom.

*   *   *

When the court came back in session after a lunch that rivaled one of Mykah’s pasta creations, Kai City’s coroner was called to the stand. He had run a hasty genetic scan of the unidentified human corpses in his freezer. To his horror, he found that one directly matched Jonan Thallian, the notorious mass murderer. He apologized profusely for not identifying Revan Thallian sooner. Shuddering with disgust, he asked permission to destroy the body.

The court granted it.

Corvas came to speak with Raena while the bailiff tried to calm the enraged audience in the courtroom.

“Why did they keep his body all this time?” Raena asked quietly.

“Kai hoped that his family would identify and claim the corpse, at which point they would have been charged for six standard months’ cold storage. Now that Kai knows who he was, they are in a hurry to prevent any more Thallians from coming to the planet.”

“They know all the Thallians are dead, right?” Raena asked.

“Not all of them,” Corvas said enigmatically. Raena shivered.

*   *   *

Eilif stared at the video screen in Kavanaugh’s lounge, where they had been watching the broadcast of Raena’s trial. Eilif blinked, startled to find her eyes so dry. She had known Revan died on Kai. She had known that Raena killed him. Jain reported those things when he’d returned home. But to discover that Revan’s body still lingered, anonymous and unclaimed after all this time, was as painful as being stabbed.

Eilif didn’t know what she had expected to have happened to Revan’s body: some kind of release from this world, at least. She’d vaguely supposed that he must have been unceremoniously dumped into a pauper’s grave or cremated and scattered to Kai’s desert winds—anything, other than trapped in this ignominious state of waiting.

She wanted to claim him now. Unfortunately, even in the unlikely event that they let her have his body, she couldn’t take him home to lie with his brothers. Raena had obliterated the Thallians and burned the castle down. She hadn’t wanted to leave anything left to clone.

Eilif’s eyes no longer registered the courtroom drama on the screen. The grief she had not allowed herself to feel before submerged her. Of all the Thallians, Revan had behaved gently with her. He laughed with her sometimes, told her stories. He treated her like a friend, rather than a family possession. Secretly in her heart, Eilif had loved him.

She believed Revan had died without knowing that. Jonan would have killed her if he’d ever had any indication she was unfaithful, even in her thoughts. She wasn’t sure what Jonan would have done to his beloved older brother. To protect Revan even more than herself, Eilif had never breathed a word.

She excused herself and retreated to the tiny cabin Captain Kavanaugh set aside for her, where she could mourn privately.

*   *   *

Following the coroner, the court called Kai’s dockmaster to the witness stand. He faced a lot of questions from the judges about how he could allow a Thallian onto the weapons-free planet without confirming his identity. Raena didn’t pay much attention, because she could see where the case was headed now. Once the dockmaster had been discredited over his failure to recognize and detain a man sentenced to death by the galaxy, it would be easy to prove he couldn’t tell the difference between two very similar Imperial-era diplomatic transports.

Raena felt mildly sorry for the dockmaster. No doubt he was just doing his job, as decreed by the Business Council. The spaceport probably paid exorbitant taxes, which would be more difficult to meet now that tourist travel had tapered off. The spaceport might even have a quota of ships to impound and auction off. Raena wondered if this was a new scam, or one Kai had worked flawlessly before. Maybe all the pleasure planets did it.

Raena glanced around the courtroom. Ariel sat in the gallery on the left side of the room, where the VIPs were separated from the rabble. The
Veracity
’s crew sat beside her. The Deputy Consul sat nearby. He nodded when he noticed her looking at him.

Ariel wore her standard uniform: a pair of soft, tight dove gray trousers above some complicated woven wire sandals that did not look at all comfortable. Today she’d buttoned her white blouse enough to seem fairly chaste. She unconsciously twirled an unlit spice stick in her fingers.

It felt like ages since Raena had taken a real, long, appraising look at her former mistress. Ariel’s honey blond hair had grayed at the temples. Time had whittled the softness of her body to leanness. Although she had the resources to hold it at bay, she had chosen to let life mark her face. She looked strong and compassionate.

More than being a spoiled heiress now, Ariel had become a grand dame. She was just as passionate and faithful as ever, and she still loved Raena like a sister. Kai might have won this case, if they’d targeted anyone else. Instead, they’d underestimated Ariel’s ferocity. Now that they’d gone and made Ariel Shaad angry, she would see this fight to the end, until everyone who’d attacked Raena had been destroyed.