The War Machine: Crisis of Empire III (7 page)

“Guilty.”

Allison Spencer shoved his chair back from the table a bit and stared down at the man he had just convicted. In another world, a better world, Spencer thought, he would not have had to do this job himself. Someone else besides Lucius Rockler’s commander should have said that word to Lucius Rockler. It wasn’t right or proper for a commanding officer to preside at the court martial of an officer directly under his command.

But far better a court martial here and now, under whatever circumstance, than the ordinary sailors seeing a loathsome pimple like Rockler get off scot-free for his crimes. “Lieutenant Commander Rockler, you have been found guilty by this summary court martial of diverting Navy property to your own use, of the theft of Navy property, and of the unauthorized sale of Navy property, each of these being a Class Three offense. This court commends the prosecuting officer for her capable presentation of the case against you. We have seen how food, medical supplies, and vital equipment intended for the use of the
Banquo
never actually left the planet’s surface, but were instead diverted to sale on the black market, to your considerable profit. It has also been proved that you purchased substitute foodstuff’s knowing that they were of inferior quality, that much of said food was spoiled, diseased and otherwise unwholesome, and that the quantity of food supplied to the crew was wholly inadequate to feed the crew. As the
Banquo
was in orbit at the time, and the crew isolated from any source of food besides ship’s stores, this amounted to the deliberate starvation of your own crew.

“You have likewise been found guilty of three separate charges of grievous manslaughter, which is defined as doing deeds and things which cause the death of another, while knowing said deeds and things were likely to cause the death of another, to wit, causing the death by malnutrition of three men under your command by depriving them of nourishing foodstuffs, such food being stolen and sold by you as per the Class Three offenses previously mentioned. However, the court finds that while you stole the men’s food, knowing the consequences of such an act might include death, your actual motive was not murder, but larceny, and therefore you cannot be charged with premeditated murder. But, by finding you guilty of the deaths of men under your command, I am legally constrained to charge you formally with the further crime of criminal negligence in the performance of your duties.

“This court further rules that it has heard sufficient evidence already to rule on this further charge without recourse to a second court martial to consider a charge of criminal negligence. This court hereby finds you guilty of the additional charge, and hereby sentences you to death for it, as provided for in the Code of Military Justice.”

An excited whisper of voices rippled through the wardroom, which had been pressed into service as a courtroom. Lucius Rockler, a wispy little man who seemed wholly out of place in a uniform, stood at rigid attention, visibly struggling to keep his knees from buckling.

Al Spencer forced himself to continue.
By the book, absolutely by the book,
he told himself. Rockler must be granted every right to which he was entitled. The crew must know that this was justice, not a witch hunt, not revenge.

Or was he, Spencer, merely afraid to cause this miserable man’s immediate death? “I must now speak not only to you, Lucius Rockler, but to the entire crew and officer corps of this task force. Enough of you knew to start with why we waited until departure from our last station to begin this trial that it can be no secret to any of you by now. Let me violate one of the greatest taboos and speak the truth, out loud, and in the open: The Pact has more than its share of corruption. We have evidence that friends and relations of the accused had already started efforts to suborn a planetside trial.” Spencer did not mention that the planetside KT had provided that evidence, at Suss’ request. “The evidence of judicial tampering will be entered into the permanent record of this trial.

“I decided to try this case myself so as to keep Lucius Rockler from escaping justice. Not to prevent his escaping
punishment,
but
justice.
I had no personal knowledge of the accused man I have now found guilty, and no firsthand knowledge of the events leading to charges being brought. For these reasons, I felt it possible for me to serve as judge over him, in spite of the fact that I am his direct commanding officer. I have endeavored to conduct a fair and honest trial, and I believe I have done so.

“But having found Lucius Rockler guilty, and having passed sentence upon him,
I cannot and must not order that sentence carried out.
So as to insure that the sentence was rendered justly and fairly, the law says it must be put before a review board. This is done to prevent spaceside courts martial from degenerating into vendettas, judicial murders.

“Naval regulations and admiralty law are most clear on this point. Under the given circumstances, it is
illegal
for me to carry out the sentence of death against Lucius Rockler, or to order others to carry it out. There are no doubt plenty of mess hall lawyers who have found a supposed loophole, wherein, for example, I might declare us in a state of emergency, or declare that we would be out of contact with superior authority for a long enough period of time that I could carry out sentence.

“But I refuse to take that course, for an excellent reason: it would dishonor this command by involving it in an abuse of process far worse than the ones contemplated by Lucius Rockler’s friends. If his punishment is to mean anything, it must be carried out in the name of justice, not vengeance. His punishment must be impersonal, imposed not out of hatred, but for his violation of objective criteria—that is to say, the law. To further insure this, Naval Regulations require that an officer convicted under these circumstances be surrendered to outside authority at the first possible instant.

“Immediately upon our arrival at Daltgeld, Lucius Rockler will be transported planetside and incarcerated at Government House there. His incarceration will be kept secret, and I might add the Rockler family is quite unknown in the Daltgeld system. He will remain in Government House until such time as another Navy unit calls at Daltgeld. They will carry him aboard for eventual transport to a major naval base. Upon his arrival at such a base, a review board will be constituted. They will examine the record of this proceeding in secret. Given the conclusive nature of the evidence, it will be impossible for them to overturn his conviction. Nor, I believe, will they find any mitigating circumstance that would prevent them from carrying out the sentence of this court. As the review will be secret, and carried out at a location convenient to the Navy, no crony of Rockler will have the chance to manipulate the proceedings. It will take time, but my sentence
will
be carried out. Until such time as it is, Lucius Rockler can look forward to little more than being shuttled from one prison to another.”
And Suss and the KT will make certain of that,
Spencer told himself. “Perhaps it would satisfy some ancient urge to pull out a repulsor and blast this man on the spot. But we dare not proceed that way, lest it be you or me in the dock next time, with our enemies convening a kangaroo court for the sole purpose of judicial murder. We deny ourselves vengeance in self-defense.

“In closing, I will make one further statement. This prisoner is to arrive at Daltgeld intact and in good health. He will be fed and cared for. I will not hesitate to reconvene this court to try an alleged assailant. We will have justice, not blood. This court is now adjourned.”

Allison Spencer stood, bringing everyone else in the room to their feet, standing at rigid attention. “At ease,” he said tiredly, and ducked out of the room through a convenient side door.

***

He got from the wardroom to his office—now vacated by Deyi—without running into anyone. For that Spencer was thankful. He felt too young, too inexperienced, to play the part of judge and jury, and he didn’t want or need the congratulations of the crew over how good a job he had done.

He closed the door of his office against the outside world and sat down behind his desk, thankful for the solitude. This was the only place he could truly be alone—Suss shared his cabin, if not his bed, and besides, the turmoil of turning Kerad’s Arabian Nights fantasy back into a normal stateroom was not conducive to quiet meditation.

“You’ve got a visitor coming,” Spencer’s AID announced. “Commander Tallen Deyi’s AID is requesting—”

“Granted.”

“Very good, Sir,” the AID agreed.

A knock came at the door. “Come,” Spencer said.

Tallen came in, pulled up the visitor’s chair and sat down. “That was not a pleasant job. I’m glad I didn’t have to do it.”

“But you should have,” Spencer said.

“Sir?”

“Knock off the sirs, Tallen. This is friend-to-friend, not commander and XO.” Spencer turned and punched up an exterior view on the wall screen. Daltgeld hovered in the far distance, even at high magnification. They had jumped three times to get here, but now they were in the Daltgeld system, albeit in the outer reaches. Daltgeld was still over two billion kilometers away, and it would still take some time to get there. “You should have gotten the
Duncan.
Not me. I’d never even heard of this task force until a month ago. You know the ships, know the men. But I came along and kicked you out from behind this desk.”

Tallen cleared his throat and held his hands together in his lap, staring very intently at the way his fingers wrapped around each other. “Well, Sir—I mean, Al, you may be right. But they didn’t choose me. They chose you. They decided you were the more qualified commander—”

“Just as Kerad was more qualified?” Spencer asked. “I’ve never commanded Navy men. I have to keep asking my AID what the most basic terms mean. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t
want
to be here. I got listed as a screw up dirtside, and they dumped me on you.” That was close enough to the truth for present discussion, anyway. “Kerad’s appointment was political, and so was mine. So don’t tell me I was chosen because I was more qualified.”

Tallen looked up fiercely at the younger man. “All right, I won’t. But I will tell you that you
are
more qualified than I am. I couldn’t have conducted that trial, manipulated our departure schedule to keep the dirtside lawyers from giving Rockler a slap on the wrists and a kiss on the mouth. I would have let them take him away. As it is, his crew is seeing justice being done. You could see far enough ahead to know they needed that. I couldn’t.”

“Nonsense. You’d have known what to do. And you deserve the chance to command. So I’m changing my plans. I’m bucking you up to Commander and giving you the
Banquo.”

Tallen sat up straight and looked at Spencer. “What about Tarwa Chu, the
Banquo’s
XO? Shouldn’t she get the job?”

Spencer shook his head and grinned. “Tallen, you’ve got to stop thinking that way. Every time something good comes your way, you think of reasons it shouldn’t happen. I’m dispersing all of the
Banquo’s
officers, putting them on the
Duncan,
the
Macduff,
and the
Lennox.
Better for officer and enlisted morale than leaving the same officers in charge of a crew they couldn’t protect from Rockler. I’m bringing Chu over here to take your job. She doesn’t have your experience, but you’ll be able to keep an eye on her if need be. By all reports she’s a good officer—but she’d have trouble convincing the
Banquo’s
crew of that. After all, she had to sit there and follow Rockler’s orders. You were the one who stopped the mutiny, and had the nerve to arrest the mutineers
and
Rockler. They’ll trust you.”

“I don’t want it,” Tallen said flatly. “I just got through saying I’m not up to the job of commanding a ship.”

“And I just got through telling you you’re wrong. Besides, I’m not offering you the
Banquo.
I’m
ordering
you to take her. I need an experienced officer riding herd on the three destroyers. Your fitness reports make it clear that the
Duncan
needs some serious work done. We can get it done fast if she makes planetfall at Daltgeld, leaving the three destroyers in orbit.”

“Planetfall?”

Spencer winced inside, knowing how flimsy it sounded. But such were the consequences of moving around capital ships and whole task forces as covers for KT agents. The entire purpose of this operation was to get Suss to Daltgeld, and to get her in contact with her fellow operatives. If, as seemed possible, the local KT talent was having trouble using electronic communications, then Suss would have to be in direct, physical contact with them—which meant getting her down to the surface and keeping her there. So long as the
Duncan
remained in orbit, her cover as the captain’s courtesan, posing as Spencer’s putative personal assistant, didn’t provide any particularly convincing reason for her shuttling back and forth to the planet. She might travel on the captain’s arm, or else go on shopping sprees—but neither of those activities allowed an agent much freedom of movement, or could be kept up indefinitely.

Which meant a Warlord-class cruiser, all one million metric tons of it, with one thousand crew aboard, would have to be coaxed down out of the sky and into a repair yard for the convenience of one forty-five-kilo secret agent.

“Yes, we’re making planetfall for repairs. Do you have objections?” Spencer asked, a bit sharply.

Tallen started to speak, hesitated, and then decided to launch in directly. “Al—Sir—with all due respect, I have to say that this is a case where your lack of naval experience might get you into trouble. Getting a ship the size of the
Duncan
down out of orbit is no minor matter. We’d have to do a water landing and tow her in. Those are expensive procedures, and not without a certain amount of risk both to the
Duncan
and to any landscape she might have to overfly. A ship this size is very rough to handle in atmosphere. It’s dangerous.”

“So is flying a ship when an uncertain number of unlogged repairs and pilferages have been performed on her,” Spencer said, trying to sound convincing. “We still don’t know what Kerad’s cronies took with them, what bulkheads they might have weakened by punching doors through them, what of the equipment that
has
been left behind is low-grade junk they installed instead of proper military spec gear. Those clowns were running this ship for six standard months. Who knows how much damage they might have done?”