Post by Ceil on Dec 16, 2006 3:28:44 GMT -5
“Many of the things said about my father are not true. Many more of the things said of him are,” the young woman’s voice cut knife-sharp through the large trial hall. The air in the hall was still; nearly heavy with the silence that waited, swallowing her words. Every eye was on the young woman, but not a soul of any species or race could seem to meet her gaze. She stared ahead, quiet now. A representative of the Coalition with distinguished silver hair paced in front of the raised witness’ stand where the young woman sat.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re here today, to sort out the facts from the fiction,” the representative said. The young woman’s eyes flicked down to him, her stare still solid. Her eyes were the gray of gunmetal with a few flecks of bright silver.
“That’s impossible, Representative Muldiver, and not why I’m here today,” she replied, her voice as level as her gaze.
“Why is it impossible?”
The Moderator of the court watched the witness and representative closely with yellow-red eyes.
“Because the fact and the fiction are far too complicated and interwoven for there to ever be a cohesive answer. You’ve all waited too long to ask these questions. None of you asked Felix Hemmingway any of this when he was still alive,” she replied, and though her voice remained calm, no one in the trial hall could ignore emphasis to her words.
“Why are you here today, then?” Muldiver asked. The large audience of observers shifted – there was already irritation in the man’s voice.
The young woman’s stare moved away from Muldiver and swept over the crowd. “To clear my father’s name.”
“Well, the ends may be a bit different, but the means are the same for our purposes, I’d say. For the purposes of our records, could you please tell the court your name, age, race, rank if any, occupation and role in the situation?”
She took a deep breath, but when she spoke, her voice remained level. “I am Sokai Hemmingway, twenty six standard years old, Verldanese-“
“There are no more Verldanese,” Muldiver interrupted. “The Magistrate destroyed them a recorded twenty three standard years ago.”
“Yes. I was three. I am the last, as far as I know. After The Magistrate remade Verldan, her people were sold as slaves. And we do not last long as slaves, or without Kilan Aeo.”
Muldiver tapped his way through a few pages of information on a handheld Infoscreen. “That being a Verldan life support unit. Thought to be the most advanced form of life support in the known ‘verse, able to support a Verldanese for upwards of...?”
Hemmingway shrugged. “At least eight hundred standard years. But without Kilan Aeo, we have very short life spans – only forty to fifty standard years.”
“So you claim to be the last of the planet Verldan and to be, for all intents and purposes, immortal?” Muldiver asked with a faint twist to his features, the briefest of sneers. He stood with his back to the crowd so only the silent; looming Moderator and the young woman could see his face.
“No,” Hemmingway replied shortly, still as steady as the steel of her eyes.
“No?”
“I do not claim to be the last Verldanese, Representative. I am the last Verldanese, as the DNA ID portrait from my time at Gatekeeper proves. I’m also not ‘for all intents and purposes, immortal.’ Kilan Aeo does not protect me from injuries, decease, illnesses, genetic flaws or anything else fatal or possibly fatal. It only prolongs the natural lifespan. I can die very easily,” Hemmingway replied factually.
Muldiver stopped pacing and stared at the witness, his eyes narrowed. Sokai Hemmingway was a tall woman, as most Verldanese had been. Her skin was the even tan of some one who spent most of her time under simulated star-light, that slight shift from a natural shade that let the planet-dwellers tell the ship-dwellers apart every time. Black tiger-like stripes crossed her skin, though it was difficult to tell if they were tattooed or natural markings. The only visible stripes were three on each cheek. She would be pretty; perhaps even beautiful if it were not for the perfectly stone-wrought expression on her face that lent her the look of agelessness and immortality, or the intensity that hid behind the gunmetal of her eyes. Her hair was a deep red color, and barely tamed even for the very formal proceedings – it spiked and twisted and flowed uncontrollably. It was the only thing about Sokai Hemmingway that seemed out of control. From the tips of her heavy combat boots to the neat belt of retro-bullets around her waist, Sokai Hemmingway looked frighteningly in control of herself and anything around her she needed to be.
Muldiver nodded. “Continue.”
“My former rank is Marshal, First Field.”
The representative had begun to pace again. “You discharged-resigned four years ago, after The Magistrate’s destruction?”
“I did. Central Marshal Grey approved and accepted it.”
“Former Central Marshal Grey?” Muldiver asked, and that hint of a sneer was in his voice this time. Hemmingway did not rise to his bait.
“He wasn’t ‘former’ at the time. But yes, he’s no longer Central Marshal.”
“Continue.”
“I’m captain of Wraith now,” Hemmingway paused here, waiting for the question sure to come.
Muldiver jumped and most of the audience leaned forward. “The ship formerly known as Mark One?”
“Correct,” was Hemmingway’s simple reply. The court-hall erupted into whispers, mutters and a great deal of tapping into comm-devices and Infoscreens. The Moderator of the hall banged her fist on her raised desk, the sound echoing louder then any tapping. She was a Jins-rlah, looming as tall as the reptilian race generally grew. Moderator Redskye had a frighteningly authoritative way about her, and it wasn’t just because of her ready talons or the way her rows of razor edged teeth flashed when she spoke. The hall quickly quieted again.
“And your role in the situation?” Muldiver asked, the sneer gone from his voice and replaced with something rather like satisfaction.
“I’m Felix Hemmingway’s daughter,” Hemmingway answered, one hand straying idly to a tiger-stripe under her left eye. There were no mutters in response to this, though a few of the audience stood and left the hall, scowling in the young woman’s direction. She watched each and every one of them leave, her face still as stone.
Like the brief sneer of earlier, a brief smirk passed Muldiver’s face. Only Redskye and Hemmingway saw it, it was gone when he turned to fact the crowd once more.
“Felix Hemmingway’s daughter. That in itself seems to shroud the man in question with more mystery, as few seemed to see him as the type of person who would father a child.”
Heads in the audience nodded. The sea of faces spread before the Moderator and witness looked like an ocean of carved statues, solemn and difficult to judge.
“Do you have questions for me, Representative, or would you like to continue to theorize on the type of person my father was?” Hemmingway asked sharply, her eyes boring into Muldiver’s back. He turned, waving his palm casually.
“My apologies, Miss Hemmingway-“
“Captain Hemmingway, Representative.”
Muldiver gave a polite smile that did not reach his eyes. “Of course. My apologies, Captain. The next question, then. You were raised on Mark One?”
“Yes. Until I was sixteen standard years, then I enrolled into the Marshalship program onboard Gatekeeper.”
Muldiver’s brow rose. “Isn’t that under the independent consent age for basic humanoids, in the Marshalship?”
Hemmingway nodded, pushing some of the mess of her hair that fell in front of her face away. “Unless a guardian or parent signs dependant consent.”
“Felix Hemmingway gave you, his fifteen year old daughter permission to enroll in a para-military police organization?” Muldiver demanded, his face inherently disapproving.
Hemmingway once again did not rise to his bait and simply nodded. “He did. Cadets don’t see actual combat for at least two or three standard years. He wanted me off Mark One.”
“The ship you were raised on? Why, and why then?”
“My father had his own mission, his own war to fight. I’d already seen too much of it, in his opinion, and he wanted me away from it – and if I wanted to come back, he wanted me prepared when I did. The Marshalship was my idea,” Hemmingway explained, the coolness of her voice slacking away with remembrance.
“His own war?”
“The fight against The Magistrate. Father considered it his responsibility to destroy it and its owner.”
Muldiver stared at Hemmingway, then whirled to face the crowd. “Tell the court why he felt it his responsibility.”
Hemmingway didn’t hesitate. “My father designed The Magistrate, when he worked as Velos Eye’s chief engineer, one hundred and eight standard years ago.”
The courtroom erupted.
After ten minutes of chaos that even Moderator Redskye couldn’t control, she finally banged her taloned fist so hard on her desk that the synth’d-lumber cracked in half. The Jins-rlah stood and let out a deafening roar across the trial hall, announcing the court was dismissed until it could properly control itself. The trial hall thundered with the Moderator’s retreat into her chambers and the steady stream of the audience stampeding out, heading for holo-vid broadcasters and personal booths to make more comm calls.
Sokai Hemmingway waited until the last of the crowd had meted out, but for a few small lingering groups who stood talking quietly and studiously ignoring her. She walked with her head held tall and high through the court-hall, her boots firmly echoing on the transteel floor. The messy nest of her hair set her apart from the crowd as she walked through – people tended to part for her, groups shifted out of the way while avoiding looking at her.
She left the hall and the same thing happened in the passageways outside of the hall. She finally exited the huge building the hall was housed in. She stood on top of the mobile stairs that carried the crowd as they came and went.
Veronox’s double suns were shining brightly but not dangerously today, the Ozone Shield must have been functioning properly to keep the planet safe from the suns’ usually dangerous harsh and hot light. Hemmingway shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up to the sky, her face finally breaking its impassive, stony nature to give a disapproving frown at the wide, cloudless blue sky. Veronox’s western hemisphere was so flat and the newly reconstructed atmosphere so unpolluted, that on a clear day like this, one could see for miles.
“Usually, Capt’n, people smile when they look up at the sky on a day like this. Why, a day like this on my ranch? It means all the more work to be done, a nice lobster-red sunburn and a pitcher full of iced lemonade waiting back at the ranch house at lunch time,” spoke a voice that crested as it grew closer, it’s owner striding up the mobile stairs, too impatient to let them finish the journey for him.
Hemmingway lowered her hand and her gaze as a man as tall as she was walked up to her. He wore the wide rimmed hat she’d seen resting on his desk every time she’d been summoned for another ‘talking to’ during her years on Gatekeeper. His white hair still had streaks of stubborn black, and the hand he used to tip his hat in greeting to her was big and callused from obvious hard work. He hadn’t quite been able to clean all of the dirt from his nails.
“Marshal Grey,” Hemmingway nearly smiled, though her lips didn’t quite curl enough. She did however salute neatly and respectfully.
Former Central Marshal Carl Grey smiled widely though a bit sadly and caught her saluting hand in his work-worn one. They shook, firmly, warmly.
“You’ll call me Carl, now, Capt’n, as I’m not a Marshal any more and neither are you,” Grey said. He started to walk and she kept pace at his side.
“'Though you might not wear the uniform or answer to Gatekeeper, once a Marshal, always a Marshal, in head and heart,'” Hemmingway quoted, a teasing flash in the silver-metal of her eyes. Grey paused and glanced over at the girl young enough to be his daughter or granddaughter.
“Now where’d you hear a damn-fool thing like that?” He asked.
“From y-"
He interrupted. “From a damn-fool, you’d best be about to say. Marshalship isn’t what it was. Too many good Marshals dead to The Magistrate and that 'verse-forsaken overgrown lizard. Too much...ah, well, you know same as I do, Capt’n.”
Grey suddenly sat, having found a marble bench in a shadowed nook. Hemmingway didn’t sit; she just paced slowly.
With a glance at Grey, she said, “Sokai, please. Or Hemmingway, like you used to call me.”
“That always felt a trifle strange. Calling you ‘Hemmingway.’ I always think of your father, and back then you were such a mite thing...” Grey trailed off and watched the young woman pacing before him. “Guess it fits some better now, Hemmingway.”
She spared him a glance, an eyebrow raised questioningly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’ve grown up, shot up like a sprout and you’re near tall enough that that great coat of his probably wouldn’t drag on the ground if you put it on,” Grey said this without a smile, there was a look of disapproval in his eyes.
Hemmingway turned her back to him and looked back to the sky, the bright suns’ light doing well to hide the blush on her tanned cheeks. When she blushed, the marks on her cheeks lightened to pink. “It doesn’t drag anymore. And I don’t like days like this – there’s too much to see, too much to come at you, too much...”
“Spoken like a spacer born and raised.”
“I don’t like planets,” she replied softly, the blush quickly fading away. She turned back to the ex-Central Marshal. Her voice returned to it’s prior cool tone. “Have they called you here to testify?”
Grey shrugged. “No one called me. Thought I’d come myself. Already heard my name mentioned a few times. Figured if they wanted me to talk, I may as well already be here to do it. And I want to know the verdict.”
“The...verdict.” Hemmingway turned the word around in her mouth, her Standard Communication Language marked with a subtle but lulling Verldanese accent.
“You know that’s what this really is. They might call it a ‘fact finding meeting’ or a ‘post-operation conference’ or what the hells ever. But it’s a trial for your pa, no matter what they say.”
“I know. How will they record him...”
Grey nodded, tipping his hat back from his wrinkled face. “Hero or villain, eh? Are you here on the ‘hero’ side, Hemmingway?”
She smoothed a few wild tresses of hair from her face. It looked like spilled blood in the bright sunlight. “Neither. That’s too black and white. I’m here for the truth.”
Grey laughed, and laughed long and loud. “'Too black and white,' but you’re here for the truth? Maybe I wasn’t so right ‘bout the growing up part, Hemmingway. I’ll see you inside.” He stood and tipped his hat again. He was still chuckling as he walked into Veronox’s court building.
Sokai Hemmingway stood with her brow furrowed whiled she watched Carl Grey enter the court building. His walk was still strong for his age, but he had a distinct bow legged stride. The same stride the came from too many years on the saddle of one of his ranch horses and too many years on the saddle-like seat of the now outdated Marshalship X-211 Automated Mecha Unit.
When she turned around to watch the stairs again, there was a young man standing barely five feet from her. He was an inch or two shorter then her but with a solid, muscled frame. His quizzical blue eyes bored into her, disturbingly the same exact shade as the clear blue sky above them. Darker blue hair crossed in an uneven stubble across his scalp, his skin the same tan as Hemmingway’s own ship-tan.
She didn’t look surprised at the young man’s appearance; in fact Sokai Hemmingway seemed to relax. Nearly.
“Have you been recording in there?” She asked brusquely, tucking her hands into her pockets.
The young man nodded. “Yes, and I’ve noticed four hundred and ninety two different types of recording devices besides me.”
Hemmingway pursed her lips, the guarded expression slowly slipping back over her features. “How many actual observers are there?”
“Not accounting for the legal teams, the Moderator and yourself, three hundred and twenty eight,” the young man replied without hesitation. He wore the same BDUs as Hemmingway, black issued pants, heavy boots, and a dark gray uniform jacket over a black shirt. Unlike the captain, he was unarmed. The captain had, noticeably, one large .44 caliber revolver in a matte-black finish resting on her thigh, lowered from the belt of its retro-grade ammunition.
“Put the shuttle on standby at all times, Lars. Keep your jammers going on all frequencies. Both on the shuttle and onboard,” Hemmingway finally said, after a long silence while the young man, Lars, patiently waited.
“And me?”
“This you or the you...up there?” Hemmingway asked with a raised eyebrow, one figure stabbing upwards.
“This one, Captain.”
She shrugged. From the court building’s doors came the Chief Bailiff, two of his squad guarding his back. In a booming voice he announced the court would be restarting in fifteen minutes. Any not seated in ten minutes would be barred from the room. The crowd started to flood back into the building. Hemmingway looked like she was considering being late.
“Stay, if you want. You’ve seen it all up until this, after all.”
Lars nodded quietly and followed the captain back to the court building where the trial hall waited, huge and yawning.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re here today, to sort out the facts from the fiction,” the representative said. The young woman’s eyes flicked down to him, her stare still solid. Her eyes were the gray of gunmetal with a few flecks of bright silver.
“That’s impossible, Representative Muldiver, and not why I’m here today,” she replied, her voice as level as her gaze.
“Why is it impossible?”
The Moderator of the court watched the witness and representative closely with yellow-red eyes.
“Because the fact and the fiction are far too complicated and interwoven for there to ever be a cohesive answer. You’ve all waited too long to ask these questions. None of you asked Felix Hemmingway any of this when he was still alive,” she replied, and though her voice remained calm, no one in the trial hall could ignore emphasis to her words.
“Why are you here today, then?” Muldiver asked. The large audience of observers shifted – there was already irritation in the man’s voice.
The young woman’s stare moved away from Muldiver and swept over the crowd. “To clear my father’s name.”
“Well, the ends may be a bit different, but the means are the same for our purposes, I’d say. For the purposes of our records, could you please tell the court your name, age, race, rank if any, occupation and role in the situation?”
She took a deep breath, but when she spoke, her voice remained level. “I am Sokai Hemmingway, twenty six standard years old, Verldanese-“
“There are no more Verldanese,” Muldiver interrupted. “The Magistrate destroyed them a recorded twenty three standard years ago.”
“Yes. I was three. I am the last, as far as I know. After The Magistrate remade Verldan, her people were sold as slaves. And we do not last long as slaves, or without Kilan Aeo.”
Muldiver tapped his way through a few pages of information on a handheld Infoscreen. “That being a Verldan life support unit. Thought to be the most advanced form of life support in the known ‘verse, able to support a Verldanese for upwards of...?”
Hemmingway shrugged. “At least eight hundred standard years. But without Kilan Aeo, we have very short life spans – only forty to fifty standard years.”
“So you claim to be the last of the planet Verldan and to be, for all intents and purposes, immortal?” Muldiver asked with a faint twist to his features, the briefest of sneers. He stood with his back to the crowd so only the silent; looming Moderator and the young woman could see his face.
“No,” Hemmingway replied shortly, still as steady as the steel of her eyes.
“No?”
“I do not claim to be the last Verldanese, Representative. I am the last Verldanese, as the DNA ID portrait from my time at Gatekeeper proves. I’m also not ‘for all intents and purposes, immortal.’ Kilan Aeo does not protect me from injuries, decease, illnesses, genetic flaws or anything else fatal or possibly fatal. It only prolongs the natural lifespan. I can die very easily,” Hemmingway replied factually.
Muldiver stopped pacing and stared at the witness, his eyes narrowed. Sokai Hemmingway was a tall woman, as most Verldanese had been. Her skin was the even tan of some one who spent most of her time under simulated star-light, that slight shift from a natural shade that let the planet-dwellers tell the ship-dwellers apart every time. Black tiger-like stripes crossed her skin, though it was difficult to tell if they were tattooed or natural markings. The only visible stripes were three on each cheek. She would be pretty; perhaps even beautiful if it were not for the perfectly stone-wrought expression on her face that lent her the look of agelessness and immortality, or the intensity that hid behind the gunmetal of her eyes. Her hair was a deep red color, and barely tamed even for the very formal proceedings – it spiked and twisted and flowed uncontrollably. It was the only thing about Sokai Hemmingway that seemed out of control. From the tips of her heavy combat boots to the neat belt of retro-bullets around her waist, Sokai Hemmingway looked frighteningly in control of herself and anything around her she needed to be.
Muldiver nodded. “Continue.”
“My former rank is Marshal, First Field.”
The representative had begun to pace again. “You discharged-resigned four years ago, after The Magistrate’s destruction?”
“I did. Central Marshal Grey approved and accepted it.”
“Former Central Marshal Grey?” Muldiver asked, and that hint of a sneer was in his voice this time. Hemmingway did not rise to his bait.
“He wasn’t ‘former’ at the time. But yes, he’s no longer Central Marshal.”
“Continue.”
“I’m captain of Wraith now,” Hemmingway paused here, waiting for the question sure to come.
Muldiver jumped and most of the audience leaned forward. “The ship formerly known as Mark One?”
“Correct,” was Hemmingway’s simple reply. The court-hall erupted into whispers, mutters and a great deal of tapping into comm-devices and Infoscreens. The Moderator of the hall banged her fist on her raised desk, the sound echoing louder then any tapping. She was a Jins-rlah, looming as tall as the reptilian race generally grew. Moderator Redskye had a frighteningly authoritative way about her, and it wasn’t just because of her ready talons or the way her rows of razor edged teeth flashed when she spoke. The hall quickly quieted again.
“And your role in the situation?” Muldiver asked, the sneer gone from his voice and replaced with something rather like satisfaction.
“I’m Felix Hemmingway’s daughter,” Hemmingway answered, one hand straying idly to a tiger-stripe under her left eye. There were no mutters in response to this, though a few of the audience stood and left the hall, scowling in the young woman’s direction. She watched each and every one of them leave, her face still as stone.
Like the brief sneer of earlier, a brief smirk passed Muldiver’s face. Only Redskye and Hemmingway saw it, it was gone when he turned to fact the crowd once more.
“Felix Hemmingway’s daughter. That in itself seems to shroud the man in question with more mystery, as few seemed to see him as the type of person who would father a child.”
Heads in the audience nodded. The sea of faces spread before the Moderator and witness looked like an ocean of carved statues, solemn and difficult to judge.
“Do you have questions for me, Representative, or would you like to continue to theorize on the type of person my father was?” Hemmingway asked sharply, her eyes boring into Muldiver’s back. He turned, waving his palm casually.
“My apologies, Miss Hemmingway-“
“Captain Hemmingway, Representative.”
Muldiver gave a polite smile that did not reach his eyes. “Of course. My apologies, Captain. The next question, then. You were raised on Mark One?”
“Yes. Until I was sixteen standard years, then I enrolled into the Marshalship program onboard Gatekeeper.”
Muldiver’s brow rose. “Isn’t that under the independent consent age for basic humanoids, in the Marshalship?”
Hemmingway nodded, pushing some of the mess of her hair that fell in front of her face away. “Unless a guardian or parent signs dependant consent.”
“Felix Hemmingway gave you, his fifteen year old daughter permission to enroll in a para-military police organization?” Muldiver demanded, his face inherently disapproving.
Hemmingway once again did not rise to his bait and simply nodded. “He did. Cadets don’t see actual combat for at least two or three standard years. He wanted me off Mark One.”
“The ship you were raised on? Why, and why then?”
“My father had his own mission, his own war to fight. I’d already seen too much of it, in his opinion, and he wanted me away from it – and if I wanted to come back, he wanted me prepared when I did. The Marshalship was my idea,” Hemmingway explained, the coolness of her voice slacking away with remembrance.
“His own war?”
“The fight against The Magistrate. Father considered it his responsibility to destroy it and its owner.”
Muldiver stared at Hemmingway, then whirled to face the crowd. “Tell the court why he felt it his responsibility.”
Hemmingway didn’t hesitate. “My father designed The Magistrate, when he worked as Velos Eye’s chief engineer, one hundred and eight standard years ago.”
The courtroom erupted.
After ten minutes of chaos that even Moderator Redskye couldn’t control, she finally banged her taloned fist so hard on her desk that the synth’d-lumber cracked in half. The Jins-rlah stood and let out a deafening roar across the trial hall, announcing the court was dismissed until it could properly control itself. The trial hall thundered with the Moderator’s retreat into her chambers and the steady stream of the audience stampeding out, heading for holo-vid broadcasters and personal booths to make more comm calls.
Sokai Hemmingway waited until the last of the crowd had meted out, but for a few small lingering groups who stood talking quietly and studiously ignoring her. She walked with her head held tall and high through the court-hall, her boots firmly echoing on the transteel floor. The messy nest of her hair set her apart from the crowd as she walked through – people tended to part for her, groups shifted out of the way while avoiding looking at her.
She left the hall and the same thing happened in the passageways outside of the hall. She finally exited the huge building the hall was housed in. She stood on top of the mobile stairs that carried the crowd as they came and went.
Veronox’s double suns were shining brightly but not dangerously today, the Ozone Shield must have been functioning properly to keep the planet safe from the suns’ usually dangerous harsh and hot light. Hemmingway shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up to the sky, her face finally breaking its impassive, stony nature to give a disapproving frown at the wide, cloudless blue sky. Veronox’s western hemisphere was so flat and the newly reconstructed atmosphere so unpolluted, that on a clear day like this, one could see for miles.
“Usually, Capt’n, people smile when they look up at the sky on a day like this. Why, a day like this on my ranch? It means all the more work to be done, a nice lobster-red sunburn and a pitcher full of iced lemonade waiting back at the ranch house at lunch time,” spoke a voice that crested as it grew closer, it’s owner striding up the mobile stairs, too impatient to let them finish the journey for him.
Hemmingway lowered her hand and her gaze as a man as tall as she was walked up to her. He wore the wide rimmed hat she’d seen resting on his desk every time she’d been summoned for another ‘talking to’ during her years on Gatekeeper. His white hair still had streaks of stubborn black, and the hand he used to tip his hat in greeting to her was big and callused from obvious hard work. He hadn’t quite been able to clean all of the dirt from his nails.
“Marshal Grey,” Hemmingway nearly smiled, though her lips didn’t quite curl enough. She did however salute neatly and respectfully.
Former Central Marshal Carl Grey smiled widely though a bit sadly and caught her saluting hand in his work-worn one. They shook, firmly, warmly.
“You’ll call me Carl, now, Capt’n, as I’m not a Marshal any more and neither are you,” Grey said. He started to walk and she kept pace at his side.
“'Though you might not wear the uniform or answer to Gatekeeper, once a Marshal, always a Marshal, in head and heart,'” Hemmingway quoted, a teasing flash in the silver-metal of her eyes. Grey paused and glanced over at the girl young enough to be his daughter or granddaughter.
“Now where’d you hear a damn-fool thing like that?” He asked.
“From y-"
He interrupted. “From a damn-fool, you’d best be about to say. Marshalship isn’t what it was. Too many good Marshals dead to The Magistrate and that 'verse-forsaken overgrown lizard. Too much...ah, well, you know same as I do, Capt’n.”
Grey suddenly sat, having found a marble bench in a shadowed nook. Hemmingway didn’t sit; she just paced slowly.
With a glance at Grey, she said, “Sokai, please. Or Hemmingway, like you used to call me.”
“That always felt a trifle strange. Calling you ‘Hemmingway.’ I always think of your father, and back then you were such a mite thing...” Grey trailed off and watched the young woman pacing before him. “Guess it fits some better now, Hemmingway.”
She spared him a glance, an eyebrow raised questioningly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’ve grown up, shot up like a sprout and you’re near tall enough that that great coat of his probably wouldn’t drag on the ground if you put it on,” Grey said this without a smile, there was a look of disapproval in his eyes.
Hemmingway turned her back to him and looked back to the sky, the bright suns’ light doing well to hide the blush on her tanned cheeks. When she blushed, the marks on her cheeks lightened to pink. “It doesn’t drag anymore. And I don’t like days like this – there’s too much to see, too much to come at you, too much...”
“Spoken like a spacer born and raised.”
“I don’t like planets,” she replied softly, the blush quickly fading away. She turned back to the ex-Central Marshal. Her voice returned to it’s prior cool tone. “Have they called you here to testify?”
Grey shrugged. “No one called me. Thought I’d come myself. Already heard my name mentioned a few times. Figured if they wanted me to talk, I may as well already be here to do it. And I want to know the verdict.”
“The...verdict.” Hemmingway turned the word around in her mouth, her Standard Communication Language marked with a subtle but lulling Verldanese accent.
“You know that’s what this really is. They might call it a ‘fact finding meeting’ or a ‘post-operation conference’ or what the hells ever. But it’s a trial for your pa, no matter what they say.”
“I know. How will they record him...”
Grey nodded, tipping his hat back from his wrinkled face. “Hero or villain, eh? Are you here on the ‘hero’ side, Hemmingway?”
She smoothed a few wild tresses of hair from her face. It looked like spilled blood in the bright sunlight. “Neither. That’s too black and white. I’m here for the truth.”
Grey laughed, and laughed long and loud. “'Too black and white,' but you’re here for the truth? Maybe I wasn’t so right ‘bout the growing up part, Hemmingway. I’ll see you inside.” He stood and tipped his hat again. He was still chuckling as he walked into Veronox’s court building.
Sokai Hemmingway stood with her brow furrowed whiled she watched Carl Grey enter the court building. His walk was still strong for his age, but he had a distinct bow legged stride. The same stride the came from too many years on the saddle of one of his ranch horses and too many years on the saddle-like seat of the now outdated Marshalship X-211 Automated Mecha Unit.
When she turned around to watch the stairs again, there was a young man standing barely five feet from her. He was an inch or two shorter then her but with a solid, muscled frame. His quizzical blue eyes bored into her, disturbingly the same exact shade as the clear blue sky above them. Darker blue hair crossed in an uneven stubble across his scalp, his skin the same tan as Hemmingway’s own ship-tan.
She didn’t look surprised at the young man’s appearance; in fact Sokai Hemmingway seemed to relax. Nearly.
“Have you been recording in there?” She asked brusquely, tucking her hands into her pockets.
The young man nodded. “Yes, and I’ve noticed four hundred and ninety two different types of recording devices besides me.”
Hemmingway pursed her lips, the guarded expression slowly slipping back over her features. “How many actual observers are there?”
“Not accounting for the legal teams, the Moderator and yourself, three hundred and twenty eight,” the young man replied without hesitation. He wore the same BDUs as Hemmingway, black issued pants, heavy boots, and a dark gray uniform jacket over a black shirt. Unlike the captain, he was unarmed. The captain had, noticeably, one large .44 caliber revolver in a matte-black finish resting on her thigh, lowered from the belt of its retro-grade ammunition.
“Put the shuttle on standby at all times, Lars. Keep your jammers going on all frequencies. Both on the shuttle and onboard,” Hemmingway finally said, after a long silence while the young man, Lars, patiently waited.
“And me?”
“This you or the you...up there?” Hemmingway asked with a raised eyebrow, one figure stabbing upwards.
“This one, Captain.”
She shrugged. From the court building’s doors came the Chief Bailiff, two of his squad guarding his back. In a booming voice he announced the court would be restarting in fifteen minutes. Any not seated in ten minutes would be barred from the room. The crowd started to flood back into the building. Hemmingway looked like she was considering being late.
“Stay, if you want. You’ve seen it all up until this, after all.”
Lars nodded quietly and followed the captain back to the court building where the trial hall waited, huge and yawning.