The Trial
Chapter 14:
Sickly amber lighting illuminated my path through the trapezoidal corridor as I walked the interior of the building. I hadn’t had time to secure backup from Yuri before returning from Zealot’s chamber. I could only hope that my safety had been guaranteed by Zealot’s show of brute force.
The route I chose took me through the inside of the building, along the second shortest path I could plot. My theory was that if I took the shortest route it would be too obvious, perfect for an ambush by the crew that remained hostile to my presence. On the other hand, taking too much of a longer route left me open to picking up a tail. The compromise between the two would keep me safe, or so I’d thought.
My hopes for security were soon dashed when two figures stepped out of the junction in the hallway in front of me, wielding large wrenches.
I turned around and briskly walked in the opposite direction, only to see the way behind me closed off as more figures loomed, silhouetted against the lighting. I stopped. Fortunately, the two groups bookending my position in the hallway remained at a safe distance.
An unknown voice boomed out of the junction ahead of me, “Haye Zintan!”
I turned and stiffly faced my interlopers.
The same voice echoed down the hall, “You can come with us the easy way, or the hard way.” The crewman brandished his wrench.
I considered my options. Two ahead of me, and two, maybe three, behind. I wasn’t armed, but that had never stopped me from getting into a bar fight. The environment didn’t offer many advantages to me if I decided to take them up on the hard way of surrender. This particular section of hallway was devoid of any imported salvage. I didn’t recognize any of the Forbear glyphs on the walls. If I wanted to fight, I would have to fight in a crouched stance - not a complete barrier to swinging fists, but certainly there was less elbow room. At least they were talking to me and not immediately attacking.
Maybe words were the way forward.
I summoned my darkest voice, “You saw what happened to the last group that tried to jump me?”
No answer.
“I think some of them had broken ribs.”
A low growl escaped one of the two figures at the end of the hallway in front of me. He stepped forward as if to launch a charge, but a hand shot out from his comrade and halted his advance. “You’re not talking your way out of this one.” the more sensible one said.
I clenched my fists. “Well, if so, it’s either fight or die. You’re not leaving me with many choices.”
“Come quietly, now.”
“So you think I’ll die willingly?”
“We have your friend.” One of them held up a readily identifiable patch of clothing with a dark sweat stain on it.
My blood ran cold. Yuri. They had Yuri. “If you so much as give him a paper cut, I-”
“Let’s go.”
I shuddered in anger and hissed, “Go where?”
“To face justice.”
The animal part of my brain frantically searched for options. Fight. Flight. Fight. Flight… What could I do? I glanced back at the crew members behind me. They weren’t on the move, either forwards and backwards. I could charge, overwhelm them with surprise, maybe get lucky, and…
I closed my eyes, feeling anger at the futility of the thought. They had Yuri. If anything happened to him here, in this place, I didn’t know if I would be able to forgive myself. I’d brought the both of us here on the small hope we’d be able to make some progress, take the key from Zealot, survive, knock some sense into the former chaplain’s cult. I had known we were walking into the fire. I had taken the risk. I couldn’t let the consequences of that choice fall on Yuri’s shoulders.
So what then? Surrender? I gritted my teeth. For a moment, silence reigned over the corridor.
A lump formed in my throat. “I’m sorry, old pal.” I whispered under my breath. Turning back towards the airmen in the direction I had originally headed, I raised my hands in surrender.
They hesitantly stepped forward, as if expecting a trap. I couldn’t fault them. If I had the time or ability to think my way out of this ambush, I would have. Might have broken a few bones or knocked some of them senseless. Heck, if I had my gun, some of them might not have made it to the next rhythm. But there were too many of them.
When they were within a couple meters of me, one of the airmen behind me pulled out a length of rope and reached hesitantly up to my hands. I lowered them reluctantly and forced myself to let them be tied behind my back. Another airman in front of me tied a blindfold around my eyes and that was the last I saw of the world for the next several minutes.
***
I made notes of which path my captors were taking me down. Despite their successful ambush, they weren’t interested in confusing my sense of direction. Likely they had weighed the option of taking an extended route against the possibility that they would be discovered by someone more loyal to Zealot, like Zanenir. On the other hand, it wouldn’t matter if a dead woman could remember where their hide-out was, so perhaps they didn’t care. If I didn’t think both Yuri and myself out of this soon, this might be my final resting place.
They forced me into a chair and I blinked as the blindfold was lifted from my eyes. I was in a semi-circular chamber, which was only dimly lit by a combination of the activated glyphs on the walls, and a lit fire of random wooden debris cobbled together from who knows where. A sizable crowd of airmen stood, crouched, and leaned around me on all sides, their cold eyes judging me silently. Reflections of flames flickered across their irises.
I did my best to cooly regard my captors.
In the back I saw Yuri, tied up and clearly beaten into submission. Anger flooded into me. The bastards would pay for that.
“Clear.” came the whispered call from a lookout.
“Well, well, well.” An airman with a long, drooping mustache and shaved head stepped forward. The remnants of a pair of overalls hung about his figure like some scarecrow. “The gunnery shrew graces our home.”
I managed a smirk. “Look pal, what do you have against me besides a few harsh words?”
“How about forcing us to kill each other above the city? How about all of our friends’ deaths on your hands from the orders you gave?”
I had to roll my eyes. “That's all you got?”
Murmurs and grunts of disapproval met my words. “‘That’s all we got’? That’s your response? That’s what a human life is to you? Something to be callously thrown away?” my interloper spat those accusations with a mix of spittle and venom.
I closed my eyes again and swallowed. I had to control myself. The main accuser was probably from the crew of the frigates, since I didn’t recognize him. From that angle, I could attack his position. I chose to interpret the situation in that way. “So, I can’t speak for the members of the frigate crew here, but I do seem to recall those of us from the Destiny were running scared that, uh… you might kill us all? It was kill or be killed, mister. In case you forgot.”
The crowd rumbled disapproval at my words, but I still had an opportunity to continue. “Besides, your new buddies followed my orders. They pulled the triggers, yanked the cords on those cannons. Shouldn’t you be having a word with them?”
The uproar that met my statement spread a grimace across my face. One of the airmen at my side spat in my face. I briefly saw a chance at freedom, if only I could rile the crowd up enough to alert one of Zealot’s loyalists to my location.
The ragged mob was only calmed down when their leader raised a hand to silence them and give him a chance to speak. Even then, he was only partly successful. “Nice excuses.” He boomed over the din. “Kill or be killed. Who made us think that? And regardless of what anyone here did in the heat of battle, the order began with you and your fellow officers.”
I began to protest, “What about-”
“Yes!” He laughed. “Lest you think I’m being unfair, we’ve hanged a couple of officers from our own ships as well. All of you deserve it for making us fight amongst ourselves.”
I swallowed. That wasn’t promising.
There was a quick round of shushing before my nameless accuser spoke again. “Do you really think it’s so easy to say no to someone your captain has placed in a position of authority over you? Someone you lived in fear of?”
I scratched at the rope that held my hands behind me. No give. “Nice to know I could strike fear in you with a few mean words.”
“You had the power of life and death over us, woman!” He snarled. “What gives you the gall to try and wriggle your way out of taking responsibility for that now?”
“Death? Brezh, really?” Di’s voice suddenly broke through the crowd.
With a smattering of curses, the airmen nearest me drew back from their positions close by. Knives were drawn, and hurried attempts were made to douse the fire. None of them need have worried as Di walked through the entranceway to the chamber, alone.
The airman identified as Brezh, for his part, folded his arms in front of himself and appeared to take Di’s appearance in stride. “If it isn’t the officers’ lapdog. Come to play lawyer for Gunnery Sergeant Harpy over here?”
Di looked mournfully at Yuri first, then at me, before matching Brezh’s posture. “Well, answer my question. Did she really have power of life and death over those under her command?”
“I’m asking the questions here!” Brezh barked. “You think you can just march in here and upset the process of the people’s justice-”
Di cut him off. “This isn’t justice, these aren’t the people, and you’re not a prosecutor. What this is, is a lynch mob for a scapegoat that you find easy to pin your troubles on. Believe me, I would like nothing more than for our problems to have simple solutions, but notching another skull on the end of your cutlass isn’t going to make your life easier. I am here, Brezh,” Di stretched out his hand in a gesture at the mob, bare threads trailing from his sleeve as he did, “to stop you all before you make another mistake.”
“Mistake?” Brezh sneered.
“You may think that you’re oh-so-clever in how you disposed of your last victims. Zealot knows, he just preferred to give leniency to you. I’m telling - I’m warning - you now though, if you kill Haye Zintan… that will be the last mistake you will ever make in these halls.”
Brezh’s eyes widened in a glare.
“She’s guilty!” One of the airmen shrieked out.
“Guilty of what!?” Di challenged, “Of fear!? Of failure to recognize the humanity in her fellows who were in turn guilty of the same!? Look me in the eye and tell me you weren’t in that exact same space when our two crews fought above the city?”
The crowd fell silent.
Di gestured to his sides. “Now, Haye Zintan… wasn’t the best officer. She was a hardass at the best of times, and an insecure martinet at the worst. I understand why she’s unpopular with this group, and the target of this particular inquisition.”
“Gee, thanks.” I groaned.
“Ms. Zintan, kindly shut up.” Di stated.
I looked down and cursed my loud mouth.
“None of that,” Di continued, “is worth being hung by the neck until dead. Leadership is learned over time. Whether you’re in the Aery or in the Dockyards. All of Zintan’s faults can be chalked up to inexperience, and if there was ever a decision of my captain that I questioned, it was the placing of Haye Zintan in position of authority when she clearly needed to learn the ropes first.”
“Just like you to throw a dead woman under the wagon for someone else.” Brezh gritted his teeth.
“Ah, but am I wrong?” Di smirked.
The fierce expression slowly faded from Brezh’s face.
Di approached the burly mustachioed man, with arms outstretched, and placed his hands on the airman’s shoulders gently. “Brezh, you’re not the only one who lost good friends in that battle. Let it go. We’re on the same side now. We are one in the River. Forgive her, and forgive yourself.”
Brezh tensed briefly, before shrugging off Di’s hands. He glared at the man who had interrupted his vengeance, and strode over to me. He stared me down, brown eyes full of hatred boring into mine, before grabbing a fistful of ashes out of the still-smoldering pile of coals. He barely appeared to register the pain as he clenched the pile of ashes in a tight fist, with embers dripping from it.
He leaned down into my face and whispered, “The River knows what you’ve done. May a lute grow in your stomach and cancer play it.”
He then promptly flung the embers in my face and strode out of the room, wiping his hand off on his overalls.
The embers burned my face, and pain scorched through my eyelids, which I had barely managed to shut in time. Di approached me with a knife to cut my bonds. With my hands free to wipe my face free of the hot soot, I saw that the mob was dispersing. “You are lucky.” Di whispered to me.
The sight of a black and bruised Yuri filled me with rage. Fury. An intense burning anger with myself, the crew and the whole universe that coursed through my soul and stung worse than my eyes at that moment.And yet, through the pain, I could still feel that now familiar tinge of remorse. The Destiny was haunting me. It wouldn't let me go.