Last Measure of Devotion (TCOTU, Book 5) (This Corner of the Universe) (21 page)

Heskan
noticed that while wearing civilian clothes, Vernay seemed to prefer her hair
free of the braid that Brevic regulations dictated for sailors with long hair. 
It was a striking difference that softened the woman’s face from battle-weary
veteran to impish beauty.  “How do you think they found us?” he asked.

Vernay
shrugged a shoulder and exhaled.  “I don’t have any clue.  Even if they were
able to track Hussy somehow, that would have only taken them to Hollara.  We’re
a long way from the Commonwealth.  The scarier question is will they make
another attempt down the road.”

“I’ve
wondered that too.  Worse yet, if a pirate outfit can find us, it’s only a matter
of time before the Republic tracks us down.”

“Does
this mean you aren’t settling in Seshafi?”

Heskan
had asked himself that very question and it chilled him.  “I don’t want to live
my life always looking over my shoulder, running from phantoms,” he said, haunted.

Vernay’s
expression was an ocean of sympathy.  “I don’t want that either, Garrett.”  She
dropped her head and whispered, “I’m so tired of it all.”

Heskan
looked at his companion.  The woman who epitomized inner strength had seemed
very frail the past month.  He reached out to place a reassuring hand on her
shoulder.  He nearly jumped when she covered his hand with hers.

Vernay
raised her head and focused weary, blue eyes on him.  “I’m on empty, Garrett.”

Heskan
smiled and promised weakly, “Just this last time.”

“I’m
tired of fighting, tired of death.  I just want peace and to know what it feels
like to settle down.  I want to share my life with someone… grow old with him.” 
She sighed when she finished her sentence but did not relinquish her grip over
his hand.  After a doleful pause, she said, “That’s never going to happen if we
always have to run from the Republic.”

“You
don’t have to run,” Heskan insisted.  “They’re after me.”

Muscles
tensed around her jawline as she removed her hand from his.  She shook her head
defiantly.  “That’s not an option.  You should know by now that I’d never let
you face a life on the run on your own.”

Heskan
felt a lump rise in his throat. 
What did I ever do to deserve this kind of
loyalty?
  He swallowed before saying, “Fine.  Then neither of us will run. 
The archduke already knows our concerns and he’s sympathetic.  When he finds
out about the attempt here, I’m sure he’ll only want to tighten security around
us.”  He squeezed her shoulder as his voice took on a determined edge.  “We’ve
fought so hard for everyone else: the miners in Skathi, our shipmates and the
Republic, Isabella and her crew… even Covington and AmyraCorp.”

Heskan looked away
briefly as he recounted all the clashes of the past before looking deeply into
the eyes of the woman before him.  “This time, we’ll do it for ourselves.  Seshafi
is our final destination.  That’s where we’ll all make our home, and if someone
or something tries to take it from us, then we fight like hell to protect it.”

The central
planet of Nessus was a whirlwind of activity.  The docking queue was four hours
long for
Hawk
to acquire a brief, thirty-minute window to attach to a
secondary orbital whose sole purpose was the loading and unloading of personnel
and equipment.  Before casting off from the small station to hold in
geosynchronous orbit around the planet,
Hawk
offloaded her passengers, who
began the waiting process anew.  This delay was much shorter for Heskan and
company.  Shuttles from the orbital to the planet ran like clockwork and Heskan’s
designated ride arrived at the docking bay five minutes after the brig had cast
off.

While
its passengers were bombarded with advertisements extoling the various ways to
spend their credits on the approaching planet, the shuttle hurriedly transited
through the atmosphere to arrive at one of thirty landing pads designated exclusively
to the orbital.  The travelers were escorted efficiently off the shuttle and
moments after they were safely away the craft, whose engines had never shut
down, lifted off to ferry its next customers, already disembarking from yet another
recently docked vessel.

Nessus
itself was a G6V main sequence star.  Sol’s slightly cooler twin provided a
habitable zone nearly identical to the Terran star system.  The primary planet’s
original name, Rättvisa, had quickly become obsolete, replaced simply by the
name of her star.  Her capital city, humanity’s largest city by population, was
nearly as vertical as it was horizontal.

Heskan
had stood in Bree’s capital city once and any city could seem impressive from
inside.  However, the sheer volume of traffic on the ground and in the sky on
Nessus was unlike anything he had witnessed before.  The seemingly endless
lines of aircars flowed in and around the capital’s structures like blood
flowing through arteries.  From the relative safety of the terminal, Heskan
found himself gawking at the controlled chaos expanding into infinity around
him.

To
his right, he heard Selvaggio enthusiastically pointing out a grav-freighter
navigating impossibly tight quarters to dock at a landing pad one hundred meters
away.  The deep resonation of the freighter’s engines vibrated inside Heskan’s
chest as the huge transport maneuvered around buildings with just meters to
spare.  He felt his jaw drop open at the certain calamity but told himself that
its operators must surely know what they were doing.

“Captain
Heskan, I presume?”

Heskan
tore his eyes away from the spectacle to look upon a young man in an expensive Newmani
suit.  He dropped his bag and extended a hand.  “Yes, that’s me.  You’re with
AmyraCorp?”

The
man nodded eagerly.  “Yes, Daniel Miller. Please call me Dan.  I’m assistant
counsel to Mr. Wilder.  We’re in a short recess so he sent me to collect you. 
Mr. Wilder sends his apologies for not meeting you in person but he’s very busy
preparing for the questioning of an IaCom witness.”

Heskan
bobbed his head at the impeccably manicured gentleman.  He had only experienced
one meeting with Wilder, the attorney who sat atop AmyraCorp’s legal dealings, but
based on how busy he seemed, Heskan was not surprised that the man’s schedule had
no room for something as mundane as picking up trivial witnesses from a
spaceport.  “How is the hearing going?”

The lawyer
motioned for Heskan’s group to follow him as he answered.  “Pretty good
although it’s a steep hill to climb.  Mr. Wilder’s brilliant motion to tie our
private action against Wallace to our cause of action against IaCom has borne some
fruit.”

“There
are two hearings?” Vernay asked from beside Heskan.

Miller
hedged.  “Sort of, Commander.  Both our private and general actions arise from
the same event, Cooke’s death, so we’re able to tie the two together which allows
us to include evidence that might have only been available to one of them to
both actions instead.  Does that make any sense?”

“A
little,” Vernay answered.  “So, anything good for us that could, otherwise,
only be used in one hearing can now be included in the second?”

Miller’s
eyebrows shot upward in surprise.  “That’s exactly right!  You explained it
better than I did.”

The
group exited the main terminal and stepped onto the building’s gravity-assisted
walkway.  Sensors inside the walkway analyzed each individual, calibrating
precisely how much inertial compensation was required before launching them to
a thirty kilometer per hour speed.  The riders barely rocked.

“When
do I testify?” Heskan asked.  “Will I have to testify?”

“Afraid
so but it will be very brief,” Miller said as he pulled out his datapad.  “Mr.
Wilder is leaning heavily on the holo-log from Elathra for some of his
arguments so he needs you to attest to their veracity.”  He typed rapidly on
the face of the instrument.  “Let me flash you the text of the question I’m
going to ask you when you’re on the stand.  I’ve included your answer. 
Obviously, tell the truth but my model answer contains what I want the judges
to hear.  Let me know if there’s a problem.”

Overhead,
a disembodied female voice warned the group they were arriving at the end of
the walkway.  Inertial compensators made the transition from racing down the
long stretch of the spaceport to standing still nearly imperceptible.  Heskan
stepped off the walkway and said, “I’ll look over it.  Did you say that you
were questioning me?”

Miller
nodded excitedly.  “Yes, Mr. Wilder is letting me handle your testimony.  He’s
going to be in a meeting with IaCom’s main counsel then.  There’s a chance this
whole thing might reach settlement rather than risk an actual bench ruling.” 
The young man added, “Don’t worry, Captain.  I may just be an associate but
this is a piece of cake.  You’ll be on the stand about two minutes, plus
whatever IaCom’s attorney wants to ask you.  Frankly, we doubt they’ll ask you
anything.”  Miller swiped further at his datapad to summon the nearest
available commercial transport.

Vernay
dropped her bag to fish out her datapad and immediately began taking video of
the frenzied activity surrounding them.  She recorded kilometers-long lines of
opposing air traffic that were separated by mere meters and asked, “Why wouldn’t
IaCom ask the captain any questions?  And, do you think I’ll have to testify?”

Miller
smiled, making him appear years younger than he was.  “Answering your second
question first, no, you won’t be needed.  In fact, all of you but Captain
Heskan have been stricken as potential witnesses in an agreement we hashed out
a week ago.  The judicial panel pushed both sides very hard to pare down our
witness lists.  They’re very busy and want this trial over as soon as possible.” 
Miller’s eyes darted between his datapad and skyward to the north.  He compared
the image of the air vehicle on his screen to the multitude of oncoming traffic
zooming overhead.  “We doubt IaCom will cross-examine Captain Heskan because
they simply aren’t allowed to ask the questions they want to.  I understand
that there are concerns about his past but that’s safely wrapped in the bubble
of privateer confidentiality.  Given that fact, what’s the point of asking a
hostile witness a question you don’t already know the answer to?”

Vernay
smiled in relief over not having to testify.  “I guess that’s the first rule in
cross-examination, huh?”

“No,”
the lawyer shook his head, “the first rule is never ask the last question.”

“Huh?”

“Suppose
there’s a rear-end aircar accident.  You ask enough questions to establish who the
driver was and that he hit the car in front of him.  You never ask the last
question… ‘Why didn’t you stop in time?’ because he will, inevitably, give you
a reason, maybe a good one, and you don’t want the judge or jury to hear that. 
Let that last question go unasked and just debate in closing arguments that
it’s obvious why he hit the car ahead of him… he was negligent.”  Miller
pointed skyward.  “There’s our ride.”

The
large taxi’s thrusters fired to kill its momentum as it settled centimeters
from the ground.  The right side of the vehicle slid upward to provide easy
access for loading luggage and boarding.

Heskan
tossed his bag in and helped his party stow theirs.  Their larger deployment
bags, far too cumbersome to have taken aboard the atmospheric shuttle, would
arrive at their rooms in the next few hours.

Heskan
ensured everyone had boarded the large vehicle before climbing into it
himself.  Ahead of him, Miller was conferring with the vehicle’s operator,
flashing the licensing necessary to take his taxi into the judicial compound of
Nessus.  Once they entered the compound, they would have to unload from the cab
and ride a sanctioned taxi the rest of the way to their lodgings, but Miller’s
credentials were enough to get them past the first barrier of security.

“When
am I testifying?” Heskan asked as he fished through his bag for his datapad.

“First available
slot,” Miller answered.  “Most likely tomorrow morning given that most of the legal
bigwigs from AmyraCorp and IaCom will be out of the courtroom.  That’ll open up
some slots that the judges will insist upon filling.  I’ll ping you when I’m
certain or if we actually settle the cases before you’re due up.”  Miller sat
back into his seat as the capital raced by the windows.  “In the meantime, just
relax and enjoy the city.”

*  *  *

The
frenetic pace of the city only increased once inside the judicial compound.  The
entry process was as thorough as it was efficient.  Entrants simply stood in
line on a gravity walkway that sped them through eight different security
stations.  The final station flashed an expiring visa to their datapads that
would answer all electronic interrogations the visitors would be subjected to
while inside the complex.  Vernay read from the Nessus tour guide that they
would be electronically interrogated, on average, two hundred times each day.  Once
past the imposing perimeter security, Heskan’s party flew over three kilometers
of immaculately manicured gardens to the working portion of the judicial
sector.  The heights of this part of the capital gave Heskan vertigo.  Centered
around a space elevator, the compound was a fully realized city within a city. 
Buildings extended for kilometers both outward and upward.  He had heard rumors
that the breadth and height of the judicial compound of Rättvisa disrupted the
planet’s local weather patterns but had scarcely believed them.  He believed them
now as he stared in awe at one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments.

“No
wonder this system is off-limits to corporate conflict,” Vernay uttered in marvel
as she stood in front of their hotel.  Even from a kilometer away, the space
elevator towered over them, upward into eternity.

“How
many resources did building this city consume?” Selvaggio wondered.

Truesworth
set to work on his datapad and answered after a beat, “They picked the fourth moon
of the first gas giant in the system nearly clean.”

“I
thought none of Nessus’ moons were inhabitable,” Selvaggio stated.

“They
aren’t anymore.”

Heskan
forced himself to look away from the sights of the city.  Miller had remained
inside their taxi, returning to the judicial building.  “Let’s get settled into
our rooms and then meet for dinner.”  They had checked in during their ride only
to discover that, remarkably, their deployment bags were waiting for them at the
facility.

Guided
by his datapad, Heskan found his room on the 244th floor.  His entire group had
received rooms on the same level although the convenience was dubious given the
floor stretched across four city blocks.  By the time Heskan explored his
three-room accommodation and freshened up, his datapad confirmed that he had
gained an additional visa permitting him access inside the Madison Judicial
Complex’s primary courtroom at 0800 the next morning.  An attendant note from
Miller urged him to arrive at least an hour early and accompanied detailed
instructions for how to enter the building and where Miller’s paralegal would
meet him before his scheduled testimony.

The
news spiked Heskan’s stress levels.  Despite the assurances as to the banality of
his testimony, he could not help but fear the worst.  The prospect of being
trapped on the witness stand, forced to answer questions that divulged his
Republic origins in public court, made him long for simple, open combat.  Paranoia
over a process he did not fully understand gave him a dread far deeper than
facing gigawatts of energy focused at him in the vacuum of space.

Dinner
inside the hotel’s largest restaurant proved entertaining.  Nguyen and Tannault
told stories about the rise of Nessus, some of which may have been true.  Free
of any possibility of testifying, Selvaggio and Truesworth allowed themselves
to behave like star-crossed lovers in an exotic port of call.  Although they
amiably shared conversation with the Seshafians, it was clear that their mutual
attentions threatened to drag the couple into a world all their own.  By the
time dessert arrived, both were quite tipsy from consuming their fair share of
an imported Commonwealth bourbon Vernay had spied on the menu and recommended.

Heskan
learned two things about the lieutenants over the course of the dinner.  First,
it was clear that the couple’s affections had manifested long before he became
aware of them and second, both company-grade officers were hilarious when in
the bag.  The pair’s carefree attitude and optimism about the future helped
ease the ball of tension growing inside his own stomach.