Depths of Blue Page 22

  “The accused will stand,” intoned the tribunal chair, pointing his gavel at Torrin.

  Accused? Accused of what? Jak was even more confused and her breathing hitched. Torrin had given a little jump when the gavel was leveled at her, but she stood smoothly.

  “Miss Torrin Ivanov, you stand accused of espionage and indecent behavior. How do you plead?”

  “Excuse me?” Torrin was dumbfounded by the accusation.

  “Espionage and indecency, Miss Ivanov,” the tribunal chair replied acerbically. “What is your plea?”

  “Not guilty, of course,” Torrin spluttered. “You can’t possibly think I’m a spy.”

  “That will be determined by the evidence against you. You may be seated.”

  “Don’t I get a lawyer or something?”

  “This is a military tribunal, Miss Ivanov, not a civilian court. Since the imposition of martial law thirty years ago, military courts are not subject to the same niceties as our civilian counterparts.” The tribunal chair smiled wolfishly, his expression little more than a baring of teeth. “We are perfectly capable of being impartial, never fear.”

  Jak was floored. This couldn’t be happening. The colonels and General Callahan had been so congratulatory and understanding when she’d been debriefed. She thought for sure she had convinced them of the wisdom of taking advantage of Torrin’s services. Nothing about the debrief had prepared her for a trial on the charges of espionage.

  One of the five tribunal members stood up and addressed Torrin.

  “Can you explain your relationship with the Orthodoxan Colonel Hutchinson?”

  “I had no relationship with him. We met purely for business reasons.”

  He nodded and consulted a paper in the folder in front of him. “You were planning to supply him with military technology, is that right?”

  “We discussed procurement of a number of different items.” Torrin was hedging, and the prosecutor’s face tightened in response.

  “But many of the items had potential military applications, isn’t that right?”

  “I’m sure you could make that argument of many items.”

  “Yes or no, Miss Ivanov.”

  “Yes, then. He could have used the items for military purposes.” Torrin’s voice was growing heated. From where she sat, Jak could see the tension in the smuggler’s shoulders increasing.

  “You are aware that this planet is under a League of Solaran Planets blockade.” The tribunal prosecutor was making a statement, not asking a question. The tribunal chair leaned forward and fixed Torrin with a hard stare.

  “I didn’t know that until I entered the system. The ship was a little hard to miss, though.” At her sarcastic admission, the gallery buzzed with whispers.

  “And you decided to proceed regardless?”

  “Yes.”

  “Traitor!” The shout came from the other side of the gallery. Jak looked around to see where the accusation had come from but couldn’t make out the culprit. Murmurs rose amongst the spectators. The noise level in the room rose rapidly.

  “Order!” With a booming thud, the tribunal chair slammed his gavel down on the heavy wooden table. “Order or I’ll have the room cleared.” At his threat, the buzzing subsided but didn’t abate completely.

  “The picket is in place to prevent war profiteers like yourself from artificially tipping the balance of the war toward one side or the other.”

  “I didn’t sell him anything.” Torrin raised her voice in protest. “He practically attacked me.”

  “Your intent was clear, Miss Ivanov. You wanted to make some easy money. Well, we’re the ones who would have been most affected by your actions.”

  “What does this have to do with being a spy?” Torrin asked. She struggled to keep her tone reasonable. “So far, all you’ve proven me to be guilty of is having a strong business ethic.” A shocked titter rolled through the watching crowd, and Torrin’s shoulders relaxed slightly. She appreciated an audience, but Jak’s heart sank as the faces of the men behind the long table hardened.

  “It goes to the root of our argument that you will do anything for money. Tell us the truth,” the tribunal prosecutor said silkily. “You allowed yourself to be ‘rescued’ by Devonite military personnel so you’d have the perfect cover to spy on our troop movements and weapons capabilities.”

  “What? No!” Torrin jumped to her feet. At a quick signal from the tribunal chair, the soldiers on either side of her each grabbed a shoulder and arm and wrestled her back into her chair. She struggled against them in vain while glaring at the tribunal. “That doesn’t even make any sense! If that’s what you think, you’re clearly insane.”

  “Isn’t it true that you were carrying on a sexual relationship with Colonel Hutchinson?”

  “No! He tried to force himself on me. The only relationship I was interested in carrying on with the man was a business one.”

  “So you admit to conspiring to supply him with military technology.”

  “I already admitted to that.” Torrin’s face was growing steadily redder. “I’m a merchant. I make my living by selling merchandise.”

  “I see.” The Devonite prosecutor stroked his chin while he watched her with the same horrified attention he would have given a repulsive insect he’d discovered under a rock. “So you sell things. Does that include your body?”

  “It most certainly does not and I resent the accusation. Hells, if I’d known what kind of people the Orthodoxans were, I never would have come to this planet at all.” Torrin glared at the prosecutor. Jak could tell that she was worked up and hoped she wouldn’t say anything stupid.

  “Did you know that women are not permitted to own businesses on Haefen? It is the duty of their men to keep them from such onerous duties. By law, your sale of goods is illegal unless you have male supervision.”

  “I don’t need some man to report to. I’m more than capable of running a business on my own. From here, you don’t look any better than the Orthodoxans,” Torrin railed. Jak cringed. The tribunal wouldn’t like that at all. “At least they’re up front about their bigotry.”

  An angry murmur rippled through the courtroom, building in intensity. The spectators had not liked Torrin’s characterization of their society any more than the tribunal had. The tribunal members leaned in to whisper amongst themselves and the prosecutor joined them. The whispered conference went on for quite some time, long enough for the trial spectators to quiet themselves without further threats. A tense silence blanketed the courtroom. Finally the members of the tribunal straightened in their chairs, and the prosecutor moved to address them from in front of the table.

  “Fellow tribunal members, this woman stands accused of espionage and indecency. She admits to the lesser charge of indecency through the operation of a business without male guidance. Her explanations about her contact with the Orthodoxans are obviously thinly veiled lies. Coupled with her admitted guilt for the first charge, I move that you have no choice but to find her guilty on all charges. She condemns herself from her own mouth. How say you?”

  Torrin watched the prosecutor’s speech, mouth agape. Her stunned gaze moved to take in the four remaining tribunal members. The first one stood.

  “Guilty.”

  The second tribunal member stood. “Guilty.” And so it went down the line. With every guilty verdict, Jak slumped further in her seat. Death sentences had to be unanimous decisions by the tribunal. To save Torrin’s life, all it would take was one not guilty verdict; she would merely be imprisoned for life. After the fourth guilty verdict, all eyes turned to the prosecutor. He turned to the silent courtroom and cast his eyes out over the crowd.

  “I too find Torrin Ivanov guilty of espionage and indecency. The verdict is unanimous. She will be put to death by firing squad.”

  “What? No!” Torrin tried to jump up and was again wrestled back into her chair by the two soldiers. “You can’t do this to me! I’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “Take her away,” the
prosecutor said to Torrin’s escorts and they dragged her, still struggling, from the room. For a few moments, the spectators sat, stunned by the speedy conclusion to the trial. After a long silence, first some, then a flood of people began filing out of the room.

  Jak stayed where she was, staring at the chair Torrin had occupied. She wasn’t sure she could trust her legs if she stood up. How did this happen? Her debrief had gone so well. There had been no indication that events would deteriorate so quickly. The trial was clearly a sham. The tribunal had never planned to acquit her of the charges. And the charges! They made no sense. Torrin wasn’t a resident of the planet. How could she be expected to abide by either Haefonian society’s legal or moral structure?

  The longer she sat, the angrier she became. Rage boiled in her chest. She’d given her life to the military. They didn’t even know who she really was. She’d served them faithfully even though she had to conceal a major portion of herself whenever she was around anybody else. She was half a person because she’d quashed a huge chunk of her personality. And for what? For them.

  When it came to Jak Stowell, she wasn’t even sure who that person really was. Her time with Torrin was the closest she’d come to discovering her identity. They were about to take that away from her also.

  Jak clenched her fists until sharp pain bit into her hands. She looked down. Her nails had broken the skin and she had half a dozen punctures in her palms. She watched, numb, as the crescents filled with blood.

  “Problems, soldier?” Jak jumped at the voice from behind her. She craned her neck and leaped to her feet when she saw Colonel Wolfe seated directly behind her. He’d approached so quietly that she hadn’t heard him.

  “Sir?” Her voice cracked, betraying her emotion.

  “Worried about your…captive?” He watched her closely.

  “I didn’t save her ass, then drag her across the back end of beyond to have you shoot her.” She glared at him. “Sir.”

  “I understand your frustration, Sergeant, but this is all for the best.”

  “How is that possible, sir?” Jak turned anguished eyes back to her hands. She struggled not to show any weakness in front of the man, but recent events were starting to sink in. Panic rose in her breast and threatened to choke her. “You don’t understand. She can help us, and if she’s dead that won’t happen.” Jak sucked in a shuddering breath. She can’t help us. She can’t help me.

  “Your part in this isn’t finished,” Wolfe said, standing. “Come along.”

  “What do you—” Jak froze. They meant for her to pull the trigger. That was all he could mean. Stricken, she stared at the colonel. “Sir, I can’t…you can’t want me to…”

  The colonel glanced around. Aside from them the gallery was empty. “We can’t talk here,” he said even though they were the courtroom’s only occupants. “You need to come with me.”

  * * *

  Torrin’s mind churned as her escorts dragged her from the courtroom. She’d been in some really sticky situations before, but she’d never been condemned to death. On this planet her only allies were the AI on a ship that was locked down and a sniper who had chosen not to follow his orders to kill her. After all that, Jak had just managed to prolong her life, not save it. There was no way she could count on either of them. Tien was unable to come and get her even if she could somehow get a message to the AI. Jak’s motives were a complete unknown, possibly even to him. The only way she was going to get out of the situation was on her own. As usual, the only one she had to rely on was herself.

  She slowly reduced her struggles as if she were losing strength. She let her body grow slack and started to sob. If the Devonites truly believed women were too helpless to run a business, maybe she could use their preconceptions against them. The two guards were forced to take on all of her weight. She felt them shift to take on her extra mass.

  They practically carried her through an exterior doorway toward the back of a waiting truck. This was it. She needed to break out now. Maybe she could lose herself in the crowd of soldiers. With the fatigues she still wore she might blend right in.

  Torrin dropped her left shoulder and tucked it, and the Devonite on that side stumbled. She braced herself against him and pushed off, ripping her arm free from his grasp. The other soldier’s grip on her right arm acted as a pivot, and before he knew it, she was flying right at him. She ducked her head and smashed her forehead into his nose with a satisfying crunch. Blood spurted from the nose now flattened across half the man’s face. He stumbled back, hands coming up to protect himself.

  An arm snaked around her neck. The other soldier had regained his feet and was trying to trap her in a sleeper hold. Torrin seized his arm with both of her hands and with a twist dropped to one knee, using his weight and her momentum to flip him over her shoulder. He landed on the ground with a grunt as the air was forcefully expelled from his lungs. He tried to roll over to regain his feet but was hampered by his inability to breathe. His face turned ruddy with his efforts to inhale.

  The other guard came at her, arms outstretched. Blood still flowed freely from his nose and dripped down the front of his fatigues.

  “Shit,” Torrin said. The soldier yelled as he came for her, alerting others to her escape attempt. She grabbed one wrist with both hands and spun, lifting her hands and backing into him, throwing him over her shoulder. He hit the ground and lay there without moving. As she turned to run for the gap between buildings, something grabbed hold of her ankle. She stumbled, landing awkwardly on her hands. She looked over her shoulder to see the other soldier with a hand around her ankle, pulling her toward him. She twisted in his grasp, flipped onto her back and swung her other leg at him, clipping him on the side of the head with her heel. He collapsed into a boneless heap. Satisfied, she pushed herself up and turned to run. Lights exploded in her field of vision and were swallowed by blackness. She vaguely felt herself falling before everything went away.

  She came to on a bed, one arm shackled to the frame. Her vision blurred and she blinked to clear it. Light slashed through her skull in shards. She must have taken quite the blow to the head. Slowly the room coalesced around her. She was in an infirmary of sorts. The room was surprisingly open. There were no bars on the windows, and no visible restraints beyond the band around her right wrist.

  Lieutenant Smythe smiled at her from his seat beside the bed.

  “You son of a bitch,” Torrin snarled. He leaned back as she tried to take a swing at him. Fortunately for him, her near arm was the one that was restrained and she had to reach awkwardly across her body to try to strike him.

  “Calm down, Miss Ivanov.” Smythe raised his hands in a mollifying gesture. “Let me explain the truth of what’s going on here.”

  “I know what’s going on,” she growled. “You’re trying to have me put to death. Well, fuck you, there’s no way I’m going quietly. I’m taking as many of you bastards with me as I can.”

  He blinked at her, surprised. “You really have no idea what’s happening? I thought for sure you would have seen what was developing.”

  “Oh?” Torrin glared at him, still trying to reach him with her free hand. “Enlighten me.”

  “You won’t be put to death.”

  “So life imprisonment instead? That’s so much better.”

  The lieutenant gave her an exasperated look. “If you keep interrupting me, I’ll never finish my explanation.” He watched her, and she clamped her lips together, still glaring. Perhaps if she glared at him hard enough, he would burst into flames. The thought cheered her up a little, and she kept her eyes on him as if the weight of her gaze alone might cause his head to explode. Smythe blanched a bit at her look; he saw his own death gazing at him out of her eyes. Good, she thought. He has reason to be worried.

  “What happened in the courtroom was an elaborate ruse. We needed to convince the Orthodoxans that we weren’t going to use you. They have some idea of what you can offer, and if they knew that we intended to retain your services, t
hey would plan accordingly. If they think we’re putting you to death, they don’t need to worry about the new tech you’re going to sell us. They’ll figure things out eventually, but this way we can buy ourselves some time.”

  Torrin sat back and considered him. The explanation made some sense, but she couldn’t bring herself to trust the innocuous little man.

  “You could have let me in on the charade,” she accused.

  “We determined that it would be better if you didn’t know,” he said, his eyes apologetic. “Your reaction was extremely convincing. If you’d known it was all a ruse, you might not have been able to pull it off as well.”

  “That was the shittiest thing you could have done. If I’m not in any trouble, why am I shackled like a criminal?”

  “After your impressive escape attempt, it was decided that you should be restrained until the situation could be explained.” Smythe produced a key from his pocket and held it up. “I’m prepared to release you if you promise not to try to kill me like you tried to kill your guards.”

  Torrin nodded and grimaced when more pain shot through her temples. “If I’d wanted the guards dead, they would be.”

  The lieutenant made a noise of agreement in his throat as he released her hand from the restraint. “I have no doubt that is true. Your skills in that area are impressive and unanticipated. Our debriefing with Sergeant Stowell didn’t indicate that you had any type of hand-to-hand training.”

  Torrin massaged her wrist. “It didn’t really come up. He’s not the only one who can play his cards close to his chest.”

  “If you’re sufficiently recovered, allow me to conduct you to a real meeting with Central Command.”

  “Your Central Command can wait until I shed this headache. What happened anyway?”

  “Sorry about that.” The lieutenant had the grace to look embarrassed. “I had to knock you out to keep you from escaping. The fastest way I could think to do it was to pistol whip you on the temple.”