Witness For The Prosecution

Posted on Dec 11, 2016 @ 4:59pm by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane

Mission: Aftermath

"WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION"

(Continued from "Mic Drop")
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Location: Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, Earth
Stardate: [2.16]1211.1300
Scene: Court-Martial


"The prosecution calls Captain Michael Turlogh Kane."

Kane heard the announcement dimly through the door of the courtroom. He was sitting outside in the corridor, having responded to an early morning call from the Judge Advocate General's office. The trial of Thoris P'Trell and Ronald Heydrich was underway, and had been for a couple of days - it was all taking place behind closed doors, away from the media spotlight. There were many people who would cheerfully murder both Thoris and Heydrich for what they had done, murder them and then happily do the jail time.

The Andorian Thoris P'Trell was the former Secretary for Interplanetary Relations. When Edgerton had engineered the assassination of President Moray and most of his Cabinet, Thoris P'Trell had been one of two survivors (the other was Sardak of Vulcan), but unknown to everyone, Thoris was a deep-cover Neo-Essentialist agent, codenamed Subject Blue. When Thoris and Sardak arrived at Elandipole and were acclaimed as President and Vice-President respectively, Edgerton's master-plan was nearing completion. A Neo-Essentialist agent as a rebel President would have seen the end of the loyalist Starfleet faction, and things moved in that direction when Thoris used his presidential authority to requisition the chronoton artifact from the USS Pendragon and move it to the Demeter. The artifact, and its raw power over Time itself, was perilously close to falling into Neo-Essentialist hands.

The USS Century, commanded by the unwitting Dexter Marxx, led the Neo-Essentialist fleet that was closing in on Elandipole. Ronald Heydrich, a committed Humanity-First Neo-Essentialist, was his First Officer, and at the height of the Civil War incident, took command of the Century when Admiral Marxx began questioning his orders to attack the rebels.

Both Heydrich and Thoris had been arrested in the aftermath, and had spent the voyage back to Earth languishing in the brig of the USS Lowe. Now, a year later, they were facing justice for crimes too numerous to mention, but the most important of which was treason. If found guilty, and they would be, they would be sentenced to life imprisonment - the Federation had taken the death penalty off the statue books almost a century ago.

The courtroom door opened, and the bailiff motioned to Kane to come forward. Inside was a sparse room - no public gallery, no teams of solicitors, only the tribunal of judges, a prosecution lawyer and a defence lawyer, some security guards, and the accused.

Kane's footsteps echoed as he made his way up the aisle and stepped into the witness box. He avoided looking at Thoris and Heydrich, both shackled and dressed in prison clothes in the dock. When he stood up into the witness box, the prosecuting officer - a Human Lieutenant he didn't know - came right up him. She was dark-haired and brown-skinned, but all business.

"Captain Kane," she began, "do you solemnly swear that the testimony you give here today shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

"Yes, I swear it," said Kane. He glanced at the judges - a Vulcan Captain flanked by two Human Commanders - and saw how intensely they were staring at him. He guessed that they were under their own pressure to make sure that this trial ended up the right way. Not that it wouldn't - Thoris and Heydrich were guilty beyond all doubt - but it was important to observe due process rather than slinging them into a hole and forgetting all about them.

The prosecuting Lieutenant opened her questioning. "Please state your name, rank and assignment for the record."

"Captain Michael Turlogh Kane, commanding officer of the USS Phoenix."

"Captain Kane, you were commanding the starship Phoenix during the incident in the Elandipole system last year?"

"Yes."

"The court has already established the events that led to the arrival of the Neo-Essentialist fleet in that system," explained the prosecutor, referring to her PADD. "Can you tell us, in your own words, how the defendant Thoris P'Trell was revealed as Subject Blue and how Ronald Heydrich was arrested?"

Kane tried to remember. A year was a long time, but he was pretty sure he could recall everything. "After he had been inaugurated as president, Thoris P'Trell used his new authority to have a chronoton artifact, that was aboard the USS Pendragon, moved to the USS Demeter, which he was using as a command post. When the Neo-Essentialist fleet arrived in-system, Thoris P'Trell tried to deliver the chronoton artifact into their hands, and managed to succeed in getting it aboard the USS Century, where Ronald Heydrich had just assumed command."

"What was the final outcome?" asked the prosecutor.

Kane thought about how to put it. "A Phoenix away team managed to board the Century and free Admiral Marxx from his quarters. When our ally, Selyara, broadcast a fleet-wide hail identifying all the Neo-Essentialists in the fleet, Admiral Marxx regained control of the Century and secured the chronoton artifact, as well as arresting Thoris P'Trell and Ronald Heydrich."

"Captain Kane, the defence's position is that they were both being coerced by threats of harm from the Neo-Essentialist regime. Do you think that's possible?"

For the first time, Kane looked at both Thoris and Heydrich. Both of them were staring at him, but Kane could see from his vantage point that the light had gone out of their eyes. They were defeated, their chance at power all played out and done. Thoris couldn't keep his gaze and dropped his eyes ashamedly to the floor, but Heydrich kept looking. His old arrogance was gone, replaced with a weary resignation.

Kane looked back at the prosecutor. "No, I don't. The Phoenix's bridge recorders were turned over to Starfleet when the Neo-Essentialists were all arrested. You just need to listen to our exchanges over subspace. When Thoris P'Trell and Ronald Heydrich were on top, there was nothing but triumphalism and victory in their minds. They were both committed to their cause. Coercion had nothing to do with it. They wanted to be Neo-Essentialists."

The prosecutor seemed satisfied. "The court has those records at its disposal. I have nothing further."

The Human defence lawyer shrugged. "I have no questions."

"The witness is excused," said the Vulcan judge, and Kane got down from the witness box and moved for the door. They didn't need him, the court didn't need anybody. There were a hundred thousand witnesses in the fleet they could have called on, a dozen conversations on subspace that could be played back. These two were as guilty as all the sins they had committed, and they were going down for it.

As he strode past the dock, Kane glanced at Thoris and Heydrich for the last time. There was nothing to be said, nothing they could say to him. Their stories were at an end, their power plays all broken up, and now justice was meting out its vengeance.

Back out in the corridor, the door closed behind him, leaving him alone. The murmurs from within carried on like he was never there.

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Location: Spacedock, Earth orbit
Scene: Phoenix airlock -> aboard ship


Less than an hour later, Kane found himself preparing to board the Phoenix again. No shuttlecraft from the surface to Spacedock - he had simply beamed directly up from Starfleet Headquarters. He hadn't seen the exterior of the ship yet, but from what he knew, the Phoenix's battle damage had been repaired, the main bridge had been refurbished, and a series of software upgrades had been done on the main computer.

Spacedock was as busy as ever. There were tens of thousands of people assigned to the gigantic space station, and it was only here in the Phoenix's docking hall that Kane had managed to get a bit of peace. The bulkhead door was already open - there was no need to close it - so he could have just walked aboard the Phoenix, but there were protocols to be obeyed - stuffy and traditional they might be, but Kane understood that these things were necessary to give a sense of continuity to the fleet. The technology changed as the years rolled by, but some naval traditions never did.

A Human Commodore appeared in the Phoenix corridor, hurrying to the bulkhead. He was a tall man in his late forties, skin as brown as chocolate, head bald as a cue ball, with a thin goatee beard on his chin. "Captain Kane!" he exclaimed, as he caught Kane's eye. He came forward, and extended a hand. "Darrell Young, Yard Master. Well, one of them anyway." he chuckled.

"Permission to come aboard?" asked Kane.

Young gestured him to come forward. "She's your ship. Permission granted."

Kane put on foot in front of the other and stepped aboard the Phoenix. It had only been a month, so he wasn't expecting much of a change. "Thank you. How close to completion are the repairs?"

Young motioned him onward, and they fell into step toward the nearest turbolift. "This morning's report says ninety-six per cent. All battle damage has been repaired, and the main bridge has been completely redesigned. We also spent a lot of time reconstructing your ODN network following the plasma fire. The specs are all waiting for your chief engineer." Young glanced at Kane sidelong. "Have you, uh, heard who that is going to be yet?"

The turbolift doors hissed open, and they stepped inside. Kane shrugged. "No idea. My orders didn't include any transfer notices or personnel reports. I could have a ship full of Cadets for all I know."

"I doubt that somehow," smiled Young. "Everything is still up in the air in Starfleet Command, but they'll work it out. They always do."

"I suppose so." Kane put his hands behind his back and assumed a military air. "Have you heard anything, Commodore?"

Young shook his head. "No, Captain, I haven't."

Kane nodded. There had been no changes to the service records of the former Phoenix command staff, so those who had been detained by Starfleet Security were still being processed. Everyone else had still not been reassigned, but it was almost a sure thing that the crew that had saved the Federation from Richard Edgerton and his Neo-Essentialists were going to be broken up, sent off to continue their careers in new and disparate duty stations. Aerdan, Jake, Kass and the rest of them - all starting off again somewhere else.

The turbolift slowed down and came to a smooth stop. The doors hissed open again, and Kane stepped out onto the new bridge, closely followed by Young. The deck was still being worked on by a swarm of engineers, running systems checks and tests. None of the stations were manned, but that didn't take away from the impressive nature of the new bridge.

The old bridge, destroyed during the Battle of Earth, seemed to have had a lot more space than this one, but that was probably the new bridge packed in so much more. It still kept the same basic circular shape, but the upper level to the rear of the old bridge was gone. The whole thing was now on the same level.

At the front of the main bridge, taking up almost the whole wall, was the main viewer, now a dark blank screen. It was almost twice the size of its predecessor. "The latest in ultra-definition graphics," said Young. "Directly connected to the sensor network, so you can scroll through a three-sixty view without breaking the picture. Vibrant colours, too. Real pretty."

Kane moved to the centre of the bridge. Where the old bridge had the centre seat and its two flanking companions as all part of the same dais-structure, the new layout had three separate seats - the centre for the captain, the right for the ExO, and a third. A small Tactical display was built into the right arm of the ExO's seat, with a screen that could be pulled upward or pushed away under the arm when not in use. The centre seat itself had several control panels, all offline.

"All ergonomic, all comfortable without being too relaxing," explained Young. "You get a seatbelt too, see these nooks here?"

Kane used the flat of his hand to push against the leatherite of the seat. It seemed pleasantly comfortable. He turned around to face front again.

Young was indicating left and right. "Ops and conn positions," he gestured. "Notice no more corners, now it's all flowing angles and curved surfaces to better protect against injury. each station has its own built-in surge protector now, to better protect against power spikes."

Kane nodded. "And here?" He pointed to two more stations, mounted at right angles to the centre seat, off to the sides of the bridge but still facing diagonally forward towards the main viewer.

"Dedicated science and engineering stations," said Young. "If you choose, you can now have a science officer and an engineering officer on the bridge at all times."

"Interesting," remarked Kane. That left just one station - Tactical. It was mounted behind the centre seat, facing forward, but unlike the other stations, it didn't have a seat. Kane chuckled to himself, recalling the days when he would spend entire duty shifts on his feet, wondering why the hell Starfleet didn't put a seat in the Tac station. The station was offline and inert, but it also included a weapons locker at knee-height.

At the rear of the bridge were several other stations, built into the walls, so whoever was manning them would have to look over their shoulders to make a report. Young pointed them out. "Bridge stations for damage control, sensors, secondary master systems display - "

"What's that one?" asked Kane.

"For monitoring internal systems," explain Young. "The main one is in Engineering."

Kane figured out what Young was talking about - the large, cutaway diagram of the ship's outline that showed the status of its major internal systems. "Right. Looks like this bridge is going to be a bit more crowded than we're used to."

Young smiled good-naturedly. "Ready room over there, observation lounge through there, and you already saw the turbolift. So - " he looked around in askance, " - what do you think?"

Kane cast his critical eye over it. He raised an eyebrow and turned to Young with a smile. "I like it."

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+++ FEDCOM BREAKING NEWS
+ STARFLEET RELEASE COURT-MARTIAL STATEMENT
+ THORIS P'TRELL AND RONALD HEYDRICH FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON
+ HEYDRICH SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT IN JAROS II STOCKADE
+ P'TRELL SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT IN TANTALUS COLONY
+++ TOUCH + FOR MORE
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NRPG: Thoris and Heydrich are disappearing into the background now. Say goodbye to them! Kane is aboard the ship now, for anyone who boards and feels like meeting the captain ;)


Jerome McKee
the Soul of Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
USS PHOENIX


"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1, Scene 1.117

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