Commandant (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 8) (21 page)

Witnesses who could say things the chairman doesn’t want said.

“For violation of Penal Code, 1001, Treason: I find the defendant guilty.

“For violation of Penal Code 1009, Inciting an Armed Rebellion Against the State:  I find the defendant guilty.”

And so the judge went down the list, one after the other.  Ryck was found guilty of each charge, no surprise.

Ryck looked up as the judge read off 26 guilties before reaching the treaty violation.  As expected, it had to do with bringing Corporal Hailstone to the meeting.  Ryck wanted to protest the finding of guilty for that one, too, as that should have been a matter for the Universal Court, and it was the loyalists who actually killed the Marine, but he held his tongue.

“Major General Lysander, in lieu of the seriousness of the crimes you have committed, I sentence you to a reduction to the rank of private, full forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and to be given a dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps.  I also order you transferred to the Thielsen Federal Correction Facility where you will be put to death before 24:00, GMT, tomorrow, June 19, 368.  Bailiff, escort the prisoner to the holding cell where he will await judicial review and transport.”

Ryck was numb as the bailiff took him by the arm and led him to the door.  The first minister raised one eyebrow as Ryck passed but said nothing.  With the two guards in tow, the four men marched out of the courtroom and down to the line of holding cells.

Ryck had expected the outcome, but to hear is was somehow different.  He quietly sat down on the hard bench, refusing the bailiff’s offer of water.

The judge’s finding would be forwarded where the third minister would rubber stamp it.  Sometime within the next dozen hours, he’d be taken from the cell and loaded into a ship for transport to the cube.  Then as early as 0001 tomorrow, and as late as 2359 GMT, he’d be hung.  It was a simple as that.

Chapter 32

“So, it is true.  That’s your final meal?” the first minister said through the front intercom.

Ryck looked up from his bacon with raspberry sauce.  Ever efficient, whoever was in charge of the prisoners had decided to give him his final meal on Earth rather than delay things upon his arrival at the Cube.

How considerate of him
, Ryck had thought at the time.

He could have chosen anything, he knew.  A fabricator was a fabricator, and duck a l’orange was as easy to program as a cup of tea, but somehow, bacon with raspberry sauce seemed more appropriate.  He’d dawdled over it, trying to sense every taste bud as the salty bacon and the tart raspberry sauce hit them.  This would be the last time he’d experience taste, and he wanted to savor it.

“You coming to witness it?” Ryck asked, picking up another piece of bacon.

“Me?  Hell no.  I plan on staying as far away as possible from that place.  No, you’ll have another witness.  I just wanted to come by to, well, to say goodbye, I guess.  And to say I’m sorry it all worked out this way.”

The first minister seemed sincere for the first time since Ryck had surrendered himself.

“You messed up and let your sense of simplistic morality derail you, but you’re a good man.”

“I’m sure you’re crying about it.”

“I’m angry that you gummed up the works, and I’m angry that you put me personally in danger, but, yes, I regret this. You could really have gone far, you know.”

“So you told me,” Ryck said, licking his finger clean of sauce.

“Well, I just wanted to say that.  Your execution order is signed, and they’ll be coming for you pretty soon, so you might want to prepare yourself.”

“Thanks for your concern.  I’m touched,” Ryck said with mock sincerity.

The first minister was peering at Ryck through the small window, and as Ryck looked up to catch his eye, he thought the first minister would say something else.  But the man suddenly turned away and stepped out of sight.

Ryck quickly ate the rest of his meal, not willing to leave anything on the plate. Which pissed Ryck off because it was more than 45 minutes later that the jailer looked in, told Ryck to stand at the back of the cell, and opened the door.

The second man to enter caught Ryck by surprise.  Brigadier General Sandy Peltier-Aswad stood in the doorway.

“I’m surprised to see you here.  I thought you were dead,” Ryck said.

“Almost, but I’m harder to kill than most people think,” Sandy said.

“So you are the witness.  You’re going to watch me hang?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Sir?  Come on, Sandy.  Didn’t you hear?  I’m supposedly a private now,” Ryck said bitterly.

Ryck had expected the death sentence, but not the reduction and dishonorable discharge.  For some reason, that really bothered him.

Sandy merely shrugged as the jailer came forward with the shackles.

“Is this really necessary?” Ryck asked.

Sandy looked back where four guards waited. 

“Are you going to go along quietly?” he asked.

“What you expect me to take out all of your guards, make my way to a spaceport, and escape?  I’m good, Sandy, but not that good.”

Sandy shrugged, then told the jailer, “Leave them off.”

“But regulations!” the jailer protested.

“Duly noted.  I will take responsibility,” he said before turning back to Ryck.  “If you would, General?”

Ryck preceded Sandy out of the cell where four guards, FCDC guards this time, surrounded him.  The hallways were empty as the little group made its way to the elevators and up to the back transfer station.  An armored ground car was waiting for them there, and Ryck was loaded inside.

For five minutes, they rode in silence, Sandy sitting across from him, their knees almost touching.

Finally, Sandy broke the silence with “Why, sir?  Why did you do it?”

“To save the lives of 12 billion people.”

“But after that?  Why start a revolution?”

“Why does anyone start a revolution?  To make things better, I suppose.”

“But you broke your oath.  I thought you had honor.”

Ryck knew he’d done the right thing, but the accusation of being an oathbreaker hit him hard.  But he was an oathbreaker, even for the best of reasons.  And Ryck was raised to believe a man was only as good as his word.

“And now are you serving this corrupt, murderous regime?”

Two of the guards were listening in, but they said nothing.

“Because I swore an oath.  And I believe I can do more good for change from the inside than from out.”

“Careful there, Sandy.  Those words could be taken against you, should any of our guards here choose to repeat them.”

Sandy said nothing more, and they rode to the spaceport in silence.

Ryck almost fell asleep when the car came to a lurching halt, and the back door was opened.  Four armed jimmylegs
[16]
were waiting for them.  Due to the convoluted agreements the Federation, Greater France, and the scattered independent nations of Earth had signed, at the insistence of the UAM, capital punishment could not be carried out on Earth soil, and some legal analysts felt that meant no prisoner could be transported on government shipping to be executed.  Others disagreed, but both the Federation and Fiji, the only two governments located on Earth that still carried the death penalty, simply hired a civilian security firm, Sunray Global, a subsidiary of Razor Security, to take their prisoners to the Cube.  Razor Security Holdings administered the Cube under contract to six different governments, but each of the governments ran their own prison wing, and both the Federation and Fiji had their own execution chamber.  The Federation used the ancient method of hanging while Fiji used a neuro-scrambler. 

Ryck didn’t have a choice, but if he did, he’d preferred to get scrambled than dangled.  The Federation conducted a large number of executions throughout Federation space at any given time, but those at the Cube were for federal and for a few local Earth-jurisdiction cases.

The head jimmylegs asked for the transfer documents, which one of the guards gave him.  Ryck was escorted out of the truck for the retinal scan.  Both his FCDC guards and the jimmylegs seemed to tense up, which almost made Ryck laugh. 

Yeah, I’m going to make a break for it running across the tarmac.

The scan light went green, and the jimmylegs chief accepted custody.

“This way, sir,” he said to Sandy, who was there as a witness, but who did not have any actual custody of Ryck.

The six men walked over to the waiting ramp.  The packet was a small ship, about the size of a sloop.  It could carry about 15 men comfortably, 20 in a pinch.  Although it had bubble space capability, it was generally used within systems.  Packets weren’t comfortable, not that Ryck would care, but what they were was heavily armored.  Pirates knew they weren’t worth the effort to try and take them.

And criminal gangs know that trying to take one to rescue a prisoner was probably going to fail.

Once in a packet, a prisoner—or items of great wealth that had to go from one place to another—was safe from being taken by others.  A packet was like a space-going armored car.

Ryck couldn’t help but look up as he was led to the ramp.  If there were any kind of rescue in the works, it would have to be now.

But other than Çağlar, he’d never told anyone where he was going.  Bert would know now, of course, as the new commandant.  But there wouldn’t have been time to launch anything.

Still, Ryck was a little disappointed as he stepped into the ship.  He’d be delivered to the Cube in another hour or three, depending on traffic control, and it would already be June 19 by then.  He could conceivably be taken straight to the gallows.

The jimmyleg guards escorted Sandy and Ryck to the main passenger chamber just under the bridge.  Limited by the need to be able to travel in atmosphere and gravity as well as space, it was not laid out as well as a space-only ship, but it would do.  It was better than what awaited him at the end of the short journey.

“Where’s Mr. Capulto?” Sandy asked.

“Mr. Capulto?  He had to, uh, he had to go home for a family emergency,” one of the jimmylegs said.

“I just talked to him a half an hour ago,” Sandy said. “What about Mr. Jones?”

“He took Mr. Caputo.  But no problem.  We’ve got it,” the jimmylegs said. 

Sandy pulled out his Ruger and shot the jimmylegs in the face.

Sandy’s saving me!
Ryck thought with a sudden surge of hope.

Ryck quickly stepped in back of Sandy, wondering what the plan was.

“There isn’t any Mr. Jones,” Sandy said, his handgun covering the eight remaining men in the ship.

“Steady there, sir.  We’re here to take you to the Cube.”

“Bullshit!  I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve taken over the ship, and I’m not going let that happen.  The general is going to his execution.”

What?  What’s going on?

“General, if you’d just join those men there?” Sandy said, motioning with his Ruger as he pulled out his PA.

Grubbing hell!
  Ryck thought. 
I’ve fucked up!

Ryck let himself deflate as he stepped forward to join the others.  And just as Sandy spoke into the PA, saying, “We’ve got a situation here,” Ryck sprang into action.

Sandy was a brilliant mind and a sound tactician.  He could lead troops into battle, and his bravery was unquestioned.  But he was not a dirty street fighter, a warrior who let nothing get in his way. 

Ryck was.

Ryck dropped down to the ground as the startled Sandy fired off a string of shots over his head.  From down at Sandy’s feet, he sprang back up, knocking the gun hand up and out of the way.  His shoulder smashed into Sandy’s chin, sending both men back into the bulkhead.  Ryck brought up a knee into Sandy’s gut, rained two vicious elbows into his face, and as Sandy started to fall, Ryck took Sandy’s throat in his hands, and using it as a handle, smashed Sandy’s head with all the force he could muster against the corner of one of the control chairs.

On the third blow, the back of Sandy’s head broke open like a ripe watermelon. Ryck thought he saw the surprise and well, the hurt in Sandy’s eyes as the life fled from his old friend.  Or maybe it was relief Ryck saw.  He hoped it was.

“Sir, we’ve got activity!” a voice cried out from behind Ryck and he lay Sandy flat on the deck.

“Take her up now!” another voice shouted out.  “And get Bertrand ziplocked!”

“Roger!”

A hand grabbed Ryck on the shoulder. 

“Sir, if you can get into one of the acceleration seats, it might be getting a little hairy here.”

“What?  Oh, sure.  What about him?” Ryck asked, pointing back at Sandy’s body.

“We’ll put him in with the rest later, but we’ve got to get in the seats.”

As if on cue, Ryck felt the ship shudder as the engines lit up.

Ryck hurried and sat down, strapping in.  Artificial gravity worked fine for most ships, but if the packet was going to be using evasive maneuvers, it was better to be secured while all that was going on.

“Thanks for taking out the brigadier,” one of the men said, sitting down beside Ryck.

“Uh, sure.  But I think I’m more in debt to you.  Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Regent Wispon-Franks, Confederation of Free States Army, Exploratores, at your service.  I believe you know my boss, Major Titus Pohlmeyer?”

“Yes I do, Colonel.  Yes I do.  I’ve known the good
major
, who has been a so-called major, I might add, for the last 18 years at least.  And he’s your boss,
Colonel
?”

“Ah, you know how it is, sir, with the spooks,” the lieutenant colonel said with a smile.

Just then, the ship lurched into the air, overcoming the artificial gravity for a moment.  Ryck had to gulp.

Sandy’s body flopped over in the disruption, his hand arm flinging out to land palm up just half-a-meter from Ryck’s foot.

As the ship juked and jived out of Earth’s atmosphere, Sandy’s body was flung back and forth.  Ryck stared emotionlessly at the shell of what had once been his friend.  Ben’s godfather.

It wasn’t until the little packet broke through into bubble space that the ride smoothed out and Ryck and the rest were able to leave their seats.

“Good job, Jensen,” Lieutenant Colonel Wispon-Franks said.  “For a squid, I mean.”

“Someone’s got to watch your ground-pounders, sir,” the sailor said, fist-bumping one of the other men.

“Someone take the Fed general to the aft hold with the others,” the Exploratores team leader ordered a couple of the men.

“I’ll get Sandy,” Ryck told him.

“Do you know him?”

“He was my friend.”

“Oh, sorry about that.  Do you want him ziplocked?”

Ryck looked down at Sandy’s lifeless body for a full 20 seconds before replying, “No.”