Solbidyum Wars Saga 4: Too Late for Earth (45 page)

“What do you think he is up to,” Kala asked?

“You’re asking the wrong person,” I said’

Suddenly, Jenira popped up and started signing, “I know, he’s running away after totally embarrassing himself yesterday.”  Both Kala and I laughed at the look on her face as she seemed so serious.

“Would but that were true,” I said, "but somehow I doubt that is the reason.”

It was about 30 minutes later when the Senate guards arrived to escort me to the hearing room.  Kala and Jenira were not allowed to accompany me; however, they would be in the hearing room occupying the same box that was used the day before by my accusers.  Admiral Regeny, Senator Tonclin, Commander Wabussie (who still was not present), and any others who might be called to testify on my behalf would also be seated in that box.  I was not sure why Jenira was there, but it seems that it was decided to include her in with those testifying on my behalf by someone.  I knew from what the Senate guards told me that not everyone in the box would necessarily provide testimony and that some of them were there strictly to assist those who would be providing testimony. I more or less assumed that would be the case with Jenira and Kala.  Lastly, I saw Regata, and it surprised me, but then I realized that Kala may have requested him to come and give an account of things that had happened on Alle Bamma from the natives' perspective.

Once Justice Mastoeth had called the session to order, he announced that the defense testimony portion of the hearing was begun; he then turned things over to Senator Tonclin, who would be leading the testimony portion of my hearing.  Senator Tonclin was in full formal senator attire and even with his strange wood-like textured skin and high-pitched voice, he still presented a grand image at the podium and on the vid screens.  Unlike my accusers, all of those providing testimonies on my behalf would be monitored for their truth; the truth indicator bar would display on the vid screens around the hearing hall for all to see.

“Justice Mastoeth, and fellow members of the Senate,” Senator Tonclin began, “Today we are assembled here, to decide if there is sufficient evidence for First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt to be charged with crimes against the Federation and against sentient life forms.  That these accusations were ever brought against the First Citizen is a true amazement to me in light of all that this man has done for the Federation in the short time since he arrived.  A few years ago we were heaping honors on him and claiming him a hero and today we are here determining if he should face charges for the most heinous crimes, for which no evidence has been presented.  We are being asked to believe that the Brotherhood of Light was, and is, a kind and benevolent organization that only appears evil because of First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt.

“I am not going to regale you with the events that took place when First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt arrived in the Federation with the long-lost
TRITYTE
and its solbidyum cargo, nor of the heroic actions he and his crew executed to get the solbidyum safely to the Capitol.  All of these things are a matter of historical record, and most of us were here to see and experience the things that happened.  We witnessed Commander Thimas ranting on our vid screens saying with his very first words, “This is Captain Thimas of the BROTHERHOOD OF LIGHT aboard the ship
DUSTEN
,” clearly making a proclamation that the actions taking place were of the Brotherhood of Light.  I do not recall, nor do the historical records show, of ANY members of the Brotherhood of Light standing up at that time, nor at any time since, that I am aware of, or saying Thimas spoke out of turn, and he did not represent the Brotherhood of Light. Instead thousands of Brotherhood members seemed to rally around him, supporting him in his actions.  Leader Roritat and his fellow accusers would have us believe that somehow after a few short weeks in the Federation that the actions of First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt was responsible for the Brotherhood’s actions.  It’s preposterous to believe that in a matter of a few days a fraternal group could quickly organize a military unit to accomplish the feats they did; clearly they had to exist long before the arrival of First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt. 

"Yesterday we heard Leader Roritat make statements implying that First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt tried to steal a prototype ship under development on the planet Gaimse, we heard First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt’s testimony that this ship was his, that the design was his and that the ship in question had been stolen by the Brotherhood and taken outside the Federation to the planet Gaimse, to be reverse-engineered, so more of these ships could be built for the Brotherhood in their plans to take over the Federation.  We all witnessed that The First Citizen’s testimony was truthfully told by him, but I am here today to provide further testimony of the truth of his statement.

“My planet, Nibaria, which I am proud to be the senator, is the planet where his ship the
NEW ORLEANS
was built.  The ship was originally commissioned by industrialist Galetils who died shortly before its completion.  Nibaria was on the edge of economic ruin because we had a huge investment in the ship, and with Galetils dead, we had no one to pay for the outstanding balance on the ship.  I approached First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt who was now one of the few people with enough money to buy the ship in hopes that he might want it and thus rescue our planet from economic disaster.  Obviously he did, since we are sitting here today discussing events surrounding Tibby and his ships.

“Galetils had intended his ship to be both a personal yacht and a showpiece for new technology he was developing and hoped to sell that technology to the Federation military.  One of those items was a working Reverse Magnetic Force Field, the second was a 10X fusion reactor that would be needed to power the RMFF.  The RMFF was already aboard the ship when Tibby acquired it, and fortunately the information to build the 10X fusion reactor was aboard the ship as well, making it possible for Tibby to have the reactor built and to power the RMFF.  Furthermore, aboard the
NEW ORLEANS
, there was a prototype fighter which Galetils had designed and built, with the intentions of marketing it to the Federation Military; this was the design of the ship stolen and taken to Gaimse.  I personally know this to be true because the discovery of the whereabouts of the stolen fighter was made by one of my fellow Nibarians on a trip to Gaimse.  He was making the trip in hopes of negotiating a joint venture contract for a project Nabaria was hoping to get.  He happened to notice Tibby’s ship in a hangar, being worked on and was surprised, because while First Citizen Tibby has contracted several shipyards to build these ships, none of them were outside the Federation, and Gaimse is not part of the Federation.  He reported the matter to me, and I was the one to inform Tibby of his ship being on Gaimse.”  During Senator Tonclin’s testimony, the truth indicator stayed a solid green.

“I now turn testimony over to Admiral Regeny,” Tonclin said, then he turned and went to the box where my defenders sat.

Admiral Regeny had elected to wear his formal military whites, presenting an imposing figure as he stood tall at the podium.

“First Citizen,” he said looking in my direction, “Justice Mastoeth, honorable members of the Senate.  I’m here today to provide testimony and evidence in defense of First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt and the accusations against him.

“Like Senator Tonclin, I too shall skip over the events of the
DUSTEN
.  The historical records clearly speak to those events and there is no need for me to address them, so I shall move on to the events that led up to First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt’s departure to the planet Alle Bamma.

Not long after the memorial ceremony for those who had died in the
DUSTEN
event, we received information from covert sources that are not part of the FOI that the Brotherhood was seeking to steal shipments of solbidyum.  The Brotherhood had just captured a Federation frigate called the
TECCION
and also the freighter
MOOGAWOE
which the Brotherhood believed was carrying the
TRITYTE
and solbidyum shipments.  Fortunately for us that was not the case, but the Brotherhood still placed all the crew of the
MOOGAWOE
in rescue pods and ejected them before taking off with their ship.

The Admiralty called upon First Citizen Tibby to assist in the operation to find the two ships taken by the Brotherhood because at that time his ship was the only one with RMFF and cloaking capability.  Things were very chaotic at the time, as we had discovered that nearly all the ships in the Federation had Brotherhood members or sympathizers aboard them; it became necessary for us to slowly and methodically test every single member of the Federation military for loyalty to the Federation; it’s a process still going on today.  We needed to know that all ships going into action against the Brotherhood were clear of Brotherhood members.  At the time only the three closest star ships to Megelleon, the
DUSTEN
, the
URANGA
and the
CACHATORA
had been cleared of Brotherhood members in their crews and were in a position to assist in the hunt.  While we were on this mission, we devised a plan to try and trap the Brotherhood at the town of Banur on Plosaxen, we had adequate time to install RMFF’s and cloaking devices on all the star ships in the vicinity as well as 10X reactors to power them.  With the cloaking and RMFF capabilities of these star ships, it was believed a good trap could be set and the Brotherhood lured in.

Before this trap could be sprung, however, I felt the need to show off Tibby and his martial-arts skills one more time, something I now regret.  Without warning, during a banquet I arranged for First Citizen Tibby and First Citizen Kalana to engage in hand to hand combat with two troopers.  Somehow word of my intentions was discovered by the Brotherhood, and they replaced the troopers with two of their own assassins, which resulted in both Tibby and Kalana being wounded with poisoned knives.  Tibby's body was able to overcome the effects of the poison, but First Citizen Kalana was mortally wounded and was dying fast.  She was placed in stasis to prevent her ultimate death in hopes a cure could be found.  It was eventually discovered what type of poison had been used and that the only source to produce the cure were the eggs of a particular creature only found on the planet Alle Bamma.  Tibby immediately set course for Alle Bamma, while I behaved badly thinking he should stay and help fight the Brotherhood and seek Kalana’s cure later.  Tibby was right in his going straight to Alle Bamma, but at the time we didn’t know that.

We still went through with the trap at Plosaxen and it worked out better than we had hoped, as the Brotherhood showed up with five corvettes, one frigate and 29 patrol ships.  We met them with two cloaked starships, three cloaked frigates, hundreds of cloaked patrol ships independent of the many hundreds already on the starships, and ten cloaked Mirage Fighters.  We took nearly a hundred prisoners and killed most of the other enemy contingent in battle.  Some of you senators here in this hall today, were present when those battles took place as you had offices aboard our starships, so you can attest to these events.  Tibby in the meantime had reached Alle Bamma where he encountered the Brotherhood.  As it turned out, they were using the planet to produce the illegal drug we know as God’s Sweat, and the planet was heavily defended.  However, rather than having me tell you about Alle Bamma, I think it best that I let one of the natives of the planet tell you what happened there.  I introduce you to Regata, a native of the planet Alle Bamma and a representative of the planet currently traveling on a mission for his planet with Tibby on his ship the
NEW ORLEANS
."

The admiral walked back to the box passing Regata as he did so.  Regata was dressed in a dignitary cut uniform; I was amazed at how civilized he looked wearing it.  His mottled skin with its camouflaged appearance looked a bit out of place in the suit, but still he looked every bit of a representative as he approached the podium.

“Citizens of the Federation,” he began, “please forgive me if I do not follow proper protocol in addressing you all, but I am unfamiliar with all your customs.  I am here to provide testimony for the Man-Who-Speaks-for-Thumumba, as he is known on my planet of Alle Bamma, to you he is known as First Citizen Thibodaux James Renwalt.  For us the title of anyone who speaks for Thumumba is the highest honor that one can have on our planet.  My world is a primitive one by Federation standards.  On my home world, I would not wear this fine clothing but would be nude; we live in the trees, in villages up off the ground.  We are an arboreal people, we hunt, we fish and eat wild fruits, berries and nuts.  We fight no wars, we are a peaceful people.  Many years ago a representative of your Federation came to our planet seeking to find plants that might be used for medicines on your worlds.  We were not in favor of their presence, so we avoided them as much as possible and eventually they left.  Our civilization was not advanced enough to be welcome in your Federation; this was satisfactory to us as we had no desires beyond our planet and the life’s we were living.

Then a few years ago the men you call the Brotherhood came.  One of these men was also one of the scientists who had first come with your Federation team; he and his men began clearing sections of the forests on our planet to land more ships and to erect buildings, where they processed the plant to make the drug you call God’s Sweat.  This was an abomination to us, as this is a sacred plant to our people.  When we tried to stop them, they killed many of us and took others as slaves, forcing them to harvest the sacred plant to make their drugs.  More and more they came tearing up the forests for their factories and their ships and they enslaved more of my people.  We were in despair when Tibby showed up seeking the eggs of the slow walker, a creature you call a rugian.