God's Dogs Book 2

Got to die of something. Might as well put back a few pints while you wait to see what it is.

Jim Butcher

The general quarters alarm rang out through the ship. Singh and the Sentic referee hurried to the bridge as everyone else made their way to their emergency stations.

“What is it?” the Sentic asked the captain, another Sentic wearing a white pauldron.

“A Cass destroyer,” was the reply. “He’s at the hyper limit and in-bound. He’ll be here in four hours.”

“Can we escape?”

“Not likely,” the captain said and issued orders to break orbit and run for the hyper limit on a diverging course.

Singh asked the referee, “Was he already coming here, or was he called in by someone on the other freighter?”

“I don’t think that matters now,” the referee answered.

“If we’re going to die,” Singh argued, “it would be important the truth be known.”

“Very well. Captain, contact the other referees. I need to speak to the leader, Bora Antok.”

The communication officer said after a moment, “Connected, sir. Voice only.”

“Antok, what is going on?”

“Antok is indisposed,” was the response. “This is Clan Leader Odic, and it must be obvious what is going on. We are avenging our honor.”

Singh spoke up, “Odic, you have your battalion on the ground. Most of them are alive. They are in shipping containers.”

“Alive? Why would you do that?”

“Because we could,” Singe replied without irony. “We don’t take life easily, and especially not in the needless pursuit of the illusion of honor.”

“Or you just wanted to humiliate us further. The only illusion I see is your sense of superiority over us. You think you are better than us. You’re not! You’re just killers like us. At least we are honest about it.”

Singh knew this argument. He spent an entire semester in graduate school studying it. The paradox involved was what informed the Buddhist decision, millennia ago, to include martial arts training as a legitimate spiritual discipline. Without that paradox, Odic was right: it was just killing for whatever gain, be it an extension of so-called diplomacy, or just outright robbery. Singh also knew that trying to explain the paradox to Odic was pointless.

“Then I suggest you retrieve your troops from the planet,” Singh said.

Odic closed the channel without further comment.

“He has a point,” the Sentic remarked.

Singh eyed the referee. “He has a responsibility to his troops. And you, sir, would do well to research the Budo Code before you make uninformed accusations.”

Singh left the bridge but heard the captain’s scratchy chuckle following him. Singh smiled at that and rejoined the team leads in his quarters.

“We’ve got a Cass destroyer after us,” he announced. “It will catch us before we get to the hyper limit.”

With that announcement, the team leads returned to their teams to wait out the inevitable.

Three hours later, a crewman called Singh back to the bridge.

“Yes, captain,” he said as he arrived.

“You have a transmission.”

Singh looked over to the communication officer, who told him, “It’s voice only.”

“This is Consul Singh.”

“Singh, this is Captain Twin Bears. I’m here with a League destroyer. We just dropped our stealth, and the destroyer captain is talking to the Cass. We’re trying to avoid a fight.”

A League destroyer and a Penglai cutter. Singh was stunned.

John Twin Bears went on with a chuckle, “You didn’t think we would leave you without backup, did you?”

“I’m sorry, captain. It’s been a hectic few days. I admit I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Thank you for being here.”

“We’ve cut off the Cass destroyer. You’re clear to the hyper limit. I gave your captain rendezvous coordinates in deep space. We’ll be escorting you back to Jomeca IV.”

“Thanks you again, captain.”

“You’re welcome. Satya, out.”

Quinn’s team disembarked with the referees and Consul Singh’s delegation when they reached Jomeca IV. Satya docked as well, as she would be staying to support Quinn’s team. The freighter, carrying the militia and the other Coyote teams, continued onto Penglai with the League destroyer as escort.

There was still the legal business of River calling down an orbital bombardment on the Cass planet.

It was a criminal case, which meant the Congress was preferring the charges of illegal orbital bombardment of a planet. The Cass were witnesses for the prosecution. Many of them had already been deposed. Gautama’s team, before they left the station, had been deposed. Consequently, for the next few days, Satya’s crew and each team member wrote up affidavits and attended depositions. Once these final depositions were filed, the case could proceed to preliminary hearings.

River’s team of lawyers included a Class 1 A.I., who served as a paralegal in charge of legal research, checking and filing documents, and setting up their schedule; the lead counsel, Harvey Sternbauer, a portly sixty-year-old, hailed from Baniff one of the two League ASI-led worlds dedicated to pure science; and the assistant or co-counsel, Fan Yao, a strong-featured, middle-aged woman from Penglai’s Foreign Service legal division. It was she who specialized in Galactic Congress criminal law, and it was she who spent time with River as the depositions were being completed.

They were in Yao’s office at the embassy, where she was prepping River for the first hearing.

“Harvey is an unprincipled shark. It’s why the League sent him. He will rip apart the prosecution, reduce witnesses to tears, and make a mockery of the Cass claim of your unwarranted aggression.”

River frowned and then smirked. “I guess the League wants to win at any cost.”

Yao offered a crooked grin in response. “Yeah. The irony is Harvey was the defense attorney for the guys you busted a few years ago.”

“Lockhart?”

“I think so. It didn’t help in the end, but Harvey did keep him out of jail during the two years it took to finish the trial.”

“Okay,” River breathed out. “So what’s my role in this?”

“Harvey will give you a script for when he questions you. Just follow it. He won’t ad lib much. For when the prosecution questions you, count to five before you answer.”

“Sounds good, but why?”

“The pause between question and answer does a couple of things. First, it allows Harvey to object. Second, it keeps the prosecution from ramping you up in the hopes that your mouth will get ahead of your brain. Third, it makes you look thoughtful and deliberate.”

“Wow. I didn’t know.”

Yao smiled again. “It’s a different kind of battle, but we use the same principles of strategy and tactics.”

River shifted in her chair. “Any thing else?”

“No. You should do fine. You will be wearing your dress uniform, of course. So will your team mates, who will be in attendance.”

“It’s in open court?”

“Yeah.” Yao frowned. “We couldn’t get that changed.”

“Security?”

“They promise it will be tight.”

The courtroom was laid out in theater style – the audience in ascending arcs of seating that would accommodate three hundred. As a major court, the equivalent of a high trial court, in League terms, combined with an appellate or intermediate court, there were three justices that sat on the bench and a jury of nine from the military, since this case would rule on a military question.

The justices sat against the back wall behind a tall, long desk. The jury was to their right in their own box. The prosecution and defense teams faced the bench of justices from their own tables. The defendant sat alone in a box to the bench’s left.

The lighting was diffuse but bright. The walls were light wood panels. The video coverage was from fixed locations at each corner, and no floating cams were allowed.

In the first row of seats were the witnesses, and a half wall separated them from the rest of the audience.

River was escorted to her spot by security and she sat and surveyed the audience as it assembled. Various races were in attendance, and the variety was disorienting. Her gaze flowed down to where her team was sitting, and Moss grinned at her. She smiled in response.

“All rise,” a bailiff ordered. “The Regional Court is now is session.”

The three judges, a Durani, a Silvertonae, and a third of a race River didn’t recognize entered from a side door and sat at their posts behind the bench.

“Be seated,” the middle judge said. “We are here to address the case of the Galactic Congress versus Coyote River of the Penglai Foreign Service. The charge is the illegal use of force – an aerial bombardment against a planetary target. Specifically, the illegal action alleged is a kinetic strike from an altitude that is proscribed. How says the defendant?”

River stood and replied, “Not guilty.”

“So noted. Prosecution, are your ready to proceed?”

“We are, Excellency.”

“Defense, are you ready to proceed?”

“We are, Excellency,” Harvey Sternbauer stood to answer.

“Opening statements, then. Prosecution, you have ten minutes.”

So it began. River let the words wash over her as her mind drifted back to her final days as a Coyote candidate. She was preparing for a different trial then. During the final test, as everyone knew, the masters would demand the candidate’s true self to stand that trial. All false selves would be forsaken, or the candidate would fail.

No one, on the other hand, could explain what that actually meant – not in any terms that made rational sense. All she could do was face the panel of five masters and ‘try’ to be herself – itself a daunting task.

She stood before them and they began hurling ambiguous questions at her: Who are you? Why do you want to be a Coyote? What makes you think you have what it takes? How is self-sacrifice different than martyrdom? By what right do you claim this privilege?

There was no ‘right’ answer to any of those questions, but the answers did isolate the grasping ego and its spawn, the false selves. The questions came rapid-fire, and she answered them without thought. That is, until the one question broke her open: By what right do you claim this privilege?

She paused to let the energy build within her, and then she shouted back, “I am the mother, the daughter, the sister to my people. I protect, honor, and uplift them all. It is by that right that I claim this duty, as it is not a privilege at all.”

Master Chin, his ancient face breaking into a smile, said to her, “Welcome, Coyote River, to a life of service to all sentient beings.”

River stood in shocked silence to the abrupt end of the final trial. She checked the time, and the questioning had gone on for over an hour. She felt drained and elated. She also felt that in breaking her open, a Rubicon had been crossed. She would never be who she was before. She was fresh-born into a new life of service. Little did she know what that would entail….

Her mind drifted back to the courtroom. The prosecution was winding down its opening remarks.

“Therefore, the evidence is clear. The kinetic strike was above the ten-mile limit. Coyote River ordered the strike. A strict interpretation of the law demands a guilty verdict. The prosecution rests.”

Sternbauer stood at a nod from the judge. “A strict interpretation of the law would apply if this law extended to those who agreed to the law through treaty or some other legally binding agreement, which is not the case. As such, a strict interpretation of the law would place this inquiry outside the bounds of this court’s jurisdiction. The action in question happened on a non-aligned world whose residents broke diplomatic immunity guarantees and attempted to murder a diplomatic party. To extract the party from this egregious breach of protocol, Coyote River did what was necessary. She countered the Cass advantage gained by breaking the rules by breaking – only marginally – a rule that would allow her team to rescue the diplomats.

“As our testimony and the footage of the battle shows, this minimal breach did insure a successful rescue. Furthermore, rules of war are primarily in place to protect non-combatants. There are, of course, other laudable reasons for these rules. The primary reason, though, is to protect non-combatants. The kinetic strike under question was against a military target, and no non-combatants were killed. Whereas, the Cass’ whole effort was to kill non-combatants – indeed, accredited diplomats with permission to conduct negotiations with the Cass clans.

“Coyote River’s response to that criminal threat – even in the heat of battle – was measured and appropriate, and, I daresay, not illegal since the law in question did not include the Cass home world. The defense rests.”

River tuned out the parade of testimony that followed as she and Becky scanned the courtroom and its hundreds of people. She knew her team was doing the same at regular intervals, and the A.I. battle-net was up and running with constant surveillance that patched through to Satya’s Class 2 A.I.

They wore their dress uniforms for this affair, as per orders. It was all black with no option to shift to camo. The earlier version included the camo option, and it was ‘abused.’ A high collared jacket and straight-legged pants fit over the skin-suit. Ankle high soft boots with no heel finished the ensemble.

The teams were fine with the basic platform, but the council contracted with designers for other attachments or embellishments that derived from Earth’s militaries.

On the left breast, a two-inch tall by 5-inch wide red stripe was background for crossed sabers. Superimposed where the sabers crossed was a stylized taiji symbol. Instead of the normal black and white teardrops within a circle, there was a dragon and a tiger, which represented Heaven and Earth. This ‘blood stripe’ was awarded to Coyotes after their first combat mission and was the equivalent to the combat infantryman’s badge many armies still used.

On the right breast was the kanji script of Penglai, Shentong Temple, and their individual name in three vertical columns.

At the throat was a round porcelain medallion with the face of a coyote surrounded by the motto: Wisdom, Courage, Faith. Squad leaders, such as Quinn, wore a gold medallion; team members wore silver.

Four inches from the end of each sleeve was raised silver piping that surrounded the sleeve. It was about a quarter-inch wide and was more than a tasteful accent. It was a coiled nano-whip that, when pulled loose, extended to six feet in length and an eighth of an inch in diameter. It didn’t show up on the most sophisticated of scanners.

Devoid as the uniform was, in terms of campaign ribbons or awards, it still held combat capabilities. River was thankful for that as this trial was the last chance for the Cass and their backers to make a statement.

She still wasn’t clear on the why of the expected retribution, let alone the what form it might take. The Congress seemed to be a good overall structure of governance. Why would any world risk their membership by escalating a lost cause? Consul Singh produced plausible answers but they didn’t make sense to River.

A lot of things didn’t make sense to her. She knew that blind spot came from an under-developed grasping ego. She never was one for acquiring stuff for its novelty or status value. As a child, she wondered what was wrong with her that she just didn’t care about stuff. As an adult, she failed to see the grasping ego as a major motivator in others’ behavior. It was a known flaw in her way of processing the world, and she figured her lack of understanding was, itself, understandable. It didn’t prevent her from scanning the room, or from appreciating their enemy’s need to punish.

The latest witness was excused and the judge called for the lunch recess. River alerted to her surroundings. Transport times were opportunities for ambushes.

[We’ve got a new guard,] Becky told her as two guards opened her box to escort her out. [Running background checks on him now.]