Illumination

Jack was immediately blinded by the bright lights that shone in her eyes. She took her helmet off and tucked it under her arms, as did the others. There was no need for more Illumination where they were.

The courtroom seemed to stretch infinitely, taking up most of the second floor. A series of tall windows lined the walls around them, conveniently placed in front of a balcony, but pews blocked the potential escape path. It felt so weird to be standing at the start of the long, carpeted aisle that made them feel like they were in a church and not a courtroom. Apexes surrounded them, some drooling, some taking notes on devices resembling holopads, all of them staring at Jack and the others. She felt isolated and alien to the rest of the world when surrounded by so many of another species. She wasn’t in the human domain anymore, but the kingdom of the Apexes. I’m following their rules now, she thought darkly, taking the first few steps down the aisle.

At the end of the room, behind the witness stand, were the rows for the judge and jury. The Apex sitting in the judge booth was small and frail-looking, with protruding limbs and a fourth set of stubby limbs that dangled uselessly from its side. This is the boss that all the Apexes were talking about? Jack stared at him in delirious fear. The Boss snarled down and beckoned for her and the others to walk down the aisle up to the witness stand, which was just big enough for the five stools behind it.

Murmurs and growls filled the vaulted room as they walked down the hall. Jack, Bailey, and Sierra kept their heads high while Robin and Liam chose to look away. Robin stared at the wall with a blank expression on his face while Liam admired his own boots, muttering, “I can’t believe I’m going to court. Me, member of one of the most prestigious colony families on New Earth!”

“All rise,” the Boss Apex said once the defendants had sat down. They were forced to stand up again by an electric shock on their stools that was prompted by one of the two, remote-wielding guards that flanked the stand. “So…” the Boss sneered, all officialness vanishing from his tone. Jack shivered, realizing that this was not a trial. It was an interrogation. “I have called all of you here to witness the sentencing of these prisoners.” The Boss turned to the five defendants and informed them, “You are here on charges of trespassing on Apex territory without our consent and smuggling a fragment of the Light Weapon out of our cavern, hoping to keep us from using it to build our ray. These attempts were all unsuccessful, I assure you.” Does he mean the Sun? “The question is, do you plead guilty or not guilty to your crimes?” At these words, the courtroom erupted into a menagerie of howls and bellows. Several Apexes thumped their back paws on the floor enthusiastically. Jack shivered and forced herself to turn back and face the Boss.

“What do we plead?” Liam whispered, turning to look at them. Jack looked into his eye and wondered if it was the last time she’d ever see him. Or anybody else. What if we don’t come home? What if I never see Dana or Dad anymore? She gripped the edge of the stand so hard that her knuckles flushed white.

“We plead not guilty, of course,” Bailey scoffed, setting her helmet on the stand and running her fingers through her hair. “Pleading guilty is just asking for a merciful sentence, which they won’t give us. But we can fight this.”

“I have six months of training at law school. I’ll take this case.”

“Li, we do this together,” Robin said firmly, swiveling his stool from side to side. “Together or not at all.”

“Enough talking. What is your plea?” the Boss Apex called down to them. He arched his back and peered at each of their faces, a bead of drool sliding down a fang and dropping off to the ground. Jack cringed and looked up into his milky eyes.

“We plead not guilty,” Sierra said for them. She folded her legs to make herself seem taller and glared at him with a coolness that Jack was glad to see, especially considering her previous mood.

“Very well. Bring in the guards!” There was another round of jeers and howls that was quieted down by a thump of the Boss Apex’s back leg. Jack felt another shock sting at her legs; she jumped off and turned just in time to see the courtroom doors burst open.

The three guards who’d loaded them off the plane strode in, one walking on all six paws, the other two standing upright. The courtroom audience watched, some eerily quiet, some taking notes on the strange devices, others openingly calling out to them. Jack caught a few repeated sentences, such as “W’vel pas!” and “Mal troton pas qunnke!”, but everything else seemed like distorted chatter.

“Hi,” she greeted nervously as the third guard stood right in front of her, blocking any escape from the witness stand. The Apex grunted and leaned forward, forcing Jack to return to her stool and swivel around to face the Boss Apex.

“I call upon…” he began, glancing at his papers and then looking back at the five of them with a gruesome frown. “...the tall, skinny human to testify first.” Jack looked down at her gut self-consciously, as did the others, before the Boss Apex clarified, “The male with the black fur.”

Robin stood up, folding his hands in front of him and doing his best to seem professional. He stared at the wall behind the Boss Apex’s head, lip trembling from nervousness. Whatever story he tells, we follow, Bailey mouthed at Jack and the others while the attention was drawn away from them. They nodded and turned back to watch the Boss.

“What is your name?”

“Ronin Amundsen.” Ronin? Jack thought, tapping her fingernails on the edge of the stand.

“And your companions’ names are…?”

“Uh, Bella Katadolo, Logan Griffiths, Sammy Amundsen, and Josephine Amundsen,” he stammered, trying to make the answers sound natural. Josephine? Logan? Where’d he get these names from, a 2010s baby book? Jack bit her lip and did her best to straighten up when Robin said her “name”.

“So, Ronin, tell me, are you new to this area? Perhaps unaware that this is Apex territory and not human territory?” the Boss Apex asked, his middle limbs gripping the sides of the bench and his front ones folded across his chest. Jack could smell his foul breath from where she was sitting.

“We lived close by and were just going out for a drive when our readers picked up on the cave. We just wanted to explore it, that’s all,” Robin said firmly, his gaze never straying from the wall.

“So you had no knowledge of our colony previously? Before you encountered the scouts I sent out?” He smacked the top of the bench with one paw, which made Robin wince. The other Apexes in the courtroom howled with laughter but quieted down after a scathing sweep of the room from their leader.

“No, I promise you.” Robin’s upper lip twitched again, though his gaze was steady. “We didn’t even know there was a colony until you knocked us out and put us on the plane.” Jack’s brother switched tactics, saying, “If you let us go, we’ll be on our way. No harm done.”

“Really? Because that’s not what he said,” the Boss Apex rasped. There was a collective hiss as the courtroom doors opened again, this time admitting a human. Oh no…

Doctor Alpin stood at the threshold, arms pinned behind his back. His face was severely bruised; one eye was swollen shut and a bead of blood trickled down his forehead from the top of his head. An Apex guarded the exit, one, huge paw forcing the man into a crouch. Connor’s dad stared at the five defendants with terror and anger both flashing across his face. That’s how he knew about the Apexes. The ‘truth’ that he warned us about. Jack resisted the urge to break past her guard, run over, and slap him.

“Our good friend John was helpful enough to inform us of your departure from his home. It took some...convincing, but we were able to get information out of him as to your whereabouts, Robert.” The Boss Apex snarled the last word and the courtroom audience murmured in quiet approval.

“Please! Let me go!” the man cried, struggling against his captor desperately. Nobody moved forward to help him. The Apex guard threw him to the carpeted floor and watched him squirm. Jack felt a twinge of pity and disgust simultaneously, but she brushed it out of her mind. This man betrayed us to the Apexes. Why?

“Not until you testify,” the Boss Apex told him, his voice echoing across the room. Jack flinched and watched the man’s reaction morph into one of strange resolve. “Come to the stand.”

Connor’s father walked up to the stand and eyed Jack and the others nervously. His hair was plastered to the side of his face and part of his ear had been twisted beyond recognition. He might be a mole for the Apexes, but he certainly put up a fight, Jack thought.

“Tell us everything you know about these...trespassers.” The Boss Apex curled his lip as he said the last word.

Doctor Alpin trembled there, standing to the right of the witness stand. He looked around for an exit but, finding none, began to tell his story. “Their real names are Robin, Jack, Sierra, Bailey, and Liam. They came by my house about a week ago looking for shelter and food. At first, they claimed to be schoolchildren who had been separated from their college classmates on a field trip. But then they confessed that they were coming here, to 186. I cast them out but not before they argued with me and broke some very expensive china of mine.” Jack cast a sidelong glance at Sierra, who ignored her. “The five of them also visited my son. Who knows what poisonous ideas about the solfects they’ve been spreading?”

At the word solfects, the courtroom erupted into angry roars. This time, the Boss Apex let the noise die down on its own, his eyes narrowed. “So you’re saying that these humans are lying?”

“Y—yes,” Connor’s dad stammered. He refused to look at the others now, who stood just a foot away to the left.

“Very well then. Take him away and discipline him well for being such a t’peton. I don’t know why I even try.” The Boss Apex’s lip curled again and he waved one of his six paws in the direction of the door.

As the Apex guard stepped forward to manhandle him away, Doctor Alpin whipped around to face the witness stand and blurted out, “I’m sorry, I really am. They’d hurt him—they’d hurt Connor if I didn’t tell the truth. And they know everything...” Gone was the cool countenance from their first meeting. He stared at them until Bailey nodded assent, then his face relaxed at what he thought was forgiveness. Jack watched as the Apex guard grabbed the man by both arms and wrenched him back painfully. The Apexes in the courtroom seethed and writhed in their seats as Connor’s dad was dragged back down the aisle, chin resting against his bloodstained shirt in a gesture of defeat. Then all was quiet.

There was a low rumble as the Boss Apex cleared his throat, drawing all attention back to the front of the courtroom. “Thank you.” He licked his snout and looked around, making sure that everyone was focused on him. “Jury, please rise with the sentence.” What? But we barely got to testify! Jack thought.

A tall Apex at the end of one of the jury rows stood and pronounced in a reedy voice, “The jury has reached a decision.” The entire room seemed to hold its breath in the silence between the announcement and the sentence. Jack’s heart felt like it was going to pound out of her chest. “We pronounce the five defendants guilty of all charges and sentence them to death by toxic gas in exactly two days!”

A tidal wave of noise crashed over the room, pulling everyone in it down into its depths. Jack felt as if she was paralyzed like her mom; she tried to lift an arm in protest but all she could do was stare straight ahead and listen to the beating of her heart slow down. No, no, no…

Suddenly, Jack felt her legs moving of her own accord. Though the stool tried to shock her, she kicked it back and stood up, slamming her palms down on the stand. “No!” Jack screamed at the bench, rage coursing through her veins. She could hear the shouts and pleas of her companions, but she ignored them. “You will not—” A slimy hand clamped over her mouth, interrupting her cry. Jack struggled against its grasp, but the Apex was too strong. She saw the other two guards grab Sierra, Robin, Liam, and Bailey. Liam actually broke free from his guard and ran for the door, but was tripped by another Apex at the end of one of the pews and tumbled to the floor. He lay there bleeding until the guard, carrying Sierra under one arm, went to recover him. It can’t end like this. There’s got to be a way out! Jack could feel her strength leaving her as she lashed out at the Apex’s knees, digging the toes of her boots into the edge of the carpet.

“Jack,” Robin called weakly as she was carted off, leading the procession. He let his head drop and eyed the Apexes who watched him on either side, looking them in their milky eyes until they glanced away, ashamed, or spat at him. Gotta fight...can’t let them win, Jack thought, but her feet left the ground as the Apex picked her up. Black spots danced in her eyes and dizziness overwhelmed her; she let herself go limp in the creature’s arms. It was over. Jack closed her eyes and let the world slip away.