Mera Dur-Sjet hung her head in shame as she took her place at the defendant's podium. No one remarked her sullen pose- it was expected of one in her position.
The shame was not for her own deeds. I did not fire that shot, she thought once more, but spoke not a word of her mind. A final protest of innocence could hardly make a difference now. Not now, after the court-martial had pronounced its verdict- accepted as fact the craven lie that had brought her to this courtroom. Her shame was not for her own deeds, but for the uniform she wore. The formal dress reds that had made her so proud but a few months past now weighed down her shoulders like a burial shroud- the royal blue sash across her breast threatened to smother her. She had been betrayed by everything she thought she stood for.
The battle played over and over in her head. She sat in the cramped gunner's seat of PEH-221, a Hammer-class heavy corvette named Ran Kaalel, pummeling raider fighters and corvettes with shot after shot in desperate defense of a trade convoy from the Frerrn Aggregate. Behind her sat Lieutenant Commander Salin Kuurin-Sjet, flight lead of the 100th Starborne off the Kiith Sjet carrier Jaka-Muir. Mera let out a victory whoop as she dispatched a Brigand, tearing through the missile corvette's engine housing with a globe of fusion plasma, watching it lose control and spin apart in a thousand different directions at once...
They came about, engines redlined, racing back toward the convoy to intercept the handful of raiders that slipped through their defensive wall. There was one dead ahead, just out of range- a Thief-class ship, belly full of murderous pirates, angling towards one of the transports...
"Guns, kill that bastard!"
She had no shot. They were just coming into range, but the enemy was too close to that transport, heading around its far side. If she fired...
"Negative! It's no good!"
"Engage the enemy, Lieutenant- that's an order!"
"Sir, I've got no shot!"
Everything slowed. She tried to slew the guns, seek another target that she could hit- that she could kill. The controls refused her input- a red indicator flashed above her console: Command System Override. Salin! He'd taken control of the guns! The reticule locked; Mera saw the power readings, felt the ship lurch as the massive energy cannons discharged, watched two incandescent orbs streak away...
The enemy corvette disappeared behind the transport, just as she'd known it would. Ran Kaalel's ordinance, unthinking and unfeeling, homed in on its target with grim purpose... kept seeking that vanished enemy until the moment both shots impacted the side of the freighter. Two balls of plasma, hotter than the heart of a star, contained only by a magnetic field... they bored deep into the unarmored civilian vessel to detonate in its heart.
Hull plating shattered; structural members twisted and sheared. The alien ship split in two, its fore section spinning lazily away, aft accelerating into the dark between the stars, out of control...
A long, horrible silence filled the cockpit of the Ran Kaalel. The enemy corvette, denied its prize, spun back toward the Kushan craft that had killed what it was meant to defend... spun, and fired. Railgun slugs flew past, bracketing them, spread but tightening with every volley. The Override light still flashed above Mera's console.
"Sir!"
The guns were silent, their course straight and steady.
"Sir! Salin! We have to-"
The ship heaved beneath her as the enemy's weapons finally found their mark. Warnings blazed across her status displays, but the Hammer-class were tough birds- legendary for their thick armor, oversized turrets, and "novaburst" shells that could shred an entire formation of fighters with one volley... which made no difference at all if the man controlling them wouldn't let her return fire. Mera slammed a fist into the arm of her chair as another impact, then another rocked their little ship. Still, Salin didn't fire. Didn't maneuver. Some part of Mera's consciousness knew what was happening- his mind had gone, shut down, refused to accept the horrible truth of what he'd just done. And now it was going to get them both killed.
System after system flashed red and went dark. Mera tried again and again to regain control of at least the guns, but he'd locked her out and she didn't know his codes. There was one thing- only one- that she could still do: she whispered a prayer to the Martyrs of Kharak and yanked the ejection handle.
She saved her commanding officer's life when he'd frozen in shock, and he'd repaid her by accusing her of firing the fatal shot that killed twelve innocent people. The Ran Kaalel's data recorder was destroyed when an enemy shell struck the ejected cockpit pod- there was no evidence to prove what truly happened that day. She had only the truth- small comfort against the word of a senior officer whose combat record stretched back two decades. Easier for the Admiralty to believe that a barely-tested junior-grade Lieutenant, having seen only two battles in her short career, having had two ships shot from under her, had made the mistake.
And now they sat in judgment over her, wearing the same impeccably-kept scarlet jackets, same royal blue sashes... same circle-in-circle crest upon their shoulders. A crest that had meant so much to her once- which had been worn by the most ancient of thinkers and dreamers, by the scientists who'd charted the stars from the sands of the Great Desert, by the courageous young woman who'd defied an empire to save their very species from extinction and deliver them safely home...
It came to nothing. It was but a symbol. Symbols only have worth so long as those who bear them remember. Those were the words of a friend- a shipmate in better times, and in worse. A brother, as she had come to realize. Someone who would never have betrayed her as one of her own had done. Neither of her shipmates aboard the Daalis Manaan would have betrayed her, she knew- her old captain, Kalan Luus-Naabal, gave his life for her and for the rest of her squadron, taking their crippled, disarmed ship on a suicidal charge to give their reinforcements the targeting data they needed. He hadn't been alone. Pherd had been with him. Pherd Soban. Fitting that his words should come to her now.
She remembered those long patrols through the star-filled skies around a dim star called Knarvon- the conversations she'd had with Pherd and Kalan when their little Cavalier's entertainment unit wasn't working, as was so often the case on those temperamental old ships. She remembered asking Pherd about the Sobani- about how he'd come to deny Kiith and kin to join the Grey Brotherhood. A family tens of thousands strong, loyal to an idea- loyal to each other.
It was in the darkness of her cell, the night before the verdict, that her decision was made. It was not a difficult one. Not a Sjeti voice rose for her- not even her brother's. He hadn't even shown up for the trial. Faced with such betrayal,there was one thing- only one- that she could still do.
Admiral Ghiir-Sjet rose from his seat.
"Lieutenant Junior Mera Dur-Sjet," he said in his low, rumbling tone, "you have been found guilty of the charges brought against you. It is the judgment of this court-martial that you are not fit to serve."
Mera's head rose. For the first time, her eyes met those of her accusers, of the Admirals, of the audience in the court... she was neither broken nor ashamed. She met them with steel and fire, defiant and proud, jaw set and fists clenched.
"On this date, Landsday, the Fifth of the month of Sand, in the thirty-third year after our Landfall on Hiigara, you are hereby dishonorably discharged- stripped of rank and decoration, and of the uniform you have disgraced."
The MPs flanking her approached, but halted when Mera's hand whipped up, formed in the most ancient sign- made for the most sacred oaths a Kushan could give. It was the sign that Ifriit Tambuur-Sa made when he swore Pauura upon the Taiidani Imperium upon learning that his Kiith had been slaughtered while he slept. The sign that Mevath Sagald made when she presented the Guidestone in Tiir. The sign that Karan Sjet had made when she inaugurated the New Diamid in Asaam Kiith'Sid.
Mera stepped away from the podium, hand still raised, and turned to face the prosecutor's bench. Her cold gaze settled on her accuser- her commander, her betrayer. She leveled a finger at him with her other hand.
"Salin Kuurin-Sjet," she said, her voice pitched to reach the entire hall, "you have laid your own crimes at my feet. I name you traitor, and coward, and liar!" His face flushed red, but she was finished with him- now and forever. She turned back toward the Admirals as he sputtered and cursed behind her. She saw that she had their full attention- Admiral Ghiir-Sjet stood with his arms crossed, brow furrowed, attempting but not quite succeeding to appear as though he had expected her outburst. Mera's face twisted in rage- he was worse than Salin. This man had not even been willing to hear the witnesses she'd called to defend herself, claiming that because they testified only to her character and not to the events in question that their words meant nothing. Let him hear these words now, and may he choke on them! She swung her finger to point at him now, and in spite of his stern facade his eyes widened.
"You! You who have sat in judgment, hearing the truth but believing the lie, I name you fool."
"You have only yourself to blame!" He cried, indignant. "Do you now refuse to face justice?"
"On the blood of my ancestors, I did not fire that shot. I will find no justice in this court!" she spat back at him, then turned to the gallery and took a deep breath and bellowed to the heavens: "I will find no justice in this Kiith!"
On cue, six figures rose in the gallery. All wore impeccably-tailored charcoal grey uniforms with blood red sashes; the hilts of their sabres glistened on their hips. There could be no mistaking who they were- and now there could be no mistaking why they were here. Mera turned once again to face the Admirals as a collective gasp swept through the hall.
"I deny you," she intoned, using the ancient words, "I cast myself from you as a grain of sand upon the desert wind." There were easier ways. There were calmer words. Not everyone invoked the denial as had the First- it was an oath born of a fury second only to the vengeance of Pauura. The silence in the hall could have collapsed a star. The six grey-clad men and women descended from the gallery and filtered through the crowd, stepping over the cordon and shouldering past the MPs to stand three abreast on Mera's left and right.
"The crest I have worn festers on my shoulder," she continued, and as she said this her hand covered the Sjeti circles- and savagely tore them from her tunic. The patch fluttered to the tile floor, where she ground it beneath her foot- eyes never once leaving the Admirals' bench. Their faces were now a mixture of disbelief and horror; Ghiir-Sjet's jaw hung slack.
"The colors I have worn blacken my soul." She seized her royal blue sash with both hands and rent it apart, letting it fall in dangling tatters to hang from her belt. She tore open the flap of her tunic, sending its row of polished brass buttons skittering and clattering across the floor, and shrugged the past from her body with calculated contempt. Now clad only in her trousers and undershirt, she faced the court with a dignity that no uniform could have given her.
"There is no Kiith but that of the Spirit," she shouted with pride, at last, swelling back into her heart. "No family but those who are chosen!"
"As we now choose you," finished the tall, grey-clad woman beside her. She, too, wore an Admiral's insignia. She unfolded a small package from under her arm- it was a blood-red sash like her own, which she now laid over Mera's shoulder with the care of a parent for a child. "We name you Soban, and welcome you- as our sister." She raised her ashen-haired and deeply wrinkled head to lock eyes with the Sjeti admirals behind the bench. "Who would deny this?" There was no answer. There could be no answer. They knew who stood before them now- a veteran of the Exodus. A legend beyond reproach. The ashen-haired Admiral turned to Mera.
"Do you maintain your innocence of the charges laid against you?"
"I do."
The Admiral nodded. It was but a formality- all this had been decided days ago, the first time they'd met, when she and the Admiral and these five others beside her had chosen how to proceed. Two of them were from the 100th- Sobani officers on detached duty. They had testified to her version of events, based on their own observations of her behavior before and after the battle. Two were veterans, as she was, of the Battle of Knarvon. The last, Commander Hevaq Soban, had taken his oath on the same day as Pherd Soban, her friend and shipmate... and now her brother, in fact as well as in spirit. She imagined him smiling in approval from across the card table where she'd so often defeated him and the Skipper on their long patrols around that dim star, less than a year in the past but already a lifetime away.
"The Grey Brotherhood stands with its Sister," declared the Admiral. "She will leave in our company-" her hand came to rest on the hilt of her sabre- "or none of our company shall leave."
Waves of conflicting emotions flashed over Ghiir-Sjet's face. He was in an impossible position, and he knew it- Sjet and Soban had long been the closest of allies, but if he attempted to detain Mera, the Sobani officers who'd come to her aid would die rather than let her be taken. The security forces in the hall were probably enough to defeat half a dozen Sobani... probably. But the political fallout would be severe. The only thing fiercer than Sobani loyalty was Sobani vengeance- and there had not been overt violence between the clans since before Kharak burned.
"The Aggregate will demand answers," Ghiir-Sjet pleaded. "Justice must be done!"
"Then let it be done," said the Admiral, whose bony finger indicated Salin where he still sat, red-faced, beside the prosecutor. On the final word, she turned on her heel. The other Sobani circled Mera, protecting her as they marched slowly, deliberately, down the aisle and out of the Hall of Justice. Mera looked down at the blood-red sash draped across her breast, and for the first time in weeks, beneath haunted eyes, sunken and dark from exhaustion, she smiled.
