"No, sir." Malcolm's voice was as civil and as final as a death sentence. "I don't have any comment to make on whether Captain Archer was still harbouring resentment against the Vulcans when he ordered the boarding party. I can only comment on his actions, which were those of an honourable and compassionate officer attempting to rescue a ship in distress belonging to one of Earth's allies, at extreme personal risk to himself."
His attorney sighed almost inaudibly, which the Englishman noted with satisfaction. With any luck he was finally coming around to the realisation that not today, not tomorrow, and not on any day ending with a Y would Lieutenant Malcolm Reed be improving his chances of surviving a court martial by attempting to shift any of his 'guilt' onto his commanding officer. Although naturally aware of the infamous 'Prisoner's Dilemma', which listed the options and outcomes for betrayal or co-operation and theorised that the former offered a greater reward than the latter, he had stated from the outset – and still maintained – his refusal to believe that the captain would betray him, and therefore there was no way he would even consider betraying the captain.
They'd gone over the evidence presented to the Starfleet inquiry, which had included his own recorded logs as a Head of Department. Malcolm could with the clearest of consciences state that he had nothing to question and nothing to add. He had recorded events as plainly and honestly as he could, and despite having had more than enough time to think up several billion additions and deletions he could have made if he'd given his imagination free rein, he was happy with what he'd said.
'Fiat justitia, ruat cælum.' 'Let justice be done, though the heavens should fall.' It was a Latin tag he was fond of. He regretted nothing he'd done aboard Seleya, though he still wished it was possible to get some certainty over whether or not somebody (either himself or T'Pol) had made a mistake over the sequence of the actuator circuits. He was as certain as he could be that he'd placed them exactly as she'd told him to, but then he wasn't vain enough to think he was incapable of making a mistake, however much he deplored the possibility.
The sigh, however, was not an admission of resignation but merely the first gust of a hurricane heading directly for him. Next moment it burst directly over him.
"Lieutenant Reed, as your defense attorney appointed by my office I have a duty to try to do everything in my power to persuade the judge at the hearing to dismiss the case, or if worse comes to worst, to defend you if it comes to a trial.
"Having studied the files, I'll tell you frankly that in my opinion the argument that you, a scrupulous, by-the-book officer, failed to exercise due care when following the orders of a senior officer is ludicrous. All the evidence I've been able to gather says that if anyone would follow orders exactly, it's you.
"How on earth could the prosecution prove 'failure to exercise due care'? You were on a foreign nation's ship, handling unfamiliar technologies and instruments in a foreign language while the crew of that same ship have become murderously insane, incapable of reason, and are trying to kill the people who are trying to rescue them. What motive would you have? None. You try to do your best at everything. Obsessively so."
Malcolm was still trying desperately to think of some way to discredit himself when the attorney continued. "Captain Archer, on the other hand is depicted in these files as more of an independent operator with a big ego. He doesn't pay nearly enough attention to the advice of his senior staff; if there's a clash of opinion he thinks he's in the right. He has to be, he's the son of Henry Archer, the inventor of the Warp 5 engine. And he knows that it was the Vulcans who held his father's engine back for so long his father never got to see it fly.
"So, it could be argued that Archer did have a motive."
The lieutenant felt as if he were choking. Some of it was rage at what felt like egregious disrespect to the captain he served, but some of it was the clamour of honesty demanding recognition of the truth. How could he refute the unpalatable facts when he heard them flung at him?
"I applaud your loyalty to him, Lieutenant. In a lot of ways, it's admirable. But your and your fellow-officers' blind loyalty damn near cost the mission when you were too reluctant to challenge his behavior over the Xindi Insectoid hatchlings. Now, I don't want to be the officer on watch when you flush your career down the toilet for the same cause."
His attorney slowed his breathing, narrowed his eyes, his face losing all emotion, and leaned towards him. If the table between them hadn't been too wide to permit it, he would have been right in Malcolm's face.
In a voice as cold as ice, and as hard as steel, he ground out, "Lieutenant, let me explain this procedure to you in no uncertain terms, so that even you, with your British stiff upper lip, can understand it. Your Captain's attorney is right now explaining the facts of life to him: that his career, his freedom, his reputation, and everything he has worked for his entire life are about to be destroyed by the actions one of his officers. You, Lieutenant. Do you think he's going to give a shit about you when he's about to lose everything he's ever worked for? He's the son of Henry Archer! Not only would a conviction on these charges destroy his reputation, but by association, it would taint and disgrace his deceased father's.
"If you think for a second that Archer would not sacrifice you to save his father's name and reputation, then you're delusional. This has nothing to do with honor or compassion, this is all about the Vulcans finding a scapegoat to butcher for the death of the Seleya's crew, and to appease the families of those dead crew members, whether it be you or Archer. This has nothing to do with justice and honor. This is all about vengeance.
"This is a gun fight, and you want me to bring a knife to it. If you can't figure that out, then maybe you need different counsel."
Years of Section training enabled Malcolm to hold that menacing stare without flinching, but behind his unmoved front, he felt as if he'd opened his eyes to find himself standing on the lip of a crevasse. His pulse, that had been steady enough before, was suddenly thumping with adrenaline.
Time was when he'd have treated Hicks' dire warnings with the scorn they would have deserved, but that was before … out there. Before intolerable pressure had changed Archer into a very different man from the Boy Scout explorer who'd taken Enterprise out on her maiden voyage of discovery.
Pressure and heat transforms carbon into diamond. The demands of surviving the Expanse and finding the Weapon had transformed Jonathan Archer too, or maybe they'd just stripped away some of the camouflage from his flaws.
Even now, Malcolm wanted to believe that on his own account, the captain would refuse to offer up his officer to save himself – though he was far from as sure of it as he'd once been. But he realised with a shock of fear and self-disgust that he'd simply never even thought about the ramifications of a successful conviction on Henry Archer's reputation.
It was common knowledge throughout Starfleet that from boyhood, Archer's father had been his own private god. According to Trip, almost the whole basis of his resentment against the Vulcans was that their lack of co-operation had meant that Henry Archer had never got to see his Warp 5 engine move off the drawing boards and into a starship. It had certainly explained the way he'd behaved towards T'Pol when she first came on board, though in fairness her arrogance and barely-veiled insolence to start with would have antagonised a saint.
If, somehow, by some cruel turn of fate, the son was convicted of a crime he hadn't committed, it wouldn't only be his reputation that was ruined. The shame would spread to his father. And that, Jonathan Archer would never allow.
Honour and loyalty were the twin gods of the Reed household; Malcolm had been brought up to regard them as the lodestones of his life. So it took the merest step of the imagination to perceive that the captain's god was just as demanding a deity. With the cold horror of certainty he realised that whatever regret there might be over the fate of the sacrificial victim, there would be no hesitation in bringing the knife down if he was the offering required.
It was plain that however little his expression might have given away, his shocked silence had told Hicks the blows had punched straight through his defences – just as they had been intended to do. But for those timely and well-chosen words, he'd have buckled on his plate armour, mounted his white steed, levelled his lance and ridden straight into the teeth of a full spread of photon torpedoes in the courtroom.
"I have some more meetings to attend this afternoon," the attorney said, gathering up his things. "I'll be back tomorrow morning, if you decide you still want me to represent you. I hope in the meantime you'll think about what I've said."
Malcolm roused from his paralysis. "Thank you, sir," he responded. It was beyond him to put any warmth into the words; right now he felt as if the lifeline he'd been clinging to since this whole nightmare began had suddenly manifested itself as the anchor chain of the Titanic. But the other man's gaze had changed subtly. It was still hard, but there was a hint of understanding and even approval there. At a guess, he was relieved the crazy Brit had finally decided to wake up and smell the roses.
The interview being terminated, the inevitable guard approached to hood him for return to his cage. As the linen dropped over his head, Malcolm almost welcomed it blocking from his sight a world that was about to make him an apostate.
Loyalty was his god.
But if all the faith he'd accumulated over the past three years had been misplaced after all, it would not save him from Jonathan Archer.