Disclaimer: Paramount owns Enterprise and everything connected with it, except Tia Anlor (Tee-ah' Ahn'-lor), who belongs to me and I'm not sharing. (G)
This is the 25th story in this series, the others being 'Casting Call', 'Golden Girl'; 'A Few Words'; 'Glistni'; 'Small Time'; 'Acquisition'; 'What Do I Do Now?'; 'For Want of Kilyiis'; 'Daasii'; 'Noblesse Oblige'; 'Roses and Thorny'; 'Time and Again', 'House of Cards', 'Starlight Maiden', 'Armageddon', 'Luuru', 'Cross and Crown', 'Pulsar', 'Face in the Dark Mirror', 'Time Stream', 'Treaty Violation', 'Humiliatum', 'Clara', 'Life Goes On' and 'Sufferance'. This story takes place the day after 'Sufferance'.
Later works will include 'Empress Sato', 'Extreme Prejudice', 'Fractured', 'Take the Clouds from your Eyes', 'Unification' and 'Two Golden Candles'.
Rating: G
"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft' interred with their bones." Marc Anthony – 'Julius Caesar'.
Court Martial of Hoshi Sato
By JMK758
Prologue
(From 'Sufferance')
Hoshi Sato enters the bridge, finding it unchanged yet alien. Things and people are exactly where they should be, but her apprehension lends an air of strangeness to everything. It feels like all eyes are on her as she crosses to her station. She glances at Ann Anderson manning the Situation Room, but the woman averts her eyes, then looks back guiltily, embarrassed at having done so. But though she tries to smile, it is lackluster at best. Hoshi is unpleasantly surprised to find Crewwoman Grace Winters, her Beta Shift relief officer, seated in her place. The blonde woman looks up. "Captain wants to see you."
Those five words drive an icy blade into her heart. She looks across the round bridge at the door to the Captain's private sanctum. She tries to stiffen up her courage. She'd know nothing until she went in, and maybe a miracle has happened and she has been forgiven.
She crosses the bridge in front of Travis, and the sympathetic look in his eyes is hard to bear. Instead, she tries to not notice if anyone else is watching.
The fear that had been her constant and unwelcome companion and tormentor over her first months on this ship has come out of hiding to ambush her.
She stops outside the door, trying to keep her finger from trembling as she reaches for the annunciation button. "Come." The voice coming out of the intercom is faint, but still too loud. She can not pretend not to have heard it. Pressing the other button, she steps through the sliding door, going down the three steps and keying the inner door.
She couldn't come further in as the door slid shut half an inch behind her back. Jonathan Archer is seated exactly where she'd left him only a little more than an hour before. He holds a thin square data module in his hand. She tries not to read anything into the fact that it is black.
He sets it down and looks at her, his expression grim. "You're Relieved of Duty."
x
Hoshi opens her mouth. She wants so say something. Anything. She tries so hard but nothing comes out.
He stands up, as if he can not sit still either. "I'm sorry. By Starfleet Order, you are confined to the brig pending Special Court Martial."
She tries to speak. To plead. To … to … anything. He comes around the desk, taking her arm gently and turning her toward the door. She needs his help getting out of the room. He escorts her onto the bridge, and she prays she can wake up.
"Your attention please." Archer says, grasping everyone's attention. They look at their Commanding Officer, mildly surprised to see him gripping Hoshi Sato's arm. His next words transform their surprise into shock. "Per Starfleet orders this date, Hoshi Sato is hereby Relieved of Duty as Ensign in charge of Communications for this ship. She is remanded to the custody of ship's Security and ordered to be held in the brig pending Special Court Martial. Hearing is to convene at 1500 hours today. Lt Reed?"
The Tactical Officer / Chief of Security looks at the pair, unable to believe what his Captain has just said. "Sir?"
"You will escort the prisoner to the brig immediately, and leave her under guard."
"Yes, sir." Reed replies, monumental disbelief in his tone. It all seems too familiar. It had been a little more than a week since he had taken Mary Tigat, from his own Security Division, off the bridge. He comes around his station, taking Hoshi's arm, waiting for Archer to say 'just kidding'.
But there is no such reprieve.
x
Hoshi feels like she is moving through a nightmare, her body unresponsive; her mind unable to function, unable to deal with the surreal scene. She is under arrest. She is really under arrest. She is about to be pulled off the bridge in disgrace and locked in a cell!
This can't really be happening.
It can't!
Reed's gentle tug on her arm gets her legs moving, but her mind works no more for her than does her body. She keeps hearing her thoughts repeat over and over in her head; 'Wake up. Wake up. Please, somebody – let me wake up!'
When Reed has to turn her around in the turbo lift, she sees her friends staring at her in varying degrees of shock. It is on that tableau that the door closes.
Chapter One
In Durance Vile
Hoshi Sato sits alone in the brig, unable to stop trembling. She supposes she should be grateful to be alone, that former Crewwoman Mary Tigat had been transferred six days ago on rendezvous with the freighter 'Horizon', bound for Alpha Centauri. She did not want to see Tigat ever again, but part of her wanted company, if only to tell her that she is not alone, cast off in the universe.
She can not believe it. She is actually confined to the brig. She had been in this room more than once, but always on the other side of this door, always a respected officer performing her duties. She had never entered this cell, had never wanted to. She had avoided it almost as if she had not wanted to tempt fate.
And now she is here.
She sits on her bunk, the only soft surface in the entire room. The bulkhead is titanium and duraplast, the door transparent aluminum with irregularly placed holes in it for air and voice; everything is hard except for her bunk. She sits huddled on the bunk, her hands clasped before her, trying to stop trembling, trying to regain her control, trying not to cry.
For the fiftieth time she reviews the events that had forced her into this room, looking for an answer, looking for a reason, looking for something that would justify…
All right, she would be the first to admit that she had screwed up on Declan IV. She had been so humiliated, so outraged, so furious that she had gotten into Charles Tucker's face and said some hateful, furious things; things that, if not for the fact that she was a woman, he probably would have punched her in her jaw.
But he had not hit her. He would not have done so. Instead he had followed Regulations and had preferred Charges against her. Charges that were apparently so serious that they had gone even beyond the control of Captain Archer himself; so serious that they had to have been referred to Starfleet Command.
And now, for losing control of her temper, she is in the brig, about to be Court Martialed. In three hours! She is going to be tried, possibly be censured, possibly lose some status, possibly lose her rank; possibly lose her place on Enterprise.
Almost two years ago she would have done anything to get off this ship; to get away from the constant fear space travel inflicted upon her; to return to her life as a Teacher in Brazil. Now she wants nothing more than to stay.
Only one other time in her career had she been in this much trouble – and that time she had not been Court Martialed. Granted, she had received a Bad Conduct Discharge and had been thrown out of Starfleet, but she had not been Court Martialed.
Now she sits alone, completely alone, so alone that she could be the only one in the universe. Outside that outer door are over eighty of her friends; or so she had thought. Over eighty; and she is alone.
x
She tries to imagine how Mary Tigat had felt, sitting in the cell next to hers all these weeks. The entire crew had been angry with Tigat; Hoshi included. No one had come to visit; no one but Reverend McCabe; and she only because it was part of her duty. Tigat had sat here for hours, days, weeks, completely alone. No friends to visit. No one.
At least she is better off, Hoshi thinks. She knows when the axe is going to fall. In less than three hours they will be coming for her, to figuratively drag her down to the Mess Hall where her Court Martial is to be held, where she will face her fate; face her doom.
She tries to wonder if perhaps she would be exonerated, if they would be lenient, but she can not lie to herself. If it had been just Commander Tucker and the Captain, Jonathan Archer would find a more lenient solution to this problem. Some kind of punishment that would mollify the Commander, teach her the error of her ways, but not lead to anything 'fatal' to her Career.
But whatever the specific Charges were – and she does not even know them – Starfleet had ordered her confinement and the Court Martial.
She has no illusions of getting out of this.
x
She has been sitting here, alone, for about an hour. She had tried to keep her patience, to keep herself calm, but finally she can stand it no longer. "Guard?" She calls loudly. She had been sitting here alone for too long. If she was going to be tried in less than two hours, she has to speak to an Advocate – to someone. She has to plan her defense. "Guard?" She calls more loudly. She can not hear a thing through the door.
Standing up, she steps to the transparent aluminum 'door'. "Guard?" She calls louder still. "HEY!" She shouts. "Is anybody even out there?" Growing more frustrated, she took a deep breath and shouts "GUA-!" The door slid open and she bites the yell in half.
But it is actually surprise that silences her, for it is not a Security Officer coming in, but her closest friend, Ensign Elizabeth Cutler. She steps inside and, as the door slides shut behind her, she smiles teasingly at Hoshi. "Well, if I had known you were going to yell at me, I wouldn't have come." She half turns away.
"Please, don't go." She can't hold back a desperate tone, even though she knows her friend would not leave.
"Of course, hon." Liz says placatingly, sorry to have teased her, surprised to find Hoshi in such a state that she would even have considered it.
"You're the first person I've seen. I haven't even seen my Advocate, or even know who, if anyone; is assigned to me."
"You're kidding." Hoshi gives her a look that needs no words. "That's preposterous. I know we don't have a lawyer aboard, but really."
"That was the issue with Tigat. She wanted a trial, but there was no one to defend her. I never imagined I'd be following her."
x
Liz Cutler touches a control, and the door between them slides open. She steps in and hugs her friend. "Don't worry, hon," she whispers, "you'll get through this." She draws Hoshi to the bunk, and they both sit down.
"I don't know. I'm getting a bit scared."
"A bit?" Liz asks with a wry smile.
"All right." She admits. "I'm a lot scared. I really don't know why I'm here. I keep reviewing the incident, and I can't find anything that, in fairness, merits a Court Martial. Granted things didn't go well, but no matter how badly I screwed up on Declan IV, I really don't think I deserve this!"
"What exactly did you do?" Liz asks, seeking more information.
"I told you!"
"Everything?"
"Absolutely everything. And Tia must have given you the rest."
"Yeah, she did." She shakes her head in disbelief. "Damn, all that deserves is a fist in the mouth. Not a Court Martial. Hell, if you'd said it to me, I'd probably just deck you and be done with it."
"Thanks. But can you really picture Commander Tucker punching me?"
"Oh Yeah." She grins, knowing it was wildly outrageous but unable to resist digging her friend.
"You're a big fragging help."
"That's what I'm here for." Liz is unable to lose her supportive grin.
x
But then she looks around the Spartan room, her efforts to lighten her friend's mood evaporating. "I never imagined either of us being in here." She admits.
"Well, take a good look around." Hoshi says bitterly, slapping the wall behind her. "Real steel." She puts her head in her hands. "Real trouble."
"Hey." Liz says, putting her arm around Hoshi's shoulders, trying to keep her from sinking into depression. "Hang in there. You're tough. You'll beat this."
x
Hoshi picks up her head. "You know one thing I never realized about this place? The quiet. This place is totally soundproofed. I was yelling for the guard, I don't think he even heard me. I could scream my head off in here and no one would know. The guard could come in and rape me, and no one would ever know."
"The guard is Jim."
Hoshi bites her lip, embarrassed. She hadn't known it was Liz's boyfriend outside. "Sorry. My mouth is still getting me into trouble."
"Forget it. I imagine he never even thought of it." She pauses, then says brightly; "I could suggest it to him."
"No, thanks!"
"Seriously, it might relieve the boredom."
"I'm not bored."
"I wasn't talking about you. You know how dull that corridor out there is?"
Hoshi grins, grateful for the chance to. "Sure, you do that."
"Maybe I will." Liz replies with a smirk.
"Great. Now every time that door opens, I'm going to jump."
"If that's how you want to get your exercise. Personally, I-."
"Don't start." Liz laughs. "So, that's how you got in?"
"I threatened to cut him off." She explains lightly. Hoshi looks more closely at her, surprised.
"I didn't think you should … well …" Her voice trails off. This is really way too personal. Liz laughs.
"I'm pregnant, not dead. Besides; there are plenty of things an imaginative couple can do. And I assured him that if he didn't let me in, then for the next eight months 'imagination' was all he was going to get!"
x
"Hey, what if all this is some kind of alien plot to get you out of the way?" Liz speculates.
"Huh?"
"What if alien agents are influencing the officers? Just think of it a moment. You're away from your post. Grace Winters and Rich Malloy are now going to be working 12 hour shifts. What if whatever is supposed to happen happens at the 11th hour, while one of them is fatigued. You're not there to do your 'instant translate' thingy. They're not as good as you. What if one of them misses something ultra-important?"
Hoshi thinks about this. It is not as outrageous as it sounds, considering their past experiences. "But then why schedule the Court for 3 hours? What good would that do? Grace is just starting shift a little early; there's too little time for her to grow that fatigued before something happens. What if the trial exonerates me, or I get a message to someone – or you do? How would this help any aliens?"
"I don't know. Conspiracy theories I'm good at. Making sense of the logic holes – that's a lot harder."
Hoshi raises her hand, but Liz's grin stops her. "Thanks a lot. My neck is in the noose and you're making jokes."
"I'm sorry, hon." Liz commiserates, putting her hand on Hoshi's knee. "I really want to help, but I can't find any sense in this either."
"Your only problem is that you watch too much of those archaic 'X-files' of yours."
x
Hoshi's smile does not last long. "I remember I even pushed the envelope with Commander Tucker on Risa."
"Huh?" Liz asks, left behind by the sudden change in tracks.
"When Tia had finished her Luuru, and I wouldn't let him know anything for hours?" She reminds the woman. "I kept cutting off his calls, 'hanging up' on him. I know he hates that, but I thought I was just stringing him along for the best reasons; to build up his anticipation and appreciation. I wanted him to really appreciate the moment when he saw Tia after the change, in that red gown, at dinner at the Starlight. Tia told me later that they danced all night. But now, in retrospect, I think maybe he didn't see it that way." She leans closer to Liz, apprehension growing. "Do you think he's had it in for me all this time, and just now –?"
"No." Liz cuts her off definitely. "You know that's not true as much as I do. He's given you no indication he is anything other than grateful for all that we did for Tia – and you know he's not the kind of man that nurses a grudge. If he had been annoyed with you, he'd have told you to your face weeks ago."
"That's true." She admits, calming. "But then why am I in here?" She falls back against the wall with a sigh. "Why didn't he just knock my teeth out and be done with it?"
