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Chapter Fourteen

Courtroom Chaos Part One

Ap-Lau Stardate 2259.170

Lt. Nyota Uhura kept an even expression on her face as she walked in the middle of the throng. No one who spotted her would see her furious thoughts, nor would they notice the rage directed at Captain Kirk hidden in her mind. And mental shielding was one of the areas where she excelled.

She arrived at the entrance to the courtroom where the leader of the Karidian Acting Thrope was being put on trial for something. Nyota had to admit she was impressed. Admiral Samuels had organized it all in under three days, and several of those days had been spent waiting for several extra witnesses and letting Karidian's lawyer organize the defence.

The trial itself was a closed trial, with only a few dozen people allowed to watch and no members of the media were allowed any information at all. Nyota had used her status as a niece of an Admiral to get to be one of the few viewers. But even she would be banned if she was discovered passing information about the trial to anyone.

After showing her ID, she was directed to an assigned seat, and her breath caught when she spotted Spock in the front row beside his parents, McCoy, an elderly Vulcan with a shockingly concerned expression on his face, and two elderly humans in Admiral's dress uniforms.

Nyota followed Spock's gaze and her own expression darkened. In the witness section, whispering to a man in half of a face mask, was her. The woman who had stolen Spock from her. The woman considered the saviour of the Federation despite the fact that she was really nothing but a cheating slut (in multiple areas.) Captain Rosalind Kirk.

Nyota clenched her fists at the sight of her love looking at another woman. Then she noticed the look on Rose's face. She looked drawn and pale. Her hair was in a simple crown plait instead of a more elaborate hairstyle that would've been expected by her crew for a formal event like this one.

Musings and suspicions chased each other as the tribunal entered, being announced as Admiral Christopher Pike, one of the newest members of the Admiralty, Admiral Richard Barnett and Admiral Jonathan Archer, Starfleet's Chief of Staff.

Then the defendant was led in and introduced, his crimes announced by the bailiff.

"We are gathered here," bailiff Klyla announced in her heavy Andorian accent. "For the trial of Anton Karidian, who is accused of being Roderick Kodos, a.k.a Kodos the Executioner. (A ripple of gasps went through the crowd.) He is facing charges of genocide, overthrowing the lawful government of Tarsus IV, murder, torture, extortion, coercion, theft, and other crimes. What is the defendant's plea?"

Nyota was trying frantically to figure out what connection Rose could possibly have to Kodos as the defending lawyer, a civilian named Aiden Howell, entered an obvious plea of 'not guilty'. Then the prosecuting lawyer, Starfleet lieutenant Areel Shaw, began her opening statement.


Rose barely heard Shaw's speech, too busy going through her forth breathing exercise in the less than thirty-minutes since she'd taken her position on the witness stand. She felt Michael Sullivan shift beside her, and stiffened automatically as she lost her concentration. Sullivan had been one of those coerced into being a member of Kodos' guards, and Rose was furiously aware that he'd been the one to ID Kodos' body. And yet here they were.

Rose started as Tom nudged her arm. "You're up," he whispered in her ear. "Good luck."

She smoothed down her dress and made her way over to witness stand. Usually she would be indifferent, even welcoming to being the centre of attention but now. Not for this.

"Do you, Captain Rosalind Ophelia Kirk, swear to tell the truth, only the truth, and nothing but the truth, least the Four Deities strip your soul from the universe?" Klyla asked after checking Rose's religion to give her the correct oath. Rose nodded, murmuring her agreement before sitting down in the truth-detector. Handy things, these were.

Areel stood and moved to stand in front of her while the computer reeled off Rose's name, rank, and list of awards that she'd gained since starting the Academy. Usually, Rose felt rather smug that it was already a four-minute long list after only three years in the Academy and a year on active duty. But today she barely heard, let alone registered it.

"Ahem," Areel coughed into her fist. "Captain Kirk, please state your relationship to the defendant."

Rose heaved a sigh. "He ordered the murders of my family and I when I was thirteen," she explained, elaborating before Areel could reply. A wave of shocked reactions rippled through the audience, their heightened emotions increasing her headache.

"He was a scientist on the colony I was living on with my aunt and her family. I wouldn't have known anything about him, except he was known for being incredibly xenophobic. He lost his job after he attacked a Tellerite.

When the famine began, he blamed the non-humans for causing it. Later on, he led a coup to take over the colony after the fungus destroyed the majority of our harvest. Then he ordered anybody non-human in the colony, as well as anyone ill or over or under a certain age to be executed." Not once did the chair show anything but pure truth.

There were more gasps though these were all mostly common facts. Areel, knowing well how to play a crowd, stayed silent for a moment to let Rose's statement sink in.

"And what name do you know the defendant by?"

"Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV," Rose answered, voice harder than rock.

"I'm finished with this witness for the moment, Your Honours," Areel informed the judges. "But I reserve the right to recall her if necessary."

"Understood," Archer nodded. "Defence, you may proceed with questioning the witness."

Howell stood, making his way to the stand. He shifted uncomfortably and Rose felt a stab of pity for the man. He was a public defender who'd drawn the short straw. He wasn't going to win this case, and in fact he didn't want to, but after its' conclusion he would forever be known as the man who tried to help Kodos the Executioner escape justice. A no-win situation for the young man.

"Captain Kirk, what age were you when you met Governor Kodos?"

"As I said before," Rose replied in as mild a tone as she could manage. "I was thirteen."

"And, I imagine at the time you weren't in the best of health?"

"I hadn't eaten a proper meal in several weeks, so no I was not," Rose clenched her hands into fists on her lap.

Through the imzadi bonds, she could feel Spock and Bones trying to comfort her, though she didn't think Spock was consciously aware of doing so. It didn't feel like he was anyway. Bones on the other hand, was conscious of what he was doing, but wasn't particularly practiced about it.

"Did you meet Kodos multiple times?" Howell asked her, clearly trying to cast doubt on her testimony. It wouldn't work. Rose's reputation preceded her.


Roslyn felt her sharp nails dig into her palms as she watched her younger self answer Howell in a steady tone that hid the distress Roslyn knew she felt. Roslyn had never had the chance to testify against Kodos. But she'd still gotten justice for what had happened. What Roslyn had never admitted, was that she could have saved Kodos' life that day.

When Lenore had fired at her, and Kodos got in the way, there had been a split second when she could have grabbed him and pulled him out of the way of the blast. Roslyn would've been injured, but non-fatally. She'd done more in less time.

But memories of Tarsus had flashed threw her mind, she'd seen Kevin with the same panicked expression that he'd worn during the massacre, and in the end she had made the conscious decision to let him take the blast meant for her.

She felt guilty, not for letting him die, but because she still thought it was the right choice to make. "If Starfleet hadn't arrived early, Kodos might've been called a hero!" She sneered unconsciously at the memory. He hadn't regretted his actions, damn him. Four thousand people dead in one day, and another thousand in the weeks before and after the massacre. And he still thought he was justified in murdering them all.

The only regret Roslyn felt about Kodos' death was that he hadn't suffered enough for everything that he had done.

She felt blood begin to well up from the dents in her palms as her counterpart left the stand with a drained air, to be replaced by Melanie Thompson, who'd been coerced into giving Kodos medical attention once. She wasn't surprised by the order that Shaw was calling up the witnesses.

Rose was first, due to her already impressive reputation. Then Melanie, who'd seen Kodos up close. Then it would be Sullivan, who'd seen Kodos multiple times. Then it would be Sha're Trax, a hybrid Human-Andorian who'd been sixteen, and thus the oldest, when she escaped the massacre, though she'd joined a different group to Rose's.

Then the rest would simply be used to further reinforce the prosecution's point, though for some it might make it worse. Not all of the survivors had dealt with the trauma as well as Rose. But they would probably all be called. After all, the only evidence of Kodos was the eye-witnesses' accounts.

Still, with the current atmosphere towards genocide, Roslyn found it hard to believe that Kodos would escape the death sentence. Especially given Archer's presence on the judge's panel. She still remembered his look of pure, raw grief when Hoshi's death had been confirmed. It was a pain she hadn't understood until Gary's death. Gary's and her counterparts may not have been close in this universe, but they'd been close in hers. And he'd been one of the first crewmates lost when she was captain. Not that she had ever forgotten any of them.

"Rose." Bones leaned over to her and pulled her hands out of their position. "Stop, darlin'. That won't help you. That won't help anything."

She didn't reply, keeping her attention fixed on Melanie. The woman was tense and shaking as she dealt with Howell's examination. Unlike Rose, she was unused to attention, and was clearly on the brink of bursting into tears when the judges took pity on her and waved her off. But it seemed to have made the watching audience mostly sympathetic toward the Nine, all of whom were showing varying selves of trauma.

Roslyn was traumatized too. She just knew how to hide it better. Four Deities, when would this be over? She should've just murdered him.


A plan had formed in Nyota's slowly-disintegrating mind, somewhere between Rose being called to the stand and the court declaring a recess for the day. If she wanted to get Spock back, Nyota needed to get her Captain out of the way. Usually this would have been a hard task, but Rose was a mess right now, anybody could see it. So if Nyota caught her off guard, she could deal with her easily.

But she would need a distraction still. A way to lure Rose away from her ever-present shadows in the forms of McCoy and Spock. And someone to have Rose's murder blamed on, though Nyota didn't think she would ever be considered a suspect. The advantages of having an adoring uncle as an Admiral in the fleet were vast and numerous, and Nyota was confident her uncle would ensure she wasn't questioned heavily.

So. Nyota needed two accomplices, knowing or otherwise. Someone to serve as a distraction and get Spock and McCoy away from Rose's side, and someone to pin the blame of the captain's death on.

Nyota's eyes scanned the crowd, considering them all. She paused upon spotting the three CO's of the Enterprise speaking with the three people she'd noticed earlier. It was obvious from their body language that they were all close to Rose, and in the back of her mind Nyota decided she would use one of the elderly people as the distraction, just to upset Rose more. That just left the scapegoat. An alibi could be easily sorted out.

Nyota ran threw a list of possibilities as she made her way out of the building. None of the crew could be used of course. They were all blinded by Rose's pretty smile and lucky break with Nero. They all seemed to have forgotten how she'd obviously used her name to skate through the Academy without doing any work, and how she'd snuck aboard the ship and manipulated Spock into giving her command of the ship.

(Nyota stubbornly ignored the fact that Rose had been top of every class, and tutored quite a few other students, and that she had never once seen or heard of Rose using her name to gain an advantage. Nor did she let herself recall that Rose had collapsed just after the hearing and been taken aboard on a stretcher, or that Spock had been making unstable and illegal commands in the midst of his grief and broken bonds.)

As she walked across the courtyard, Nyota spotted a young blonde teenager throwing a fit and screaming loudly. "MY FATHER IS NOT A GENOCIDAL MANIAC! YOU SHOULD BE KISSING HIS BOOTS KIRK!" Nyota's lips curled into a satisfied smile and she changed her trajectory to hide behind a pillar with a perfect line of sight toward the teen.