"Behind the Iron Curtain
Behind the barbed-wire fence
What untold deeds of chivalry
Might spring to his defense?"
-- Gerry Dempsey, The Unknown War Criminal

*

A perfect and terrible silence fell upon the command center of ImpSec Komarr. Duv Galeni gripped the back of a station chair as he watched the holoprojection, eyes hard. The main projector showed a room, which contained a man and his captors.

"Should you choose to plead not guilty, Admiral Vorkosigan, you will be examined publicly on each of the charges under fast-penta," Lisa Dubauer continued with brisk efficiency. "If you are indeed innocent, you will be released."

"I see," the Count said. His face was stonelike. "This is not standard procedure in any civilized nation."

"Vorkosigan, you have proven your sworn word cannot be trusted in court – or anywhere else," Ser Obis said with a smile.

The Count drew in a breath. For a wild moment Laisa thought he might surge out of the chair he was bound to and throw himself at his tormentors, but he let the jibe pass without comment.

"You have the right to have the indictment read publicly if you wish to refresh your memory," Dubauer added. From the side look Obis gave her, he was not pleased by her offer.

"I am familiar with the allegations against me," Vorkosigan said, expressionless once more. "My answer to them is as it ever was."

"Is that all?" Ser Obis asked. He sounded almost disappointed.

"We'll enter that as not guilty, then." Dubauer said. Her eyes twinkled as she smiled down at Vorkosigan. "The procedure now is that Mr. Albescu will establish the facts as you know them in regard to the various charges. Ms. Khatabi will then take over and inquire into your motivations and possible mitigating circumstances. Myself and my fellow justices Ser Moretti and Ser Obis may also ask you any question we see fit. When the interrogation is concluded, you will have the chance to make a statement in your own defense, Mr. Albescu will also make a statement, and we'll proceed to sentencing."

Galeni looked grim. "He'll be a dead man in any case. Damned by his own mouth."

Laisa blinked. "But Duv, if he didn't do it… We're not going to shoot him, surely?"

"You weren't on the front lines during the Komarr Revolt," Galeni said. His voice was quiet enough that she was sure none of his subordinates caught his words. "I was."

It took a few moments for the implications of that to sink in. There was only one side a teenage Komarran could have been fighting on. Her eyes widened.

"The man ran a brutal military dictatorship for sixteen years. There are fifty-one charges on that list, and I guarantee you he is guilty of at least one of them." He looked pensive. "And surely more besides."

"But Duv, you're not…" she looked from him to the ringleader Moretti and back, shocked.

On the vid, Albescu was returning with a hypospray. "Shh," Galeni said.

"I have one request," Vorkosigan said quietly. "It is my wish that my wife Cordelia be present as my advocate during this...examination."

Dubauer frowned "Is she legally trained? If so, I don't see an issue..." She looked to Ser Moretti, who shook his head.

"We'll have to deny that. Go on, Mr. Albescu."

The Count's eyes followed the prosecutor as he walked closer with the hypospray. His shoulders tensed unwillingly. "I do not consent to this," he growled at Albescu, who smiled and pressed the hypospray home.

Vorkosigan's chin jerked up at its kiss, though he did not flinch away. A faint, odd smile flitted across his features as he looked at Albescu, vanished in snarling rage, and then reappeared. His brow furrowed deeply and he squinted his eyes shut.

"…didn't kill your wife, Moretti," he slurred, before slumping forward, When his eyes opened again, the spark behind them was gone.

"Please state your name and occupation for the record," Albescu began.

Vorkosigan's head rose, and he blinked at Albescu as if surprised to see him. "Aral. Viceroy."

The prosecutor sounded irritated. "Your full name."

"It's from my grandfather, you know. His was Xav Aral."

"He's not quite under yet," Duv whispered to Laisa. "But not allergic. I was almost hoping…"

"You are Admiral Viceroy Count Aral Vorkosigan, the Butcher of Komarr?" Albescu prompted.

"They don't call me that to my face," Vorkosigan breathed. A leering smile slowly crept across his features, giving him an animalistic look. "Can I help you?"

"Please briefly describe your military career to the court."

"I was the third man to take oath from Ezar Vorbarra," the Count began. Despite the fast-penta veil of calm, his sentences were scattershot and disconnected. "It started there, knowing war. My officer's oath was years later. Space duty, of course, until I went on staff. Komarr. Ezar broke me down to Captain after. He was saving me for Escobar, that hell. And then I was in command, until I could hand it off to Gregor, which only truly happened after Vervain. It was too important for him to know what war cost."

Albescu looked down at his notes. "How did you come to be in charge of the Komarr invasion?"

"I was the right generation, the right blood, and I knew my stuff," Vorkosigan said frankly. "It couldn't have been an older man for obvious reasons, and nobody doubted my bloodright to lead. I'd spent years in Komarr, commerce-raiding from our wormhole on Cetagandan shipping. Kanzian liked my plan, besides, and everyone listened to Kanzian even if he was common. Greatest space strategist never to have commanded a fleet in battle." He snorted. "Too old, still. We could have hit them sooner but there was a reason Ezar waited."

"Explain what part you took in planning the war of aggression against Komarr," Albescu said.

"Aggression!" Vorkosigan exclaimed. He sputtered a giggling laugh. "We never made peace with Cetaganda, and Komarr recognized the occupation as our government. The planet made its choice, back in the day. Reaped the whirlwind, true, but we were gentle."

Albescu was saying something, but his words failed to derail the Count from his train of thought. "A proportional response would have been to kill everybody on the planet and freeze them to kill them again later," he continued. "Five million slaughtered, and maybe as many quietly starved and vanished… all of your lives would not have been enough to recoup our dead. Smash the mirror, sterilize the ground like Vashnoi..."

Moretti's lip twisted in contempt. Vorkosigan's voice rose, dreamlike. "You do not know the blood we spilled. You do not know, you do not… I was a young man. I did not remember it. The old men would have destroyed you utterly for your treason. Ezar knew that well." His eyes focused, suddenly. "It was all the same war."

"So your justification for the illegal invasion is that…you thought we were the Cetagandans?" Albescu asked, his voice laced with contempt. "Komarr was the innocent party. We never harmed you."

"That's not true. Not true. You were a fucking allied satrapy, is what it came down to." Vorkosigan replied with slurred cheer. "They knew Komarr could be bought, but Barrayar never could. You didn't have the guts to fight them, so you sold your soul in secret. Obis knows that if no-one else does, he's taken enough money from their intelligence directorates."

"He's raving." Obis said, sounding bored. "Please keep him on topic, Mr. Albescu."

"Another few generations and they'd have given you a Greek letter..."

"None of them have any idea how to run an interrogation," Galeni sighed. "I suppose that's a good thing." He looked up as one of his officers approached him.

"Sir," Captain Thibault said, "we've got the orbital tightbeam working and Admiral Lord Vorventa wants to speak with General Rathjens."

"I'll take this call, Captain," Laisa put in.

Galeni's eyebrows rose. "Very good, milady." After giving her an unreadable look he turned his attention back to the interrogation. Laisa stepped inside the secure comconsole alcove and activated the security cone.

"Report, Admiral," she said. Lord Philippe Vorventa was French, a younger brother of the current Count, and more than middle aged. His responsibility, if she remembered correctly, was the command of mobile space forces in the Komarr system.

"Empress," he said, looking surprised. He gave her a seated bow, the respect of a Vor lord to a lady, not of a subordinate to a superior. "I had hoped to speak with an officer."

She'd mentally rehearsed this in advance. "The Emperor has been incapacitated. By the will of the Counts and the Ministers, I now have responsibility for the Imperium in my son's name."

"I see," he said. "Milady, I need to speak with the general in command. Allowing this humiliation of Admiral Vorkosigan – please be advised that the space forces will not tolerate it. This must be stopped, and it must be stopped now."

"I am in command," she said, "and my generals follow me, as their oaths require." She hoped this wasn't bluster. Between the Barrayaran distrust of anything female or Komarran, and Duv's shocking connection to the Resistance, who dared she trust? "As soon as we can be sure of extracting the Emperor alive, we will move in."

"How long will that be, milady? Hours? Days?" His stare at her intensified, frustrated. "This stalling is not acceptable. If the ground commander is incapable of doing his job, so help me I will send my marines."

"Who holds your oath, Vor lord?" she snapped. "If you feel it is Vorkosigan rather than Vorbarra, you may consider yourself relieved of command effective immediately."

Vorventa backpedaled. "I did not mean…"

She raised her chin. "I would hope not. The ground situation is not your concern, Admiral. Please apprise me of the situation in orbit. Have you cut off escape for these terrorists?"

He looked at her more warily. "We've disabled and captured their mothership. It's a solo mercenary vessel with no apparent current affiliation. Initial interrogations have indicated they expected to receive hostages and trade most of them away in exchange for escaping with Admiral Vorkosigan."

She frowned. "So something went wrong with their plan? Were they all Komarrans?"

"No, just hireling scum." His eyes went dark. "We'll find who they were really working for."

"How did this ship get into our system, Admiral?"

The admiral looked strained. "We don't search every vessel, Milady, or even most. There are lists of banned and suspect ships, but this vessel wasn't on it. Because we let foreign trade fleets in, we're often obliged to let their armed escorts in, and a certain number of armed private groups have negotiated passage. This ship was on the cleared list, and has gone through Komarr at least eight times over the past ten years with no issues. It's a small vessel, you must understand."

"Do the people on the ground know that you've taken their ship?"

"No. We hit them just after their jamming went up." Vorventa smiled tightly.

"Good," Laisa said. She stared at him a moment longer, wondering what to say. "If there is nothing else?"

"Ah," he said. "I would like to speak to—"

"My generals are busy doing their duty. Goodbye, Admiral." Vor twit, she thought, turning off her end of the transmission.

"Captain Thibault," she said, emerging from the alcove, "please compare notes with Galactic Affairs in orbit and see if they can tell us anything more about the situation. If you can get a satellite relay set up to the field command post or the military bases in town, have someone do that too."

"Yes, milady," he said, glancing again at Duv. The commodore gave no sign of approval or disapproval, staring at the holovid.

"They're almost to Solstice," he said to her distantly.

"Oh," she said.

"What did Vorventa want?"

"He's twitchy and wants to send in his marines."

"God, just what we need right now." He looked even gloomier.

"Nobody wants Komarr for Komarr. Awful little planet." Count Vorkosigan was muttering. His accent was stronger now, his voice more slurred. "Ezar would have been perfectly happy to take the wormhole, blockade the orbitals and let the world work its own damnation. Wouldn't have taken long. I did mention that to Miss Rebecca and her little committee, when we were working out terms. It hastened things along admirably."

"Miss…Rebecca?" Albescu looked a little baffled.

"Counsellor Galen, I suppose. It's so very distracting about galactics. All their forty-year-olds look like young misses and it's hard to take them seriously." He looked blearily meditative. "Galen impressed me as a negotiator. Scheming opportunist of course, they all were, but clearly brilliant nonetheless. The nephew's not quite as bright, but salvageable."

"Your negotiations were primarily with Counsellor Galen?"

"My dear man, you can't do anything on Komarr without going through five committees. Even when dictating terms, as I found. It was immensely annoying."

Albescu's teeth bared slightly. "What orders were you given in regards to the treatment of the Komarran government?"

"Oh, lots." A slurred laugh, "God, the orders. Ezar wanted them out of the way if they wouldn't submit."

A sick feeling rose in Laisa's stomach, as Moretti leaned forward in sudden, total focus. Galeni's expression was peculiarly frozen.

"The primary concern was that they'd go to ground and foment guerrilla war. I never thought that was likely. At best they'd pay someone else to do it, from Old Earth, while sipping colorful tropical drinks paid for from," Vorkosigan snorted a very strange laugh, "looted planetary funds. With a few exceptions, of course." He looked at Moretti with wide glazed eyes. "Maybe more than I thought. The Minister of Finance was actually hoping they'd be a bit stroppy so we could get away with seizing more of the shipping concerns. Disloyal opposition is always so much easier to deal with."

"You accepted the surrender of the Komarran Counsellors, Admiral," Ser Moretti said. The Count looked confused and momentarily rebellious upon being addressed by another person. "Indeed, you guaranteed their safety on your word as Vorkosigan."

"Yes..." he roughly whispered.

"You had them killed. You broke your word."

Vorkosigan's head jerked up, the fast-penta muting a reaction that would surely have been much more violent otherwise. "Lies."

"Can you clarify that, Admiral?" Dubauer's clear voice broke in over Moretti's growl. "Are you saying you did not order the deaths of the Komarran Counselors?"

The mere sound of her accent seemed to calm him, and he relaxed. "I did not."

"Did you approve of their murder?"

"No. The Massacre was useless, counterproductive, needlessly brutal, and reflected on my personal honor. It was appalling."

"Did you ask anybody to kill them?" Dubauer continued patiently.

"No, madame," he said. Moretti watched this interplay coldly.

"We must consider the reliability of the witness here, nearly forty years later," Obis inserted. "Self-delusion can affect the dependability of a fast-penta interrogation."

"Yes, well, there are protocols," Dubauer said. She leaned forward. "Who gave the order for the murders?"

"Captain Bethencourt wrote out sealed orders to Major Gregg, who relayed them to the two lieutenants whose platoons actually carried out the executions," the Count replied.

"Who gave the order to Bethencourt?" she asked.

"Hard to say," Vorkosigan said. "It might have been done just to annoy me, or as part of some overly-convoluted plot against my father. I searched the ship exhaustively, and Political Education archives later, and found no record of any written order. Ezar denied it to my face, but I never really thought it was him. I knew his objectives." He slumped further in the seat, voice lowering. "If anyone was behind it it was Grishnov, but again that's hard to credit because Grishnov was no fool. Negri was fairly free with the assassination orders, but part of the wrong hierarchy." He frowned petulantly. "I've always thought I'm missing one piece somewhere that will make it all make sense."

"In your opinion," Dubauer continued patiently, "what is the probability Bethencourt was acting alone?"

Vorkosigan seemed to think about that for a few moments, processing the question with fast-penta slowness. "A little less than half?" he hazarded, sounding very unsure. "I really don't know."

"And at what point did the war crime in Solstice come to your attention?" she asked.

"One of the sergeants was a District man. He hopscotched the command chain to try to get my confirmation on the order, but by that time the other platoon had opened fire, and once somebody started shooting it didn't stop."

"What was your response?"

"I called Major Gregg, who denied anything of the sort was taking place."

"What did you do then?"

"I went groundside to see for myself, with the marine detachment I best trusted."

"By which point the massacre was over?"

"Er, yes," he said.

"Can you describe the scene of the crime?"

"There was blood everywhere from the flechette weapon crossfire," Vorkosigan said in a drifting tone. "Blood-streaked shards of metal were impaled into the wall, and on the floor, and everywhere, and the bodies were effectively shredded. Pools of blood, congealing. Corpses and blood and shifty-looking soldiers getting the hell out of my way… I didn't stay long."

"What legal action did you take against the persecutors of the massacre?"

"Arrested the lot groundside," the Count said, his consonants slurring again. "Had the lieutenants and the other sergeant shot after court-martial for the war crimes. The soldiers were imprisoned for a short time, but most of them were let go after I shipped them home. I couldn't touch Gregg – too political. He had powerful friends. And nobody in the whole Service would dare try Bethencourt."

"The ordinary soldiers were released?" Dubauer was finding it hard to maintain a neutral tone.

"Well, we generally don't encourage independent thinking in enlisted men," Vorkosigan said calmly.

She looked down, consulting a voluminous set of notes. "In your Komarr report, which fails to mention this Major Gregg, you stated that Bethencourt was also tried and shot. Did this in fact occur?"

"No," he said. "That's not true."

Dubauer's eyes narrowed at his past duplicity. "Are you saying Bethencourt never was put to trial for his crimes?"

"It would have been impossible to do so."

"This man was your subordinate, Admiral Vorkosigan. You had responsibility for his actions."

His pained look seemed bizarrely exaggerated by the fast-penta. "It was much more complicated than that! He was my political officer. To move against him was to move against the Emperor."

"Vorkosigan, are you saying you shielded two senior officers you knew were responsible for war crimes from prosecution?"

He looked baffled, as if the question made no sense to him. "I suppose. I did force Gregg's resignation upon gaining the Regency."

"Is he still alive?"

Vorkosigan shrugged. "Illyan would know."

"And thank God they can't fast-penta him," Galeni growled.

Dubauer frowned at him. "What did happen to Bethencourt, if you didn't have him shot?"

"I broke his neck with my bare hands on my flag bridge." Vorkosigan's voice was so calm it took Laisa a moment to realize what he'd actually said. Her hand flew to her mouth.

Mutters from the Komarrans. Dubauer's mouth opened in absolute Betan moral outrage. "Without a trial?" she choked.

"Oh," Vorkosigan said softly, with the echo of past satisfaction in his voice, "he was a dead man."

"Admiral, that was murder!" Dubauer exclaimed.

"Yes, quite. Easier to kill a man that way than most realize. I was eventually acquitted, mind you."

"Do you normally go around committing homicide on people who upset you?" she sputtered.

"Not these days," he said cheerfully. "I've mellowed quite a bit since the soltoxin wrecked my balls."

"You're getting a little off track, Lisa," Moretti murmured.

Her lips pressed thinly together in disapproval "Yes, I suppose we don't have jurisdiction on that. Appalling man."

"I really don't care what you think," Vorkosigan mumbled. At loose ends, he peered around the room, finally focusing on Mario Albescu again. He smiled. "Hello..."

"Should I continue, ser?" Albescu asked Moretti. The chief justice made an impatient gesture.

"If I were in your place, I wouldn't," Vorkosigan said earnestly. "My wife is going to kill you, you know."

Albescu looked a little unnerved at the unsolicited advice. "We'll begin on the confiscations of civilian property now, then."

"It's like the final act of a Shakespearean tragedy," Galeni whispered. "They'll still be talking about this a hundred years from now."

"It's almost a comedy in places…" Laisa's brow furrowed. "I'm glad he didn't do it."

"How embarrassing for Moretti." Galeni's brief grin was wolfish.

"A man who abandons his birthright has no claim to it," the Count said in response to Albescu's continued questioning. The audio cut out a quarter of the way into the prosecutor's next question, and the vid projection swiftly disappeared as well. After a moment of blank nothingness, the holodisplay returned to the image of the Imperial seal.

OVERRIDE