Day 4: Exhibit Presentation.

My nerves were shot. Nearly everyone involved in that trial could say the same thing. Before the trial, the reporter's pool at the Four Seasons was host to lively, spiritual debates about ethics, legalities, everything that reporters debate about. But after day three, the pool was instead littered with empty liquor bottles, music, and reporters in various states of undress. It seemed like everyone was trying to escape the pressure and the chaos. I might have had a daiquiri or three and taken an intern from my rival network FNS to bed that night.

We both woke up the next morning to get ready for the next day. While I was getting changed, I asked my new FNS friend what she thought was going to happen today. "I don't know Kirin," Layla admitted. "But I can feel like it's going to get worse."

Our new judge welcomed us into the courtroom after the usual shuttling down of Blackjack. No one threw any pizzas, but today felt far more intense as we walked into the courthouse. Fed-Sec had locked the building down. Almost every Fed-Sec Tactical Agent on Earth was guarding the building and the streets. Protest permits were revoked, and the streets were supposed to be clear for a kilometre in every direction. But the Marines weren't moving. Their improvised breastworks from yesterday were replaced by tritanium sheaths, forcefield generators and Lynx IFVs blocking the intersections. No longer were the Marines off-duty and watching the proceedings. They were fully kitted-out in their battle gear. Phaser carbines, sniper rifles, isomagnetic charges, photon launchers. They were ready for war.

"Game time's over," Lance Corporal Alexis Kenney said to me, crouching over the hood of a Lynx and aiming her rifle down the street, "Blackjack dies, trial or not. All I need is the word from up top, and I'll shoot him myself."

Once we got inside and sat down, the new judge introduced himself. The Right Honourable Alrek Voss of Alpha Centauri is no stranger to high profile cases. He was the judge who passed the sentence on James Layton, the only other Admiral before Blackjack that ever stood in a public trial. And he wasted no time laying down the law.

"Admiral Ashcroft," Voss said with a deep, commanding voice, "I will state this as simply as possible, so there is no mistaking my intention. Your stunts and your misbehaviour will not be tolerated. This trial will proceed without interruption. You will act exactly within the very letter of your rights to pro-se. Is that understood?"

"Yeah yeah," Blackjack scoffed, "I'm hungry. Federation Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 22. I'm in the mood for a cheesecake. Would Colonel Jackson be so kind as to foot the bill?"

It took two hours to find a shop willing to deliver said cheesecake. While we waited, Jackson presented his exhibits. With everything I had collected from the Source, along with John and Fed-Sec's evidence, it was damning. Documents, bank statements, videos, comm records. There was no way to hide any of it. For almost twenty years, Blackjack had truly made a King's Ransom on the Tholian pipeline to Kronos. Gowron had fleeced him to a degree that would have made Bernie Madoff's arrest of ancient Earth history weep in its sheer magnificence. Putting a dollar figure on the amount of Blackjack's ill-gotten gains is difficult in terms that make sense to anyone except for the Ferengi. But in Federation Credits, the value was estimated at just shy of one trillion, with a T.

And this money wasn't just sitting in an account somewhere. Blackjack loved to spend money as much as he loved to make it. Directly or otherwise, he'd financed election campaigns for dozens of Federation Ambassadors. He had a huge stake in nearly every private contractor to the Federation's uniformed services. Hyper-X Impulse Systems, Utopia Planetia Fleet Yards, Black Star Emergency Contract Services, the Ferengi Commerce Association, the Bank of Bolia, Serris Defence, Kaltrass Armouries. Anyone, and anything, that sold something in the Federation, had a trace that somehow went to Blackjack.

It's still difficult for me to process everything. The Federation is an enlightened society. Poverty, disease, hardship, it's all ancient history. Any basic need of life; food, water, clothing, shelter, is all provided for every citizen, completely free and without question. A Federation Citizen has the legal right to comfortable housing, nutritious food and clean water, comfortable clothing, the right to healthcare, to be educated, be represented by legal consul, to access media, information and entertainment, without charge and without restriction. If you're content to simply exist, you are free to do that, and you will want for nothing.

But for those who have the ambition to do more than just exist, you have the freedom to work and earn. Montgomery Scott bought a blue-nosed clipper. Jean-Luc Picard owns a vineyard. I have a collection of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles. But these are luxuries and vanities, rewards for hard work. Blackjack's gains were greed, nothing else.

Before we got any further, the cake delivery boy showed up and nervously made his way up the stairs. "Uhm, scuse' me… I-I have a cake for A-admiral Ashcroft?"

Lance Kenney shoved him back down the stairs. "Get the fuck out of here! You take one more step, and I'll blast a hole in you!"

For the first time, witnessing this scene, I was frightened of the Marines. Alexis was ready to shoot this poor kid dead. And no one was going to stop her.

So, I stepped in front of her, and slapped the barrel of her rifle down.

What the hell are you doing?! If you shoot this kid, you're everything that bastard says you are! More than that Alexis, you're a murderer! Just stop it!

Her rifle shifted and was aimed directly at my chest. I looked into her eyes and saw that same cold, controlled violence I'd seen in every Marine since this case started. For an eternity of thirty seconds, I stared at Alexis. And I swore she'd shoot me.

"Give me that!" She shouted, brushing past me and seizing the cheesecake. Alexis threw the box into the empty street and then shot it with her phaser rifle, to the raucous cheering of her fellow Marines and the shock of both Fed-Sec and the cake boy – who couldn't run away fast enough.

The message was plainly clear. Game time was over.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard needs no introduction from me. He was the final witness to be called by Jackson. Picard is the model officer we hold up in Starfleet for justice and good behaviour, and he tore into Blackjack.

"A joke. And a disgrace, to every Starfleet officer who has ever served. It disgusts me to see such a man wear this uniform."

But he didn't stop. For the crime of High Treason, Federation law allows the death penalty. It is one of only two death penalties in our legal code, the other being a visit to Talos IV. And to date, no one has ever been prosecuted for a capital crime before this trial. Just the implication that someone's crimes are so vile, so unforgivable, that the state has determined that the criminal must die to atone to for his crimes… it scares me.

"Hypothetically, Captain Picard," Jackson asked, careful to frame it as a hypothetical to avoid witness leading, "If the Defendant should be found guilty of these crimes, what punishment should be imposed?"

"Death," Picard replied flatly.

I could almost hear the murmurs at the Four Season's pool. Starfleet turning its back on one of their own? Had it really come to this?


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