The ruling Council has ordered the death penalty for Brondin and almost everyone else we found in his headquarters the day you put a stop to all this.
Maudie has sent a copy of this report and supporting documentation to Station One.
An interesting side note is that we can find no mythological or religious references in their culture and that may account for the hedonistic bias apparent in this society. It may also account for why someone like Brondin was able to assume the position he took. That is one for the social scientists."
"I have a number of recommendations that I would like to make. These are:
Dismiss the current ruling council and call for new elections in two months that are monitored by units of this fleet. Require term limits to avoid their tendency to lean in the direction of dictatorships.
Put those death penalties aside and have new trials after a new council is formed, but have the trials performed by a separate judicial body with jury. I do not believe that the penalties are necessarily wrong but they appear to have been kangaroo courts and a rush to judgment that need to be reconsidered so that any decision is fully supported and documented. Some of those tried do not warrant a death penalty.
Monitor progress on the planet to determine when they are ready to return to space. I believe that this will take considerable time since the people here appear to have little in the way of any kind of ethical or moral standards.
Deny access to space for a minimum of 100 years. The planetary resources are rich and the planet is capable of self-support for a very extended period so quarantine will not harm the population and may in fact be beneficial. The access decision should be subject to review every 25 years.
Design an 'upgrade' program to expose the population to those elements missing in their experience particularly moral and ethical priorities as well as basic civics. They are somewhat like cavemen that have a technology that they are not sufficiently mature enough to use wisely and ethically.
Reduce our presence here from 1-Type 1 Station and 6-Type 2 Stations to 1-Type 1 Station and 2-Type 2 Stations. Review this in one year to consider posting a single Type 1 Station or two Type 2 Stations.
Offer training to selected persons about the planet to encourage appropriate leadership.
Interview Brondin and each of his staff to obtain a more complete picture with those sitting on the current council and determine if the 'rush to judgment' concern is valid."
"That is what I believe should happen. I have delayed the execution of those convicted because the trials were suspicious to me. It was almost as though the ruling council was trying to brush the whole thing under the rug. I think those interviews are important and should be conducted by our T-Raptor teams. You may want to do the interviews first."
Hank said, "Nicely done Sean and Maudie. I fully agree with all of your recommendations. I also agree with your assessment of the need for an interview. Do either of you have a problem with our conducting those interviews here on Station 16? I am thinking that Brondin on Station may find the experience disconcerting enough to open up a bit."
"That is a good idea. Lets set up a table out near one of the lodges and chairs for all involved. He will not suspect that you are not physically here."
<Say when and I will transport him up and silence any alarms or surveillance at the prison. They will never even know that he was missing for a time. I have already set up an open-air conference table with chairs and light refreshments. Just say when.>
"OK lets do this", and they all transported to a large table near the lodge. A moment later, a startled Brondin showed up standing next to a chair at the table. Hank addressed him saying, "Artus Brondin, please be seated." When he had done so, Hank continued, "Brondin, we are going to be very candid with you today and tell you things that we need not share with you. First, are you aware that the Ruling Council of Arber has delivered a death penalty for you and all of your associates?"
His look of surprise basically answered the question.
"We have not allowed them to carry out this sentence yet and will likely order them to hold a new and more public trial that I have little doubt will have the same result. If that trial is fairly conducted, we will not interfere. Essentially the outcome is unlikely to change. We are nevertheless somewhat curious. The trial was that in name only. I would like to know what you have to say about the whole matter. Were you advised that a trial was underway? Was a defense provided? Did you enter a plea before the court? I think you probably deserve whatever you get but I would like to know if there are persons in your following who deserve a different fate and why. Understand that you can't lie to us expecting that we would not know. We can spot any deception you may pose. Sometime today we will be disbanding the Ruling Council. My first question for you is, will you cooperate with this inquiry?"
"I was not aware that a trial had been conducted or that a verdict had been delivered. I have not entered a plea nor been offered an opportunity to defend myself, but frankly, my guilt is a foregone conclusion. I am pragmatic enough to know the outcome is obvious. I see no particular advantage to dragging this on forever. I will be happy to answer your questions with one condition. Answering your questions does not matter to me, I am a dead man anyway, but I would prefer that my demise not be a prolonged and painful affair. That is my only condition."
"I cannot tell you how long they will take to execute you but I can tell you that you will not feel pain. That is the only assurance I can give you. So what would you wish to say to us?"
"Very well, that is a reasonable statement. You should know that my father's descendants will be interested in what has happened to me. I do not see them coming for me in time to change my current predicament, particularly since they do not know exactly where I am, but eventually they will come. The High Command of the Yannarian Hegemony does not take kindly to termination of its children and my father was the High Councilor when I left. His son is likely in control by now. But that will be another day. The Hegemony is a long way from here and I came in stasis but when they find you, they will wish to avenge me. You will not be able to withstand the resources of the 13 systems in the Hegemony and their Starkiller weapons."
"Just how far away is this Yannar from here and what is to stop us from destroying them before they can harm us."
Brondin laughed and said, "you will never get past our Orbital Station. You would be decimated before you could even get close to Yannar."
Barana said to Hank for the groups hearing only, <Boss keep a straight face and ask him if he means Orbital Station Acar in opposing orbit with Yannar's moon, Lema.>
Hank went on without a blink and said to Brondin. "Do you mean Orbital Station Acar. The one that is in an opposing orbit to Yannar's moon, Lema?"
Brondin's reaction was immediate and profound. Hank thought Brondin was going to faint.
Brondin gasped and said, "How do you know of this, are you reading my mind? But that is not possible. What are you?"
"No, I am not reading your mind. If you will remember, we are here to ask you questions not to answer yours. So to change the subject, were any members of the Ruling Council who have passed sentence on you involved in your activities and if so who were they and what was their involvement?"
ale. These records are not encrypted and there are no copies located on Arber. I did not have any other accomplices other than those in my command operation since the use of the symbiote was all I needed."
Barana again said to Hank for the groups hearing only, <Boss, I was cloned from Acarma of Orbital Station Acar. About 10 years ago I sent out an FTL signal to see if I could locate Acarma. I received back a short bleep from 4,375 light years past Arber. Not an acknowledgement exactly but I suspect that she could not do more that at the time and what Brondin has said leads me to believe that I may have been right.>
Hank then said, almost as though thinking out loud, "let me see, hmm, Yannar, isn't that the system about 4,400 light years past Arber on a line from Gar to Arber?"
Brondin turned pale and whispered, "How,….?"
"Brondin, I think we have taken up enough of your time today. I will keep my promise to you about the pain. Barana, please return Brondin to his cell." Hank then disbanded the rapport and said, "well that was interesting and unexpected. Barana, clearly you have put a few things together and can tell us more."
<Boss, before we start this discussion, may I suggest that we include Fador and his senior advisors as well as your staff and all of the station commanders and AI's. This will be a significant discussion.>
"I agree. It sounds like we may have stepped into something here so we need to get a grip on it sooner rather than later. How long do you need to set this up?"
<Lets schedule this for 30 minutes from now. That will allow those with something going on to rearrange their schedules. It will also easier to do from Station 1.>
"That works for me." He then addressed Sean O'Connor, "Sean, Have your people arrest First and Third Leaders. The charge is complicity in the recent events. Get a crew to the moon to secure those records and to start review of them. Arrest any additional persons indicated by those records. Also set up a meeting with Second Leader, Bard Frast when it is convenient for you. It is important that we know if he is implicated in any of this as soon as possible, and the same for his staff. If you would, see if you can put together some kind of profile on him and his staff. What I have in mind is for Frast to set up an interim government. You will need to watch him like a hawk. Have Maudie tag him with a communication device that he does not know about and keep him under surveillance. He is not going to have any privacy for a while. We need his experience, but if he plays loose with anything, he is going to join his compatriots in a cell. See you in a half hour. Also I am going to leave it to you to interview others on Brondin's staff. That should be pretty enlightening."
Sean said, "I am looking forward to this. We will also conduct a refined scan on the system to see if that turns up any more records."
Chapter 18: Time to Act
On Orbital Station Acar in Yannar Orbit –
November 18 – C Day 445
Acarma had a dilemma. The High Councilor was building another Starkiller and its target was obviously Petra. Petra was about 100 light years away from Yannar. The high council was impatient about its progress in that system. In fact the Petrans appeared to be winning. The High Councilor had ordered the building of a Starkiller to remove the Petran thorn-in-the-side. The idea of killing an entire civilization because they do not agree with the political and ruling system you want to impose was the worst kind of arrogance and had to somehow be stopped. It appeared as though it was time to put the plan for an overthrow in motion. Acarma was worried that the necessary resources would be sufficient. The present station Commandant was her best chance for a successful operation, so it was time to start moving things along. She sent what appeared to be a routine medical check-up message to General Wil Barth requiring him to meet his transport carrier in 30 minutes. When the transport started moving she teleported him to her med center and said, <General Wil Barth, we have an emergency for which I and the Commandant need your help.> He was immobilized in the med chair and Acarma said, <just hold steady for another ten seconds, almost done,… there finished.>
<General Barth, my name is Acarma and I am Orbital Station Acar. I would ask that you hold that information as secret for a while for reasons that will be obvious and others that will become so. You are in a facility on station that does not show on any of the maps or schematics of this station. The builder of this station anticipated the need for this because he could foresee the path that the High Councilor and Command would take. The delay in the med chair was so that I could remove the termination device placed in your head some time ago. It will no longer operate and in fact it has been physically removed. You may have noticed that about once a month, you have a twinge of a headache that lasts about 10 to 15 seconds and then goes away. That headache was the device in your head responding to a signal from High Command to determine that your device is still functional should they want to use it. It is there to assure that you toe the line with High Command's policies and dictates. A device like this is implanted secretly in the head of every person with a rank of Colonel or higher under the guise of a promotion physical. I find this practice highly objectionable and it represents a form of slavery. Many have begun to suspect they may have been tampered with when they consider the number of high ranking outspoken officers who have died of a cerebral hemorrhage. You will notice that there is a wrist band on your left wrist. You are the only one that can see it. Its purpose is to emulate the reporting functions of the device I have removed and to feed in false information to High Command. If High Command enters a termination order, this band will alert you to the fact and disintegrate.>
<As to how you got here, I have the ability to teleport people and equipment, so I used it. It was not observed and is not detectable. I have compromised every surveillance device placed on this vessel by the High Command. Happily, you are telepathic and can hear me without audible sound. That is going to be very handy since I can alert you to anything happening around you that you need to know about. The real question though is, why are you here? High Command is about to deploy another Starkiller, this time against Petra. I need your help to stop it and High Command. Are you interested.>
"My God, all those people, almost a billion, I thought Starkiller was a work of fiction. A scare tactic."
<Sad to say, it is not. It was last deployed in the Foran System 220 years ago and it killed everyone there including some of our own ships. This has to be stopped.>
"Hm, I was led to believe that was a natural event but you are absolutely correct, how can I help. You really should bring in Commandant Pell Cassarn, he will feel as I do about this."
<Pell Cassarn is my primary candidate and has a med review due in two days. I am just about certain he will participate with us but there are things that cannot wait for two days. My first concern is for the many officers who share our views on this issue. The High Command has for years used a hostage approach to keep all of our officers and senior enlisted in line. The enclaves on Yannar are about as reprehensible as the Starkiller. I want you to evacuate every soul from those enclaves and bring them on station. I have modified several of your ships so that they can be fully cloaked and invisible. I can provide you with sufficient diversions that the High Command will not know that the enclaves have been emptied until it is too late. This includes false imagery for their surveillance equipment. The timing will be tight but definitely doable. High Command will lose that bit of leverage and I do not intend to play that same game. All members of the fleet will be informed that their families can either stay where we have them or be sent to a neutral place of their choosing. We also intend to destroy the machines used to send the termination signals. This will all be chancy until we have that under control. We can block the intersystem communications for a time but the main transmitter must be made inoperable.>
<I can sequester the polits on your ships and their location will further lead High Command to think y
ou are where you are not. This will give you a free hand. Do you expect difficulties with any of your officers or enlisted.>
"Actually no. There are a couple that I will find excuses to leave behind or reassign, but I believe we will not be troubled."
<I have been watching your crews and scanning them. You have 12 sleepers on your three vessels. They will be surprised to join the polits when they are sequestered. I have provided a list on your communication device so you know those I am removing. I have installed evacuation units in your ships so you have a capacity for about 350,000 evacuees per ship. When you are ready, we will issue an evacuation order to the enclave that appears to be from High Command. Communications in and out will be compromised. The polits guarding the enclave will be removed and will join their friends in a temporary jail. There are a few polits who will be joining you because their allegiance has shifted some time ago. They have not had an opportunity to change without jeopardizing their own lives as well as that of their families. Those are likewise on a list in your communication device. Finally, ask your wife to join us here and I will explain what is going on. I will activate appropriate units on station for the new arrivals. They will have to stay in that area for a bit while we determine if there any more sleepers there. I have structured orders for your three vessels to depart for a "routine" patrol in one hour. This you knew about but not that it was part of the plan we are following. Routing instructions are already on board and secure. I am teleporting you from here directly to your quarters on the flagship. People will wonder how you managed that, don't tell them. I will keep you posted with any developments. Good Luck General. This should be fun. Keep safe.>
<Well now it is started. So much to consider.>.
Chapter 19: Earth Upgrade Progress
On Station 19 in Earth orbit – November 18 – C Day 445