First Lancer Shirley Q. Perrymane had learned early in her JAG career that people usually asked the wrong question. They wanted to know whether the person across from her was guilty. Shirley usually wanted to know something else first: what can actually be proven?
The Thalon
The thaltad was a KAVOE Thalon named Nicholas Martinez. Algaea 3 orbited within the Gliese 1002 system, jointly administered by the Lurran Consortium and the Erthuzians. Ulosheen contained twelve administrative sectors. Nicholas Martinez had ordered every civilian inside two of them — Sector 1C and Sector 2A — killed. One hundred sixty-two humans. Two hundred ninety-three Erthuzians. Twenty-three Zelmoks. Nine Squelgians. Four hundred eighty-seven dead. Seven survivors. Nicholas said the seven survived for one reason: they were not infected.
He did not look like a man who had ordered hundreds of civilians killed. Shirley had learned that nobody did. He had a mate. Two children. "Tell me again." "I've told investigators six times." "Then seven won't hurt." He looked down. "Something happened in Ulosheen." "What?" "I don't know." "That's not useful." "It's the truth."
Sector 1C reported civil disturbances first — assaults. Then someone transmitted visual footage. "I saw a man changing." "Wrong how?" "Jaw extended. Skin pulled apart around the cheek. Something came through underneath." Not an implant. Not cybernetic. "He bit through the other man's neck." Then another, changing a different way. "Grotesque animals." "What species?" "None I recognized." It spread. Not airborne — people in the same rooms weren't all changing. Person-to-person. Possibly touch. Possibly blood.
"You ordered extermination." Nicholas closed his eyes. "Yes." "Everyone." "Inside those two sectors." "Children?" "Yes." Shirley leaned forward. "Then tell me why your stellors obeyed." He answered immediately. "Because they saw it too." "All of them?" "Enough." "You don't order ordinary KAVOE personnel to kill hundreds of civilians and expect every one of them to become a murderer because you have circles on your collar."
The Proceeding
First Lancer Jared P. Westmore represented the case against Nicholas. He introduced a ten-year-old concealed Morpheus Nest addiction. "A man with a concealed history of neural simulation addiction claims he watched five hundred people turn into monsters." He established that Nicholas had failed a psychological evaluation after combat near Nyx, refused Madori-wave therapy, and instead sought scriptural therapy from the Velkth — whose bureaucratic systems were legendary. "How long did it take you to obtain access?" "Almost four months." "That may be a Velkth record." Even Nicholas smiled. Then Jared's face became serious. "And approximately a year later, you saw hundreds of civilians turning into grotesque animals."
The autopsy specialist appeared. Images of cerebral tissue filled the chamber. Lesions. Multiple victims. Different species. Human neuroanatomy and Erthuzian neuroanatomy were not identical, yet unusual lesions appeared across the dead. "Natural?" "Possibly." "Cause?" "Undetermined." "Could you rule out a transmissible process?" "No." Jared stood. "Did these lesions transform a person into an animal?" "No known lesion does that." "How many were visibly deformed in the manner described by Thalon Martinez?" "None."
Shirley waited until recess. "You know what your problem is?" "I have several." "You keep acting as though medical clearance matters only when it helps you." Jared lowered his voice. "Shirley. They recovered bodies. None had paws. None had fangs that weren't species-normal. None had transformed limbs. No exotic skeletal rearrangements. No grotesque animals." "Then what caused the lesions?" "I don't know." "Neither do I." "It just stops yours from being easy."
The Verdict
On the final day, Nicholas asked Shirley for five minutes alone. "Do you believe me?" "I believe you believe what you're saying." Nicholas laughed bitterly. "That's what people say when they think you're insane." "It is also what people say when they don't know." He looked down. "I see their faces." "The victims?" "My stellors. They obeyed me. If I was wrong, I didn't just destroy those civilians. I made good people do it." One of his stellors was twenty. Afterward she asked him if they had saved the city. "What did you say?" "Yes." "Did you believe it?" "Then? Yes." "And now?" "I have to."
Seven Domars returned. Qishun White sat in the center. He looked at Nicholas. Then Shirley. Then Jared. He began to speak. And the story of Ulosheen ended there. Later, when people asked Shirley what the seven Domars decided, she discovered that the verdict did not answer the question that troubled her. Something happened in Ulosheen. Four hundred eighty-seven people died. Seven survived. Nicholas Martinez may have saved ten other sectors. Or he may have slaughtered two sectors while suffering from a catastrophic failure of perception. The unexplained lesions remained. So did the ordinary bodies. Judgment could determine responsibility. It could not force the universe to explain itself.
Several weeks later, Shirley sat at Galaxia Gourmet with Solari Robert Jerome Desai. He was shipping out the next day. "Where?" He gave her a planetary designation. She stared. "Say that again." "No." "What do your stellors call it?" Desai sighed. "Hades." Shirley laughed. "Comforting." He had no way of knowing that Robert Jerome Desai was traveling toward a jungle where KAVOE stellors would begin disappearing. No one had told him what lived there.
The story continues in “Hades.”
