A headsman who looked too much like her lawyer, Mr. Kawaguchi.
53
“Would you please state your name and job for the record?” Mr. Kawaguchi said. He had waited a few moments for Kris to get comfortable on the witness stand; her heavily starched white pants and choker collar scratched her skin, and she needed the time to arrange herself.
“I am Her Royal Highness, Princess Kristine Anne Longknife. I am a lieutenant commander in the Royal United Society Navy. I presently command Fast Patrol Squadron 127, but I believe the court is most interested in my previous command of Patrol Squadron 10 and its voyage of discovery that circumnavigated the galaxy.”
“Hmm, yes we are,” her lawyer muttered absently, not looking at Kris but studying his notes.
“How long have you been in the Navy?” he said, as if coming to a momentous decision.
“A little more than five years, sir.”
Tsusumu scratched behind his ear. “Not very long, then.”
“At times it’s seemed much longer.” Kris’s quip drew soft chuckles from the watchers, but they halted at a glare from the Chief Justice.
“Yes, I imagine it has.” Again, Tsusumu seemed distracted as he studied his notes.
“I can’t help but notice that blue sash you are wearing. What is it?”
“It’s the Order of the Wounded Lion. Earth awards it,” Kris said.
“Is it easy to get? Are there a lot of them around?”
“I understand that the last ten people to receive it did so posthumously. I’m the first to earn it and live since the Iteeche War.”
“Oh,” Tsusumu’s eyes widened. “What did you do to earn it?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t answer that question, sir.”
“May I remind you that you are sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The witnesses yesterday had been sworn in differently, but Kris, as a Christian, had gotten the whole treatment, Bible and all.
“I’m sorry, sir, but under the State Secrets Acts of both Wardhaven and the U.S. federal statutes, I am forbidden to answer your question.”
“You are sworn to this court,” the Chief Justice pointed out.
“Yes, Your Honor, but I am sworn to my king first.”
“Your Honor,” Kris’s lawyer said, “give me a moment to see if we can work our way around this.”
“Make it quick.”
“Yes, Your Honor. Commander, I have seen pictures of you in formal dress. You only began appearing with the blue sash after the Treaty of Paris was concluded.”
“Yes, sir. It arrived in the mail shortly after that. I checked that the address was correct and that it was addressed to me.”
“No citation.”
“None, sir.”
“So can we conclude that this honor has something to do with that meeting of humanity’s fleets in the Paris system?”
“I think I can answer yes to that, sir.”
“Objections,” the prosecutor said, jumping to his feet. “They are trying to make this award into something involving battle when it was awarded following a peaceful meeting of the fleets. Worse, during this time, the princess here was charged with mutiny.”
The word “mutiny” ran through the gallery as well as along the bench. The taste of it was sour.
“Do you have something to say before I rule on this objection?” the Chief Justice asked.
Tsusumu raised an eyebrow to Kris. She sighed.
“There have been rumors of my leading a mutiny at the Paris system since the fleets met there. It has been investigated, and no charges were ever filed. It is true that I relieved my commanding officer at that time.”
“And your rank was?” one of the justices asked.
“I was an ensign, sir. As low as you can get on the totem pole.”
“Interesting,” said the justice.
“Objection, whatever it was, is sustained. Kawaguchi, can we get on?” said the Chief Justice.
“Commander, I also see that you wear the Golden Starburst. I believe that is the highest award made by the Helvitican Confederacy. Can you tell us how you earned that?
“I am allowed to, but it also arrived in the mail with no citation. However, that was shortly after I assisted the independent planet Chance in resisting a forceful takeover. Chance then voted to join the Confederacy, and I think several people involved in that fight received these Starbursts. Lieutenant Lien-Pasley of my staff commanded a ship in that fight and received a Starburst.”
“Was it much of a fight?”
“It could have been a lot worse,” Kris admitted.
“That blue-and-gold cross thing around your neck,” Mr. Kawaguchi began.
“Objection, Your Honor. Where is Mr. Kawaguchi going with all this?”
“If the court will indulge me for a few more minutes, I believe that my intentions will become obvious to all.”
“You may have a very few more minutes,” the Chief Judge said. “Objection denied.”
“That award, Commander.”
“It’s the Pour la Mérite, the highest award of the new Greenfeld Empire. This one is awarded for combat, or that is what I am told the oak leaves denote.”
“Did that one also come in the mail?”
After a brief pause for the chuckles to run down, Kris answered. “No, it was personally delivered by Vice Admiral Krätz. However, he advised me that there was no citation included, and I was free to ascribe any one of several instances to it.”
“Any one of several instances?”
“I led the assault that put down a pirate lair that was raiding in Greenfeld space, sir. Another time, I saved the Greenfeld Emperor’s life.”
That drew comments all around, enough that the Chief Justice gaveled the room to silence.
“Very eclectic collection you have there. Now, I see among all those medals on your chest a small one, a red-and-gold ribbon with a simple bronze medallion hanging from it. What’s the name of that one?”
Kris glanced down and fingered that one reverently. “The Wardhaven Defense Medal, sir.”
“I understand you commanded the defense of Wardhaven, or at least the fast attack boats that did the defending.”
Kris took a slow breath. “I was in tactical command of the twelve small fast attack boats that destroyed most of the attacking battleships, sir.”
“Could you describe, no, compare these ‘boats’ and battleships for us?”
“The twelve fast attack boats were about a thousand tons of hope, each. The six battleships weighed in at over a hundred thousand tons.”
“A real David and Goliath matchup, huh?”
“We could never have done it alone, sir. A lot of people pitched in. By the time of the battle, we were throwing into the line merchant ships loaded with over-age and obsolete Army rockets and Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteers with system runabouts. In the last desperate moments, even fleet tugs were in the charge, doing anything to make a hole for the fast attacks to get in and make a hit.”
Kris took a deep breath. “It was a bare-knuckles fight for our planet’s survival.”
“Something like the attack on the alien base ship, huh?”
“Different in the way we went at them, but, yes, sir. Just as desperate and violent. And just as brutal in our losses. So, yes, I guess you could say they were kind of the same.”
Mr. Kawaguchi turned to the Chief Justice. “Your Honor, the commander here has been with the Royal U.S. Navy for a bit more than five years. But during that time she has fought in space and on land. She has battled pirates, invaders, battleships, and slavers. I have here a list I would like to enter into evidence of her official recognitions and her battle record. Ah, the record that is public.”
He paused to let that hit hard. “I also have here the official awards and career histories of the witnesses the prosecutor paraded by us yesterday. They are good men. Honorable men. But all of them have served Musashi during the long peace. Not one of them has ever heard a shot fired in anger. Not one has engaged an enemy intent on killing him or his command.”