Noemi’s fighter breaks through the atmosphere. The blackness of space releases her, and once again she’s embraced by pale-blue sky. She’s cried in this helmet too much already—the visor keeps fogging up—but tears well in her eyes again as she sees the teal-blue ocean stretching below her, and then the outline of the southern continent, the one where she was born, where she and Esther grew up together.
Her instrument panel blinks in different colors, testifying to the many computers trying to identify her. The ship’s automated fleet signal will answer them. Noemi refuses to look down, even for a moment. Nothing matters as much as drinking in the sight of the far mountains, dusky blue on the horizon. Or the beaches, breaking with white foam. Or the grain-gold fields that stretch into the distance. It’s so much more beautiful than she ever understood before.
I wish you could have seen this, Abel.
Only within the final five thousand meters of her descent does she snap back into officer mode. Blinking hard, she focuses on her instruments, zeroing in on her home base. When the comms crackle into life, she takes a deep breath. “Ensign Noemi Vidal requesting clearance to land. Authorization code 81107.”
A pause follows, long enough for her to wonder whether they lost the signal. Then an incredulous voice says, “Ensign Noemi Vidal was reported killed in action nineteen days ago.”
“Not quite,” Noemi says. So this is what it’s like to come back from the dead. “Call Captain Yasmeen Baz. Tell her I’m reporting in, and that she has to stop the Masada Run. Do you understand? Stop the Masada Run.”
“The Masada Run has been indefinitely delayed,” says the judge, looking down at the court records, “pending the outcome of this case and the assessment of Ensign Vidal’s testimony.”
Delayed isn’t as good as canceled. But it’s as much as Noemi can manage now, while she’s under arrest, and on trial.
She sits in a simple chair in the middle of a round room. Like many buildings on Genesis, this hall of justice has been built to echo the structures of Earth’s classical past—lit by the sun, cooled by shade and breeze, and ominous through the sheer power of stone. Long shafts of sunset light stream in via the tall, narrow arched windows, illuminating the raised semicircular bench from which her three judges peer down. They allowed her to put on her dress uniform for this, crisp and dark green; wearing it has always made her feel strong. She needs every ounce of strength she can muster.
Abel never asked Noemi about the legal system on Genesis, for which she was guiltily grateful. This is the controversial topic that ignites arguments, destroys harmony, and keeps regional boundaries stiffly in place. Some faiths believe in justice, others in mercy; the Elder Council has never found a universally satisfying way to unify these two ideals. Although some faiths once advocated for executions, the planet has forbidden the death penalty by unanimous agreement. Beyond that one guarantee, punishments for crimes vary widely among the region-states.
Noemi’s home favors mercy, as does the Second Catholic Church. In her heart, though, she’s always longed for justice: hard, swift, certain, and severe. She’s been willing to deal out that harsh justice—and now she’s equally willing to endure it.
Because desertion of duty is a military crime, and the military has little use for mercy.
There are other crimes, too. “Failure to report the injury of a fellow soldier,” intones Commander Kaminski, battalion leader and, now, her prosecutor. “Failure to report the death of a fellow soldier.”
She thinks of Esther and winces. They haven’t let her talk to the Gatsons yet, or to Jemuel. She wants so badly to tell them how courageously Esther died, and how her resting place is at the heart of a star. Will she ever get her chance to explain? If she does, will Esther’s loved ones believe her?
Kaminski continues, “Failure to follow orders in battle.”
“I object,” says Captain Baz. She’s Noemi’s defender as a matter of law, but she seems to really care, to be fighting for her with true dedication. Noemi hopes so, anyway, because Baz is pretty much her only hope. “Officer Vidal’s actions were well within her discretion as an officer—”
“Up until a point.” Kaminski’s thin smile is more forbidding than any scowl could be. “Which point, do you think, Captain Baz? When she decided to board an enemy spacecraft? When she failed to deactivate an enemy mech, despite having the ability to do so? Where does that cross the line?”
“You’re assuming this story is true,” says one of the judges, raising an eyebrow. “We’re supposed to believe this girl became the first person in thirty years to pass through the Kismet Gate? That she crossed paths with Burton Mansfield himself?”
Captain Baz thumps her lectern for attention. Her dress uniform looks strange on her—too stiff, too confining. Baz was born for exosuits and armor, not this stuff. But she’s fighting the legal battle as vigorously as she’d fight with her blaster. “Analyzing satellite data showed that a small ship passed through the Kismet Gate around the time Ensign Vidal says—”
Another judge, his voice deep and booming, interjects, “If the story is true, Vidal’s behavior is even more egregious! She claims to know how to destroy a Gate, to have possessed the technology to do so, and yet failed to do it! By her account, she has left this world exposed to conquest for the sake of a mere mech.”
Noemi can imagine Abel’s crisp, superior voice, speaking with thinly veiled huffiness: A “mere” mech? He’d be so offended that it would be fun to watch him at it. Her memories of him warm her voice as she says, “He’s more than a machine.”
Kaminski shakes his head in open contempt. His dress uniform suits him better than Captain Baz; this is a guy who takes down his enemies not with weapons, but with words. “What was it you put in your report? Ah, yes. The mech ‘has a soul.’” The glance he gives the judges is amused, inviting them to join in his mockery. “The only question is whether that’s sentimentality… or heresy.”
“We don’t prosecute heresy in this courtroom!” Baz is beside herself. “Can we stick to the facts at issue?”
“Ensign Vidal says the mech’s soul is a fact. One that kept her from taking action to save this world—the very action she claims to have abandoned her post to fulfill—so I’d say that’s at issue, wouldn’t you?” Commander Kaminski folds his arms.
Noemi can’t take any more. “We’re not here to talk about Abel!”
Captain Baz seizes on this. “That’s right. We’re here to talk about you.”
“No, we aren’t.” Noemi gives her captain an apologetic look. As much as she appreciates the defense, it’s so far beside the point. “What happens to me doesn’t matter. It never did. The only thing that matters is stopping the Masada Run, forever.”