Chapter 69

"We got each one of them to emplace an earbud — with a companion. The story was they were to simply identify themselves for the record and tell their story if desired. The companion, who is the senior female in the colony aboard..."

Clare was making a report to the "Sundowners" which now included Bert Belter. She had received the reports from all concerned.

The liner was the Sema built and registered "Golden Galaxy" with a cargo of genetic slaves for the south west area — a financially rewarding trip and as a reward to themselves, the crew gave themselves a holiday at the Pleasure Palace off Bhute.

There had been several slaves, seventeen, in fact, fifteen females and two males, whose indoctrination was found to have broken down. Found, because the hiding female had undone the indoctrination of approximately seventy of the two thousand or so captives who had started the voyage. She was an "escaped" slave who had broken her own indoctrination — it did apparently rarely happen — and hid herself in a water tank she had appropriated when not acting the scullery maid on numerous voyages; indeed she had become almost a fixture on the vessel. Every voyage some slaves were found to be unsuitable for sale as slaves and they were disposed of as victims for snuff games. The escapee did not know of this fate — it had come from the interrogation of the owner of a broken arm. The majority of the crew were in the Pleasure Palace while a skeleton crew spaced the liner to the rendezvous with the yacht. The yacht might have not been as careful as it should or pure chance brought the Space Guard corvette into the picture. The liner was surreptitiously armed with four one point eight metre lasers and one of them had blasted the corvette to slag.

The transfer of four of the females had proceeded without incident, as the crew had been able to get their hands on them. The males had been overcome and manacled; the other females had barricaded themselves into a cabin cell. Crew were in the process of cutting through the hatch / cell door when all power except emergency illumination and gravity went down accompanied by an impact — "Sundowner" had arrived. The temporary master decided to scuttle the ship and take some of the Sollies with him. Cedric had found the firing mechanism and timer had dual power supply, ship's power and battery back up, but because the mechanism was connected to the ship supply and 'puter, the anti-electronic wave got into it and it crashed.

(TJ decided when he heard this that he wasn't going to reboot that programme and made a note in his PDA to check that Art had permanently disabled it — Cedric could well have left the damned thing rebootable!)

The Daughters had assisted the crews' memories filling in some gaps.

The released captives, aka Gennies, would be quartered on E and an offer of employment would be made in the fullness of time — the companions' assessments were that they could be trained for any mustering.

Clare then passed the floor to Orville,

"We are planning on a major refit after Bhute. The plan is to space to Betelgeuse, set up an orbital and get to it. The power for the work was to come from "Sundowner" and while the chance of a power failure during rebuild is vanishingly small it still exists. One of the problems we were going to have was working around the energy requirements of the rebuild and keeping our environment stable. We had envisaged a short period, some hours, in hardsuits. I propose we defer our visit to Bhute, divert to Betelgeuse and rebuild using the power from these vessels."

Widow Smeaton was curious,

"What happens if we go to Bhute first?"

Clare explained,

"We'd have to deliver the prizes to Admiralty jurisdiction and we'd be stuck there for about three weeks before we'd be authorised to depart and then we'd have to await a verdict of condemnation."

"Condemnation?"

"Prizes are condemned by the Court. We'd get the full value for the "Galaxy" but the yacht is locally owned and we can't arrest her so we'll only get salvage — an eighth value."

"How can you arrest a ship?"

"At law a ship is regarded as a legal person and can commit a crime and go into debt. The "Galaxy" is involved in slavery so she has committed a crime, we arrested her and under our Letters she is our prize. The yacht, on the other hand is a hired vessel on which the hirers committed a crime; and before you ask, we are in Interplanetary Space and I hold the power of High Justice"

"And?" the Widow was not stupid, just ignorant of Space Law. (She had heard it before but had forgotten.)

"I can give the guilty bastards a fair hearing and then space 'em."

"Oh."

"Yah; anyone got any more questions? Dorothy?"

"The Saints?"

"Yes, we can move into the edge of controlled space and they can use their shuttle to space in."

"Ah, Boss, will you leave that one with me?" came the cryptic response.

Clare looked hard at her Bosun, and then nodded. Clare looked around,

"Suits. Dismissed to duties. Cedric, you have the Watch? Present my complements to Captain Dahlgren and the Doctor and ask if I could have a word in my office in an hour? I'll be in my office."

...

The Club was set up so the port side of the catwalk was a courtroom with two rows of empty seats adjacent to the central catwalk. The "Bench" was on the athwartships catwalk with the table front blocked in.

"Atten-hut" came the Bosun's command as the Judges entered,

The Court room rumbled with chairs moving back; the Judges stood behind their chairs and salutes were exchanged, The Judges took their places and ordered the Court to be seated.

"This Court has been convened under the Anti — Slavery Conventions of Geneva, two thousand five hundred and two, to which the United Solarian Worlds are signaturies, to hear charges of trafficking in slaves and murder arising out of the apprehension of "Golden Galaxy" and Yacht Bravo seven nine three Lima on the Bhute Space Register...

Let the record show that Captain Clare Gillard, Master and Commander "Sundowner", presides, and her associates are Captain John Dahlgren, United Solarian Navy, USW Naval Attaché to the Harbourian System and Chief Engineer Orville Jang, Engineering Officer, "Sundowner"...

Bosun, have the accused brought in."

Dorothy spoke into her earbud boom and shortly, nine males entered escorted by armoured escorts, armed with marlin spikes, sans helmets. When they were seated, Clare went through the previous announcements and then asked TJ to read the charges. As each defendant was charged, he was asked to plead. None did and Clare ordered a plea of "not guilty" be entered.

It was ascertained that the defendants had refused representation.

The boarding parties were called, sworn and identified each of the defendants and the details of their capture. Morg and Allie were led to explain that a female body had been retrieved from outside the yacht, identified by the tattooed number on her tongue and the corpse delivered to Dr Saint. Morg and Allie identified a vid as being that of the corpse.

The Gennies were called, affirmed, required to explain their presence on the vessels and to identify the prisoners. The Gennies from the yacht were stood down, not discharged. The Gennies were outfitted in unadorned dungarees and workboots.

Cedric was called, sworn, his electronic credentials established and required to authenticate the vids lifted from the yachts 'puter which clearly identified the five occupants of the yacht participating in actions which ended in the death of several people including that of the corpse. Five of the Gennies were recalled to identify the victims and the vid of the female corpse.

Doctor Saint was called, sworn, identified the vid as being that of the corpse he received, confirmed the tattoo and gave the cause of death as being suffocation resulting from a blockage of the pharynx. A vid recording was shown of the death sequence of the female and the Doctor confirmed that the forced fellatio of the bound female was the instant cause of death; he was able to confirm that the rather lengthy sequence shown of the action actually caused the death and she was dead before the male's member was removed.

The defendants had declined the offer of cross-examination of each witness and the opportunity to offer evidence in rebuttal or mitigation.

The Members did not retire; there was a murmured conversation and Clare delivered the guilty verdicts and the death sentences. The Court was then adjourned sine die.

The executions were carried out immediately. The condemned were moved to #3 airlock, bound together in the airlock and the Death Warrants read. The inner hatch was closed and Clare opened the outer hatch. The Junior Officer of the Watch (Bet) confirmed the group was in space.

All hands then assembled for the service of committal to space of the murdered woman.

The corpses were then destroyed by PD fire.

...

While the supervised robos were working on the prizes, Clare was testing the waters.

The Sundowners were in favour of accepting Orville's proposal to use the prizes as additional energy suppliers for the rebuild.

Luke and Mercedes Saint requested discharge in Bhute but Dorothy had known something as St Luke's staff opted to remain as crew. The matter had been discussed among themselves and consequently the only one surprised was Clare.

The Gennies were offered transport to Bhute but found the offered alternative more to their liking — sign on "Sundowner" and receive training and experience. As Madame O (the appellation now given to the indoctrination breaker) remarked, this would give the Gennies an opportunity to gain additional skills and accustom themselves to a normal society. The Gennies were startled by the outburst of mirth at that observation. When Clare was able to stop giggling, she promised it would be made clearer later and made a note on her PDA to include instruction on "normal life" in the course she planned.

The night the Gennies signed on, TJ was dozing with his rostered partners. He was startled fully awake by a scream tearing apart the peace of the accommodation. His leap off the bed expanse was halted by Dorothy's hand on his arm,

"It's only Elle" she yawned "she's moved in with Morg."

"With Morg? Our Elle?" TJ was bemused "Elle Stanton?"

"TJ darling," Allie informed him, "there is only one person on this ship named Elle and she has had the hots for big bro ever since she set eyes on him. Now that you're awake, how about making us do the same?..."

While the "Galaxy" and the yacht remained behind, "Sundowner" approached Bhute controlled space. A rather haggard Luke and Mercedes departed in "Saint" carrying reports and vids to the authorities of the recent events (of course, copies to Sean O'Flaherty were included). The farewell party had been a huge success — and a new experience for all but the Tulips who had last fare-welled Charles Lightoller — and the suffering was obvious. Once "Saint" was in controlled n space, "Sundowner" reversed course to collect her brood and head for Betelgeuse.

"Golden Galaxy" was commanded by Cedric with Allie and Dell as Watch Officers, Emily Jones as ERA, Eva Porter as AB and Robos 001 and 010. (Art had disabled the scuttling charge by simply removing the ignition charge.)

The yacht was commanded by Dorothy Ember with Bet and Cat as Watch Officers, Colin Bolem as ERA and Robos 002 and 007.

The HACs were hangared in the boat bays and the convoy was on its way.

TJ broke the news as "Sundowner" rejoined her little band, the Mounties had announced that their naval forces (no detail given) had destroyed the Harbourian Home Fleet at New liege (no mention of casualties — the usual comment that next of kin will be notified was not made). Curiouser and curiouser. The Sundowners knew almost to the last tin can the current strength of the RMN. TJ buried himself in his cabin for the first part of the voyage to Betelgeuse (except when he was rostered to give instruction) satisfying himself where all the RMN warships were. While he was doing that, confirmation was received from his contact on Harbouria (and, no, Bert had not been his contact). TJ got Bert onto the Liege com net via FTL and had him chat with several of his acquaintances who hadn't been aware of his departure.