Solfleet: Above and Beyond Page 5

  Heather sat down with everyone else in the ‘peanut gallery’ and swallowed hard. This was it. Her father was about to learn his fate, as was she, and the idea of what was about to happen was suddenly scaring the hell out of her even more than it had been. Her eyes began to sting. She was about to lose her father forever.

  “Vice-Admiral Icarus Hansen,” the judge in the center seat began as soon as everyone else had sat back down and settled in, “you stand before this court and before all the people of the Earth convicted of committing a capital crime against humanity, that being the willful violation of the Brix-Cyberclone Cessation Act of twenty-one sixty-two. Do you have anything to say before this panel passes sentence against you for that offense?”

  Heather’s nervous gaze shifted from the judge back to her father just as he firmly replied, “Yes, Your Honor, I do. I could probably go on for the next several minutes explaining why I did what I did, but I wouldn’t be telling this court anything it hasn’t already heard several times during these proceedings. The bottom line is that I did it. I am guilty as charged, sir, and so convicted.” He paused for the briefest of moments, barely long enough for Heather to wonder what it had felt like to say that. Then he continued, “My only regret is that I haven’t been a better father, and now I’ll likely never have an opportunity to make up for it.” Tears began to well up in Heather’s eyes and her chin began to quiver. “That’s all I wanted to say, Your Honor,” he concluded.

  “Admiral Hansen,” the judge continued, drawing Heather’s attention back to him. From his tone, she guessed that her father’s statement had had no effect on him whatsoever. What a heartless bastard he was. “The crime of which you have been convicted is not only one of several serious offenses with which you were originally charged, it also happens to be one of the very few crimes on the books that still carry a maximum possible sentence of death.”

  Heather gasped and whimpered, “No,” before she could stop herself, and her tears began rolling down over her cheeks. She’d known that such a sentence was possible, if unlikely, but even knowing hadn’t prepared her to hear it stated out loud. Her aunt laid a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle, loving squeeze. Her uncle only sighed, and she could tell that it was an angry sigh.

  “However,” the judge continued, “having taken into account your more than thirty-five years of honorable service to the fleet, no one sitting on this bench could bring him- or herself to even consider passing such a sentence against you.” Heather drew a deep breath and closed her eyes, pushing more tears down over her cheeks as she exhaled quietly, relieved. Whatever was about to happen to her father, at least the death penalty had finally been taken off the table. That was something. She opened her eyes once more and continued listening. “But you have been convicted and you must be sentenced in accordance with the law.”

  This was it. The judge was going to pass sentence on her father right now.

  “Vice-Admiral Icarus Hansen,” the judge began in his most official sounding tone of voice, “it is the decision of this panel that you be sentenced as follows. Effective immediately, you are stripped of your Solfleet commission and reduced to the pay grade of E-one. In addition, you are ordered to forfeit all pay and allowances, as well as any and all retirement benefits that you have earned, and you are to be confined to whatever Solfleet correctional facility might have survived the last invasion for a period of life, minus those thirty-five years of service.” Heather felt her chest constrict as though her ribs were trying to crush her heart, even as the judge relaxed his posture a little. “Now, we obviously have no way of knowing when your life will end,” he continued, “so the term of your confinement has been calculated based on the average human life expectancy of one hundred and twenty years. Therefore, you are to be confined for a period of just under thirty-one years, and are to be released on your eighty-fifth birthday.”

  Thirty years!

  Her father barely moved as the judge reached for his gavel, but Heather couldn’t stop herself from crying. Aunt Sharon put an arm around her.

  The judge raised his gavel and proclaimed, “This court is adjourn...” but the doors in the back of the courtroom burst open suddenly, as though someone had hit them with a battering ram, interrupting him. Obviously annoyed by that, and with his arm still in the air, he started to say something but then stopped, and his eyes grew wide.

  “Not yet it isn’t, Your Honor,” a familiar voice argued.

  Everyone, including her father, turned in their chairs and looked toward the back of the courtroom. Heather then did as well, and her eyes fell on her father’s long-time friend, Mirriazu Shakhar, President of the United Earth Federation—a woman as strong and fiercely independent as she was dark and slender—a woman with whom Heather was also well acquainted—once a sort of surrogate mother-figure to her, in fact, though she rarely got to see her very much anymore—the sort of woman who she had always liked and admired.

  Rarely got to see anymore? Actually, she never got to see her anymore...not since her father’s arrest. Her hair had turned noticeably grayer than it had been the last time she saw her, but other than that, she looked pretty good, though as she marched forward through the center of her four-man security detail, the rear two of whom stopped and closed the doors behind them, she looked unhappy about something. All of the military types in the room, at least those who were in uniform, including all three judges, stood up quickly and snapped to the position of attention. Some of the media folks and other civilians stood up as well, but Heather kept her seat. She simply didn’t have it in her to stand up right now, and even if she did, she decided, she wouldn’t have. Not after Mirriazu had abandoned her father the way she had.

  Friends weren’t supposed to turn their backs on friends like that.

  “As you were, everyone,” the president commanded when she stopped near the center of the ‘peanut gallery.’ “Please, everyone, take your seats.”

  Except for the senior judge, the one who had pronounced sentence, everyone quietly sat back down, including her father. “What can we do for you, Madam President?” that judge asked her.

  “May I approach the bench?” she asked in return. As if she really had to ask.

  “Certainly, ma’am,” he replied. As if he could have told her ‘no.’

  She went forward, alone, and spoke with the senior judge for a few moments while the other two judges listened in, too quietly for Heather to hear what she was saying. Then she pulled some kind of document out from within the folds of her sarong, handed it up to him, nodded, and then promptly turned and headed back to the back of the courtroom. Heather followed her with her eyes, glaring at her, hoping that she would meet that glare and recognize it for the anger that it was, but the woman never looked her way.

  Perhaps she was too ashamed of herself to make eye contact, for having turned her back on a friend...as she should have been.

  Her father sat staring straight ahead while the judges took a few moments to review the document that Mirriazu had handed over to them. What was it? What was Mirriazu up to? She and her father were old friends—close friends. At least, they had been. Was she finally trying to help him now, after she’d turned her back on him? Was she trying to get his sentence reduced by a few years, perhaps?

  “Mister Hansen,” the senior judge called out.

  “Yes, Your Honor?” he replied, standing up once more.

  “I have here, in my hand...” He raised the document for a brief moment, then set it aside as he continued, “...a presidential decree concerning your sentencing. It is not a reversal of your conviction. Nor is it a pardon. Rather, it is a short letter of explanation reemphasizing the reasons why you did what you did, and a set of guidelines that we on the panel have been asked to abide by in passing sentence. We have discussed it amongst ourselves and have decided to do so. In light of this, your sentence is hereby amended as follows.

  “Effective immediately, your Solfleet commission is retired rather than revoked. You are ordered to forfeit all active duty pay and allowances, but your retirement benefits, to include full payment of all pension installments under the standard plan, will commence immediately. In addition, your sentence of confinement is hereby commuted. You are instead sentenced to military probation for the same period of thirty-one years.” He paused a moment, then added, “Go home, Admiral. Leave all of this behind you and start a new life with your daughter.” He raised his gavel into the air once again, proclaimed, “Now this court is adjourned,” and struck it.

  Her father practically collapsed back into his chair—at least, that was what it looked like to her—as her aunt squeezed her tight and whispered something into her ear that she missed completely, and Heather knew exactly how he felt. She could hardly believe her ears! Her father wasn’t going to prison! He was free to go! She wasn’t going to lose him after all!

  She wiped the tears from her eyes, then leapt up out of her chair, ran crying all over again into his welcoming embrace, and threw her arms around his waist. She smiled and she cried and she gasped for air and she giggled as he lovingly stroked her long strawberry-blond hair. She felt that no matter how tightly she might hug him, it wouldn’t be tightly enough. Seconds later, someone joined them—her aunt and uncle, of course—reaching over her to hug her father right along with her. Then, eventually, they broke it up and headed for the exit together, her father with one arm around her shoulders, holding her close, she with both arms around his waist, not caring that that made walking a little difficult.

  As they made their way out of the courtroom—as far as she was concerned, they couldn’t leave fast enough—some of the officers took a moment or two to shake her father’s hand, to congratulate him on his sudden retirement, and to wish him the best of luck in his new life. A few o
f the others flashed him dirty looks, but he appeared to ignore them. She wondered briefly what those looks were for, but then she decided that she didn’t really care.

  Her father hurried them all ahead and they caught up to Mirriazu in the lobby before her security detail could usher her out. He introduced her to Aunt Sharon and Uncle Jason, and then thanked her for her incredible thoughtfulness, as he put it. Incredible thoughtfulness? That was awfully generous, considering everything. Where had she and her so-called incredible thoughtfulness been for the last four months? Regardless, she accepted his thanks, after which her father invited her to visit them in their new home any time, wherever that new home might end up being, but she responded by staring at him for a moment and then turning her back with a harrumph and walking away, her always-present security team once more surrounding her.

  Heather felt utterly confused, but she also felt pretty sure that Mirriazu was acting like a total bitch. A thoughtful bitch, perhaps, but a bitch all the same. She and her father were no longer close friends. That much was obvious. Yet, she had literally just rescued him from decades of imprisonment and losing everything that he had worked so hard for throughout his life. In return, he had invited her to visit them anytime she might want to, but she’d responded to that invitation by turning her back on him...again.

  What the hell was going on between those two?

  Her father gave her one more gentle squeeze and kissed the top of her head, then nodded to her aunt and uncle and led them all outside—hopefully that was the very last time that she would ever have to set foot in that building. What had started out as an unseasonably chilly, damp, and overcast morning had turned into a warm and beautiful sunny afternoon.

  As they started walking toward the parking lot, her father unfastened his collar and opened the top of his jacket. He must have been feeling too warm, so Heather stopped hugging him so tightly, though she did continue to hold one arm around the back of his waist. At least that made walking straight a little bit easier.

  Her uncle asked him, “What do you want to do first, Nick?”

  “You know what, Jason?” he responded after a second or two. “I think I’m in the mood for a great big pepperoni pizza.”

  “Me, too!” Heather interjected with enthusiasm, only then realizing just how incredibly hungry she really was. “I’m starving!” she added, and as far as she was concerned, that wasn’t too much of an exaggeration. Her stomach was growling like an angry bear.

  “Sounds good to me,” Aunt Sharon agreed.

  “Then I guess it’s lunchtime,” Uncle Jason concluded.

  “Yes, it is,” her father adamantly confirmed.

  “Admiral Hansen,” someone called out from behind them as they hurried across the street between surges of traffic.

  As soon as they had crossed the street, all four of them stopped and looked back over their shoulders to find a well-dressed young man approaching them. He was carrying something in his hand—something flat and square, like a picture frame. It was a picture frame, Heather realized. She caught a glimpse of the photo that it contained as the man’s arm swung back and forth, but not nearly enough of one to make out what was depicted in it. The man himself was well-dressed and very good-looking, she decided, grinning slightly as she gazed up at his face. He met her gaze as he stepped up onto the sidewalk, but only briefly. He had the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen in a man, and she suspected that if she were only a few years older, she might just...

  “Do I know you?” her father asked the man as soon as he caught up to them.

  “I doubt it, sir,” he answered. “I’m new to the, uh...to the...to the department you used to work in, sir.”

  “What can I do for you?” her father then inquired.

  “My supervisor asked me to give you this,” he answered, holding the picture frame up and then out to her father. Heather caught another brief glimpse, enough to see that it wasn’t a photo of a person, but she still couldn’t make out exactly what it was a photo of. “Said to tell you it was taken a few days ago near Drexel University in Philadelphia.”

  Philadelphia? Her father had been born and raised near there. Was that just a coincidence, or did the photo somehow have something to do with that?

  He accepted the frame from the man, gazed down at the photo, and then suddenly looked as though he’d just seen a ghost. “Oh my God,” he muttered.

  Heather looked up at him, deeply concerned. “What is it, Dad?” she asked him. “What’s wrong?” Then, when he didn’t answer her right away, she inquired, “Dad, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, Heather, I’m...I’m fine,” he finally replied. He stared at the photo for a few more seconds, then finally raised his eyes back to the man, who she was pretty sure had been staring at her father the whole time, and asked him, “Where’s the president?”

  “She’s already gone, sir,” the man answered, somewhat hesitantly if she read him correctly, sounding almost apologetic. “She didn’t waste any time leaving, either. She looked pretty angry about something.”

  Her father handed the photo back to the man and told him, “Give this back to your supervisor and tell him or her...”

  “Him,” the man clarified as he took the photo back.

  “Tell him to make sure the president sees it and then tells the president that I was the one who gave him those instructions.”

  “I will, sir,” the man assured him. Then he asked, “Where will you be?”

  “For the next couple hours, having pizza with my family. After that, anyone who needs to reach me can reach me at home. Central Command has my contact information.”

  “Roger that, sir,” the man replied. And with that, he hurried off.

  They turned and continued toward the car. What was going on? As of today, her father wasn’t in the fleet anymore. He was officially and permanently retired, so how could he still be involved in anything that was going on in the fleet? She almost asked him, but then decided that, given the nature of his work, to ask him in front of her aunt and uncle might not be the best idea. Better to wait until they were alone somewhere.

  The here and now was all about celebrating her father’s freedom with a big fat pepperoni pizza.

  CHAPTER 5

  Monday, 21 March 2168

  Detective Lieutenant Paul Lombardo sat leaning back in his padded black pleather chair behind his always immaculately neat and clean falsewood desk, his tie loosened, his collar unbuttoned, his office door closed against the high-spirited chatter that was going on out in the ‘bullpen’—a signal to the detectives under his command that he wished not to be disturbed. He’d spent the last half hour or so staring at his monitor, reviewing the case that Detectives Bonner and D’Antonio, two of the finest detectives he’d ever had the privilege of working with, had just closed—solved, as usual. He’d been with the Philadelphia Police Department for a little more than fourteen years, counting his time as a cadet at the academy—ever since his twenty-first birthday—and had never known a pair of partners whose respective skill sets complimented one another’s as well as theirs did. They were, perhaps, the most thorough and effective detectives he had ever known—a match made in Heaven, as it were, as far as the department’s investigations efforts were concerned.

  Fourteen years. If he was going to continue the longtime Lombardo family tradition, which was exactly what his father expected him to do, then he still had a long way to go. Fourteen years was nothing—just the beginning. His father had almost forty-five years on the job and was still serving as a homicide detective in the northeast, the eighth district, though he was thinking about finally retiring in a few months. His father, Paul’s grandfather, and his great-grandfather had all been Philadelphia police officers as well and had enjoyed successful careers, first as patrol officers and then as sergeants, each of which had also lasted at least forty years. Due in large part to them and their excellent service records, Paul had been hired onto the department the very first time he applied, unlike most if not all of his peers. Early in his academy days, that fact had proven to be a source of friction between him and his fellow cadets—more often than not, a person had to apply to the department three or four times before he or she ever stood a real chance of being hired—but as time went on after graduation and he proved himself to be a good cop, that friction had waned and he had earned his fellow officers’ respect.