CHAPTER 10 - DUE PROCESS
Judy had come off QF-204 with a healthy sense of indignation and curiosity. This was indeed one of the strangest scenarios she had heard of in a long time and perhaps her career. It was so sensitive as it were that she had taken the extraordinary measure of taking this particular job away from one of her subordinate officers when she had realized the gravity of it. For a human rights lawyer there was little more disturbing than the set of circumstances received by their computer systems a couple of days ago.
Prison 1.
She entered the establishment by the usual channels and proceeded straight to the administration area. She had not been in Prison 1 before, but since the schematics for all the prison buildings were fairly identical she is overwhelmed by a deja-vu as she enters. Often, she thinks, this feeling was a harbinger of events; either good or bad.
“I am here to see PF-903, the captured technician,” Judy said sternly at the receptionist and guard.
“I believe she is being questioned,” is the casual reply from the guard.
“Look, I'll be blunt. This situation seems slightly unusual to me,” Judy presses, emphasizing the un-usu-al with a long drawl, “Firstly, she was the only survivor of a military transport vessel. What happened to the pilots and crew?”
“Contamination,” 'confirms' the guard looking fictitiously at his screen.
The lawyer smiles. As if the situation as it were was not contradictory enough. She waits for a while to see if the guard is cogent enough to infer the fairly obvious question that she is now about to render, but upon a stunned silence, she continues the interrogation.
“And why was she not also contaminated?” Judy sighs.
“The vessel in question had dual cabins – it is a new prototype. Unfortunately, our salvage crews were unable to recover the vessel since it was so deep in enemy territory. But we have the schematics from our scans...”
They both knew that schematics could be fabricated but there is no way to prove it conclusively.
She decides to “accept” this notion of a new prototype since it was far, in her opinion, from the only thing curious about this case.
“My second problem, guard, is the manner in which her classification had been changed from civilian, standard technician if I am not mistaken, to a secret services agent. Our records show that the change in classification had not occurred until she was placed in this facility. Under what pretext was this change made?”
“She had a tracking implant in her brain. We would not have known about it apart from the fact that she had sustained a concussion during impact and our doctors decided to give her a complete scan. This was enough ground to suspect her involvement in a deeper conspiracy.”
This guard was doing fairly well under adverse conditions and Judy suspected that he had already been groomed to provide these answers.
“That might be acceptable, but her vessel is described as having ambiguously 'gone down' well into enemy territory – it was in fact within the path of known civilian routes used by the enemy's airliners. Yet, it was our rescue crews that performed the supposed rescue – not theirs? Doesn't that strike you as slightly odd?”
Judy braced herself for another formulated answer.
“The vessel, being a prototype, suffered an engine malfunction. Our rescue crews were actually there to retrieve a fallen bomber pilot that had crashed nearby, but found this stricken vessel along the way and decided to rescue the survivors - additionally to the bomber pilot - for humanitarian reasons. It was not considered an option to leave the vessel to be rescued by the enemy due to an engine leak that could have caused an explosion. The rescue team has been recommended for a humanitarian award.”
“Granted – the tracking implant is grounds to suspect she was involved in some kind of covert operations – but clearly no such operations were being performed at the time. The glaring contradiction here is that she been taken to the prison district for processing – despite being a civilian that was “rescued” for humanitarian reasons. They could not have known about the implant until after she had been admitted to prison,” Judy presses.
The guard smiles. He knew that this “glaring contradiction” had already been taken care of.
“The reason she has been sent here, is because she has been charged with assault. She attacked a member of the rescue crew with a knife. The medical reports are available, along with a full statement from the crew member.”
“And the video?”
“It happened on the enemy vessel, there is no video.”
Judy knew that all this was a house of cards – but as yet there is no way to prove it. Such a scenario seems exceedingly unlikely but this, from a legal standpoint, was certainly not enough. In any case she was sure that some face to face communication with the prisoner herself would clear up some of this situation. She also realized that this was now very much in legally ambiguous territory - whereas the guidelines for assault are well known, the alleged incident happened outside of Civlarian territory – it was a rare case, purportedly, of a civilian attacking another civilian in enemy territory. Further from rare: this would be a precedent.
Was she subject to the laws of the enemy, their laws or no laws at all?
In fact, there were only two laws common to both civilizations by accord:
1.It was forbidden to develop DNA altering virii and,
2.It was forbidden to develop nano-machines.
This accord was largely symbolic in nature – since there was no way of enforcing it against an segregated enemy respectively. Also, it was considered that it would only be the respective enemies that would suffer from such an act of lunacy, since obviously it would be developed inside one of their own territories and they would be the first to get impacted by a break out.
Judy considers her position.
If it wasn't for the tracking implant, she could and would be tried immediately for the assault – with a 100% chance of acquittal due to ambiguity and jurisdiction issues - but that “accidental discovery” might be enough to begin processing her as a POW. Not just a POW – but one designated as an enemy agent.
And, they would be allowed to use a negotiator.
Additionally, since questioning without duress was a time consuming exercise, the military now had a lot of room to move.
“I want to see her, as is my right and role,” Judy states.
The guard handed her the dreaded piece of paper which Judy examines for some short time.
“This is a completely frivolous application of an Exclusive Interaction Order. The opposition will be notified about this along with the media!” she bursts in outrage.
“That is your right.” advises the guard calmly.
CHAPTER 11 - STRIKE FORCE CHASTITY