Echoes Of Honor

She shrugged, and McKeon nodded with an unhappy sigh.

"I think I'm hearing a consensus here," he said. "Does anyone want to call for secret ballots, or is a voice vote acceptable?"

He looked around the table, then directly at Longmont as the senior officer present.

"A voice vote is acceptable to me," the citizen admiral replied, and he glanced at the others.

"Voice," Simmons said, speaking aloud for the recorders faithfully taking down everything that happened in the conference room.

"Agreed," Gonsalves sighed.

"Agreed," Hurston said more grudgingly.

"Very well. How vote you on the charge of second-degree rape, Commander Hurston?" McKeon asked formally, begi

"Guilty," Hurston said flatly.

"On the charge of kidnapping?

"Guilty."

"On the charge of abuse of official authority for personal advantage?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of murder?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of second-degree rape, Captain Gonsalves?" McKeon went on, turning to the next most junior member of the court.

"Guilty," Gonsalves replied in a voice of cold certainty.

"On the charge of kidnapping?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of abuse of official authority for personal advantage?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of murder?"

"Abstained," Gonsalves said with a grimace, and McKeon turned to Simmons.

"On the charge of second-degree rape, Commodore Simmons?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of kidnapping?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of abuse of official authority for personal advantage?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of murder?"

Simmons opened his mouth, then closed it. He sat hunched in his chair for several seconds, glaring down at the table top, then raised his eyes and looked at McKeon and Longmont almost defiantly.

"Guilty," he said in a hard, cold voice.

McKeon nodded. He wasn't really surprised, despite the discussion which had preceded the vote, and he simply looked at Longmont.

"On the charge of second-degree rape, Citizen Admiral Longmont?" he asked.

"Guilty," Longmont said without hesitation.

"On the charge of kidnapping?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of abuse of official authority for personal advantage?"

"Guilty."

"On the charge of murder?"

"For acquittal, due to lack of evidence," Longmont said unhappily, and McKeon nodded once more.

"The vote on the first three charges being unanimous, and the vote on the sole capital charge being divided, the president of the court accepts the decision of the court's other members without casting a vote," he said for the record. "It is now the responsibility of this court to recommend a sentence to Admiral Harrington, however. The UCC provides for up to twenty-five years in prison for second-degree rape, fifty years for kidnapping, and two for abuse of official authority for personal advantage. By my math, that means Citizen Lieutenant Mangrum is theoretically subject to seventy-seven T-years at hard labor. To impose such a sentence, however, will require his return to Alliance space with us at such time as we leave the planet."

He didn't add "assuming we can leave the planet," but the other four heard it anyway, and he smiled wryly. Then he looked back at Hurston.

"Commander Hurston, what is your recommendation?"

"The maximum penalty—seventy-five T-years without possibility of parole," Hurston said harshly.

"Captain Gonsalves?"

"The maximum," she agreed, her expression murderous. "God knows the bastard has it coming... and I only wish we could leave him here on Hell to serve it!"

That wasn't exactly proper etiquette or procedure, but McKeon had no intention of pointing it out. He simply nodded and turned to Gaston Simmons.

"Commodore Simmons?"

"The same." His voice was hammered iron, even colder than Gonsalves', and McKeon looked at Longmont.

"Citizen Admiral Longmont?"

"I concur with the recommendations of my fellows," she said flatly.

"And so also says the president of the court," McKeon told them. "The vote being unanimous, this court will recommend to Admiral Harrington that Citizen Lieutenant Ke

No one spoke, and he nodded one last time, then sighed and let his shoulders slump.

"Well, that's one more out of the way," he said in a much less formal tone, and rubbed his face with both hands. "God, will I be glad when this is finally over!"

"I'm sure all of us will be, Commodore," Longmont told him, then shook her head sadly and looked at the other three members of the court. "I'm sorry we couldn't find the evidence to let me agree to hang him," she said. "But—"

"Don't be sorry, Sabrina!" Somewhat to McKeon's surprise, it was Simmons, interrupting the Havenite before she could finish. "I think he did it, Cynthia and Albert and Alistair all think he did it, and you think he did it. But you were right. We can't prove it, and if we ever start rubber-stamping execution orders, we'll be just as bad as the people we're hanging." He smiled sourly as Longmont raised an eyebrow at him, and then shrugged. "I know. I voted guilty. And in this case, I would cheerfully have hanged him if the rest of you had gone along, holes in the evidence or not. I would've slept soundly tonight, too. But that's why there's more than one person sitting on this court, and I was the one who held out against hanging Citizen Major Younce last week. As long as every one of us votes his or her conscience every time, then we've done both the best—and the least—we can do under the circumstances."

"You know," Longmont said after a moment, "it's really a pity we're on different sides. If the politicians—especially mine—would just get the hell out of the way and let the five of us deal with it, we could hammer out a peace settlement and end this whole damned war in a week."

"I wouldn't bet on that, Citizen Admiral," McKeon told her wryly. "Compared to the war, the things we're looking at here are pretty cut and dried. At least we've all agreed whose rules we're going to use as the basis for our verdicts! But when we started hammering away at each other about things like who owns which planets... well—"

He shrugged, and Longmont gave a snort of half-bitter, half-amused laughter.

"It's not polite to go around destroying a lady's daydreams, Commodore!"

"My commission says I'm an officer and a gentlemen, Ma'am; it never said I was a polite gentlemen!" The citizen admiral chuckled appreciatively, and McKeon gri

"Amen to that," Commodore Simmons said fervently, then pushed his chair back. "And given that we've just concluded our judicial duties for the day, I move that we adjourn, deliver our verdict and recommendations to Admiral Harrington, and then go find a nice, thick steak and a good beer. Takers?"

"Me, for one" Longmont told him. "Assuming that an unregenerate Peep is welcome in your company, of course?"

"This particular unregenerate Peep is welcome anytime," Simmons said graciously. "As long as she agrees to lose at darts after supper, that is!"

"Of course I'll agree to lose," Longmont promised. "Of course, I am an unregenerate Peep, servant of an order which you all insist is corrupt and venal."

"Are you saying your agreement would be a lie?" Simmons demanded.

"Of course not," the Citizen Admiral said sweetly. "I'm simply saying that despite Commodore McKeon's rudeness where my dreams were concerned, I would never even contemplate damaging our close working relationship by overturning your concepts of proper Peep-like behavior." She smiled. "And, of course," she added, "the loser does get to buy the beer. Coming, Commodore?"