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Maia’s gaze drifted over the members of the panel from one end to the other.
“The Kataran stage of the operation,” she said, “was quick and decisive. The resident Imraehi saw it was a no-win scenario. They could inflict damage on our task force, yes, but since doing so would be to assure their own destruction, they carried out the only option that was available to them under the circumstances. The circumstances that we had established.”
“They could have acted otherwise,” one of the panel members said. A Calae stag. “They could have utilized the same strategy Ardeis used against Admiral Seirvek’s force at Imraec Tarc.”
“Perhaps,” Maia conceded. “But that was a risk that we already faced. Since Admiral Seirvek would be arriving at Imraec Tarc at any moment, the most sensible approach seemed to be to subdue the Imraehi swiftly and ensure a prompt agreement to our terms.”
“Admiral Seirvek took the exact same approach over Imraec Tarc,” the Calae said. “And the results were disastrous. The death toll on Phalamki -”
“Was entirely not his fault,” Maia said, cutting him off. “He had no foreknowledge of the threat that the Imraehi had made. And it wasn’t an open threat anyway. It was a shock tactic intended to be delivered to us after the event. It’s only by the chance discovery made by the crews of the Lantern and the Albatross that we were aware of the danger before it occurred.”
“That seems reasonable,” the Calae replied. “Very well then. However, the massive losses suffered by his own task force cannot be excused so readily.”
“The weapons used by the Imraehi,” Maia explained, “these ‘stinger nets’, are something we have never encountered before. Admiral Seirvek had no prior knowledge of these weapons. Nor did he have any knowledge of their capabilities. And, once the danger was apparent, he immediately withdrew his task force to prevent further loss of life. I see no fault in his conduct.”
“So you don’t believe Admiral Seirvek should face any disciplinary charges over this incident?” the Calae asked.
At this, Rear Admiral Karaeil of the Hie’shi High Command, leaned forward, narrowing her eyes in irritation at the Calae’s manner. “It is not in the jurisdiction of this committee to pass disciplinary charges against the officers of any member states. A Hie’shi tribunal will determine whether or not Admiral Seirvek’s actions were appropriate under the circumstances.” She turned to Maia, softening her gaze. “You do not need to answer the question, Lady Erama.”
“Perhaps not,” Maia said. “But since our friend here has asked my opinion on the matter, I’d like to offer it all the same. I believe that Admiral Seirvek acted professionally under very trying circumstances.”
“He risked the lives of millions of United Frontier citizens when he refused to bow to the Imraehi’s demands,” the Calae pointed out.
Maia held her ground. “And he prevented others from playing with the lives of our people by sending a clear message that such tactics do not protect those who employ them. And he was not gambling on a whim. He knew he could cripple the Imraehi defenses swiftly enough for his purpose. What Admiral Seirvek was hoping to effect was that by crippling them fast enough, he would prevent them from contacting any of their other terrorist cells. And he succeeded in that.”
“I understand the intention behind his actions,” the Calae said, “but it was not I who first suggested he was risking millions of lives. He himself said, and I quote,” - here the Calae looked at a pad - “I have gambled with the lives of millions. I don’t know if I am fit to continue in my duties.”
“That shows,” Maia said, “that not only is Admiral Seirvek capable of making difficult decisions that are sometimes required of commanding officers, but that he can still retain his moral compass while doing so. His statement simply shows the conscience of any reasonable individual.”
At this, Haiss Garam, former admiral of the Cirtan navy, addressed the Calae as well. “I believe, Tameir, that Lady Erama has more than sufficiently addressed your concerns. And I would kindly remind you, as Rear Admiral Karaeil has already pointed out, that passing judgment on Admiral Seirvek is not the job of this committee. We have already heard the admiral’s account of his side of the events. Now it is time to hear the rest of Lady Erama’s, would you agree?”
The Calae folded his muscular arms and huffed. “Very well. I’ve read it already but...” He gave an apologetic nod to Maia. “Please continue with your statement.” He gave Garam a sideways glance before looking back at Maia once more. “Feel free to summarize the main points of the matter.”
Garam rolled his eyes at his colleague on the panel but said nothing.
Maia resumed her account. “When it was safe to do so, Master Zak and I sent down landing shuttles to secure the civilian population centers on Katara and to protect the people from any retaliatory actions from the resident Imraehi. We then assigned a suitable number of ships to maintain an orbital presence and, once we were satisfied that Katara was secure, we took a portion of our ships immediately to Imraec Tarc to assist Admiral Seirvek’s task force. We arrived in time to witness the stinger net attack and, given the immediate danger to our ships, we proceeded to destroy the Imraehi’s orbital stations and any armed enemy ships in the vicinity.
“Once this was done, we believed that the first priority was to ensure that the Imraehi would agree to a ceasefire and discuss terms. Given the massive amount of unexploded mines and battle debris that was already in a decaying orbit by that time, we informed the Imraehi of their situation and offered to use our mine sweepers to clear the debris. They would have otherwise been quite literally held under siege. The Imraehi at this point were willing to talk and a ceasefire was agreed on. We also made the decision to offer amnesty to the members of their various terrorist cells in return for information on what each cell was planning and the location of all their equipment and explosive devices.”
Maia smiled at the Calae. “And since all the unused explosives have now been removed, along with the danger they posed, we believe the merit of this approach has already been amply demonstrated to this panel.”
Tameir frowned. “You are not on trial here, Lady Erama. You don’t need to defend yourself.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” Maia replied.
She gained a few smiles from the other members of the panel.
“As for the rest of my account however,” she continued, “there’s not much more to say. We cleared the debris over Imraec Tarc as we said we would. We repaired the damage to our vessels. We held position over Imraec Tarc until an official delegation could be sent to acquire a formal statement from the Imraehi regarding the independence of Katara.” She shrugged. “And then we came home. Unless there are any questions, I have nothing further to add.”
Once Maia had ended her statement, there was a brief adjournment of the proceedings. When the panel returned, Selina, Asten, Carla, Reece and several members of the crew of the Lantern were ushered in. All had had close contact with the deceased Deramar Ardeis and, given the atrocities that Ardeis had committed, the panel was interested in learning a bit more about the man. For their part, each of the witnesses simply recalled what they could remember of their dealings with him. The gist of conversations and the actions he had committed. As to their opinion of him, they ventured none apart from the disdain that the general population felt towards him. Asten offered the insightful observation that Ardeis had been “a bit of an odd character”, referring to the contradictions in the man’s actions, how he seemed to want the Phalamkians to understand him and give him their approval on the one hand yet on the other, how he had orchestrated that devastating attack that left so many innocent Phalamkians dead. Selina then added her own opinion that Ardeis was an ‘awful man’ and it seemed that the witnesses had nothing further to say.
However, Reece stirred after a few moments of reflection and looked at the panel with a thoughtful gaze in his eyes. “Well, he may have been a mass murderer. He may have been a paradox. Craving understanding on the one hand, while doing everything possible to turn people against him on the other, as Asten said. Master of his domain when Selina and Asten met him. A weakened and broken man when we brought him aboard the Lantern. And his authority rejected by his people as we learned later from the surviving Imraehi naval officers. But I was with him when he died and the strange thing is he didn’t seem to think he was a villain.
“And I know that’s a silly thing to say. Of course, bad people don’t consider themselves bad but he was something else entirely. As Selina said earlier, in that recording he’d made for her and Asten, he’d stated that the Imraehi had saved the Katarans from a civil war that would have destroyed them. Then, just before he died, he told me that he hoped others would take care of the Katarans for him in his absence.
“So, in his own way, it seems as though he cared about the Katarans very much. Maybe he thought of them as his children or something. But he seemed to genuinely believe that what his people were doing to them was in their best interests.” He shook his head. “It’s funny isn’t it? The lies we tell ourselves.” He looked back at the panel. “It’s as though, if we repeat them for long enough, we start to believe them.”
The witnesses were then excused from the room and, not long afterwards, the inquiry panel concluded its discussions. As the members left, a Narvashae officer shook her head. A former general, mir Ameile was now a United Frontier ambassador and the foreign secretary of her government. “I can’t understand how this Imraec Tarc business ended up as such a catastrophe,” she said. “I just can’t. We had the combined resources of the United Frontier at our disposal and it was just one world. It should have been a simple, clean operation.”
Overhearing the remark, Garam smiled at her. “Mir Ameile, what things should be and what they are rarely correlate. Come on. It’s been a long day. Let me buy you a coffee.”
––––––––
Over the next few months, there was plenty to occupy the people of the United Frontier, and the residents of Phalamki in particular. Relations with the Imraehi were not as thorny as many predicted and, without the leadership of Deramar Ardeis, the people seemed more amiable to improving relationships with their distant Frontier neighbors. With their capacity to defend their world and wage war all but crippled, there was no fight in them anymore. Meanwhile, on Phalamki, work on repairing the damage to Kerali and the other cities that had been bombarded began almost immediately.
After a state funeral for Lord Tarj Erama, in which Zak had honored his father by arranging a Phalamkian Kite fly-by with the members of the old Sigma squadron, the naval headquarters where Lord Erama had given his life while trying to save the lives of others was rebuilt and a plaque was unveiled by the main entrance in his honor.
Selina was devastated by the death of her father and had maybe the hardest time coming to terms with his loss, save her mother Deidre, who needed considerable care for some time afterwards. Asten felt it his duty to provide as much of that care as he could, to both Selina and her mother, and his own parents, who were not at all inclined to interstellar travel, made the long journey from Halea to the Frontier in order to offer their own condolences and spend time with the grieving family as well.
Maia, who was almost as hard hit as her sister and her mother, found some measure of comfort in the distractions of her work. In the main, it consisted of overseeing the restructuring of the Phalamkian defenses and repairs to the planetary shield generator. Her uncle Cyraes also came to Phalamki to be with his niece and the family that had taken her in when she had had no one else. He stayed for some time.
Asten for his part found that once Selina and her mother were improving, and due in no small part to the comforting presence his parents provided, work was some solace to him as well. He dedicated his own efforts to the logistics of the rebuilding process, shipping personnel and supplies to where they were needed. He would arrange shipping schedules from the newly repaired naval headquarters in Kerali. Sometimes, he would fly personnel and equipment himself in the Harpy. And he would also make small trips in the repaired Lady Hawk.
Carla Casdan dedicated her own ships to the cause as well, as did Drackson with the Albatross. Reece Carrelle also stayed to assist, becoming a permanent addition to the crew of the Lantern.
About five months after the official inquiry into the incidents of the Imraec Tarc operation and six months after the incidents themselves, Asten took a break from the work he was undertaking in order to take care of Selina after the birth of their child. Their daughter was a healthy girl, entirely human in her appearance and apparent genetic make-up, although she carried recessive Phalamkian genes, and Selina named her Elise.
By this time, their home in Kerali had been rebuilt and they were living there once more. Selina’s mother now lived in a new home nearby to the one that Maia and Zak occupied when they were planetside, while Asten’s mother and father remained with their son for a little while longer.
Taking care of his newborn child, Asten no longer had time for the responsibilities that had occupied him until then and he had been obliged to delegate them to others. Now, the duties of midnight feeding, making sure that both Selina and Elise had enough rest and other such responsibilities of new parents took over his life. His own parents offered, regularly offered, to help in these matters but, for Asten’s part, he wouldn’t hear of it. He relished his new duties as a father, finding them both peaceful and a pleasant distraction from some of the memories and grief that still pained him from time to time.
“You know,” he said to his wife one night when Elise, and his parents, were fast asleep, “Elise has really helped me a lot, I think. It’s like the joy of having her goes some way to overcoming the pain of losing Father.”
Selina smiled and squeezed his hand. “It’s the cycle of life, isn’t it? We lose loved ones. We gain loved ones.” She sighed. “I wish Father could have been around a little longer though. He would have loved Elise.”
“I’m sure he’s watching her,” Asten said, “wherever he is.”
They were standing just outside their daughter’s room.
Asten looked at her with a wistful gaze. “She’s a cute little thing, isn’t she?”
Selina’s smile remained. “Yeah.”
For a few moments, they were quiet and then Asten pursed his lips. “You know, when we were stranded in that forest, I have to admit that on more than one occasion I found myself thinking that... if we made it out of there alive, I was going to have words with your father for getting us in that mess.”
Selina chuckled. “It’s all right, honey. I was thinking the same thing. Believe me.”
“But in hindsight, I’d say we were lucky. If we hadn’t been trekking through that forest or paddling down that river...” Asten trailed off.
Selina nodded. “We might have been here when it happened.”
“So I guess he saved our lives,” Asten said. “And Elise too.”
“I suppose he did,” Selina said. She led Asten away from the room and they sat down on their sofa, with a skylight above them and the lights in the room bathing the scene in a pleasant warm glow. Two cups of coffee, still hot, rested on a little wooden table in front of them.
“I was just thinking,” Asten said, “would you like to go back to Imraec Tarc someday?”
Selina turned to him. “Are you serious?”
He shrugged. “Well, it is a pretty place, isn’t it? And those beaches might even give a few of Erelli’s a run for their money.”
“Maybe,” Selina conceded, reaching for her coffee. “Actually, I would like to go back some time.” She shrugged and took a sip from her cup. “When things have calmed down enough.” She put the cup down and sighed. “I know we’re not fighting any more but I’m not sure I’m ready to call the Imraehi friends.”
“They’re just people, honey,” Asten said. “Some good, some bad and a bunch in between. Just like the rest of us.”
Selina nodded. That was true. The Phalamkians. The humans. The Vaschassi. The Ksia. The Calae. The Heg-shur. The Hie’shi. The Harskans. They were all like the Imraehi in their way.
“Maybe we should go easy on them then,” she said.
“If we want to avoid any trouble down the road,” Asten said, “then we probably should. At the moment, I’d say they’re neither friends or enemies. The steps we take in dealing with them now will determine which ones they’ll become.”