Dennis Sterling and Francis Diaz had been newly promoted Corporals in the Republic of Freya Marine Corps. They’d received the assignment of being members of the security detachment of the Freyan Consulate on Kennedy.
Several of the largest and oldest colonies of Earth, including Freya, had been granted independence by the Federation government. The Freyan Republic, which at this time had only consisted of their own home world, had sent a full embassy to Earth. There were also separate consulates on several of the independent worlds, including March at Alpha Centauri A, and Kennedy at Alpha Centauri B. All of which required the presence of a Marine security detachment.
With the official kidnaping by the local government of Judith Stern they now had a new mission. They would attempt to rescue Judith from her captors and hide in the Outback region of the planet while waiting for the naval expedition to in turn rescue them. Of course this assumed that the government and Navy back home on Freya would actually send an expedition.
And the mouth droppings of the Ambassador on Earth clearly didn’t help the situation.
The head of the rescue team was Tamara Zev. She was a field officer of the intelligence service of the Freyan government. She was sent to Kennedy under the cover of a junior consular officer. With this she had some training in firearms and personal close combat.
Corporals Sterling and Diaz were the functional muscle of the team. But as Marines on their first independent assignment they were expected to perceive and think on their own. And the staff sergeant in charge of the Marine detachment believed it necessary to tell them that the haircut regulations weren’t in effect for the duration of the mission.
Ruth Newman was a navy medical corpsman assigned to the Marine security detachment. She volunteered to stay behind as the combat medic on this mission.
In the four standard weeks since the crisis began the team studied the available records on the subject of covert operations. Other members of the consulate staff worked on the problems of creating false identification documents, obtaining vehicles, recruiting local supporters, and establishing the safe houses to operate from.
The Freyan consulate was formally expelled from the planet a week ago. In their safehouse on the edge of New Boston the team was now on their own.
Tamara was in regular contact with Doctor Fuller in the hospital. She updated the team on the situation there.
“According to the doctor they will be transferring Miss Stern to an orphanage within the week. No idea which one yet.”
Ruth had a question.
“How bad are they?”
“The orphanages?” Said Tamara.
“Yes.”
“No idea.” Tamara replied. “But they couldn’t be as bad as those described by Charles Dickens in Merry Old England.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure ma’am.” Said Diaz. “Parts of this planet look like they’ve made a serious effect to recreate the worst parts of Old Ireland on Earth.”
“I have to agree.” Said Sterling.
Ruth Newman spoke up.
“I normally don’t go out alone.” She said. “I did once, but I was accosted by someone.”
Diaz spoke up.
“What happened?”
“I encountered a loud drunken lout, and he apparently believed that women from off world were fair game for him.”
“How did it end?” Said Diaz.
“I’m sure I broke his right arm at the elbow.” Ruth replied. “He screamed and ran away. I far I know there hasn’t been a local police report on it.”
“Congratulations.” Said Sterling. “You have more real combat experience than Francis or myself.”
Diaz nodded in agreement.
Tamara spoke up.
“Guys, that incident remains off of the mission report. Okay?”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
In the hospital as she recovered from the bout of pneumonia Judith Stern was transferred to the children’s ward. Although there was another bed in the room she was alone.
The nursing staff and the other doctors barely spoke to her. Only Doctor Fuller from the ICU came up to actually talk with her.
After the news was released that the Freyan Consulate had been expelled Judith asked Deborah a question.
“Are they coming to rescue me?”
Deborah replied.
“The people from the consulate told me only to say that they will come for you.”
From her room Judith had access to the local cyberspace network, the online news was clearly censored. Nowhere could she find a website that gave the simple truth of her situation. That is, the actual truth. What she did find was the major stories of the destruction of a Space Guard vessel by the Freyaspace Concord, and of the Freyan Ambassador to Earth stating his support for the planetary government on Kennedy, and his statement that no attempt would be made by the Freyan government to perform a rescue of her.
Judith had also attempted to start a diary with her hospital room terminal. But when she tried to access the file on the hospital system she found it had been deleted.
Judith complained to a nurse.
“Of course it was deleted!” The Head Nurse of the ward replied. “We can’t have any of your Godless filth on our network!”
“‘Reality is real’.” Judith replied. “The practice of medicine and the operation of computer networks are based on the absolute facts of reality.”
The Head Nurse was now angry.
“How dare you!” She shouted. “There is nothing without God! You’ll kneel before...”
There was another shout. Doctor Fuller interrupted the head nurse.
“SISTER!”
The head nurse turned to the door of the room. Doctor Fuller was there.
“Doctor,” she said, “you don’t belong in this ward!”
“Miss Stern was my patient in the ICU. I came to check on her.”
Doctor Fuller then spoke to Judith.
“How are you?”
Judith thought for a moment before answering.
“I tried to use the hospital system to write a diary. They deleted the first entry.”
Doctor Fuller turned back to the Head Nurse.
“Well?”
The Head Nurse replied.
“We can’t have that Godless filth on our system!”
Judith Stern then spoke in a calm voice.
“On Freya the act of censorship, to block individual perception, thought, and communication, is a capital crime. Execution is carried out by a single round in the head in the old Soviet style. And the remains are then dumped in the sanitary landfill with the rest of the trash.”
The face of the Head Nurse turned white as a sheet.
“You monsters!” She cried out. “You Godless monsters!”
The Head Nurse then fled from the room.
“What’s the problem?” Said Judith. “It’s just the proper defense of a natural right.”
A thought quickly came to mind to Deborah’s mind.
“I think,” she said, “that’s because it doesn’t fit their notion of being a proper Christian.”
Judith nodded.
“Yes, I can see that.” She said.
Doctor Fuller had another thought.
“Is your terminal up?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“I need to file a report on the nurse’s conduct. Do you mind if I do it here?”
“Not at all.”
Deborah logged herself onto hospital network on the room terminal and began to quickly type in her report.
Judith had a question.
“Would it be possible to fix the censorship situation?”
“I don’t know.” Deborah said.
Deborah then thought of something. She extracted a ball point pen from a pocket of her lab coat.
“We may have to do this the old fashioned way.”
She then picked up her notebook and carefully removed the pages she’d already used. She gave her notebook to Judith.
“Thank you.” Judith said.
It was a simple act of sanity and kindness. With her report completed Deborah had to return to her work. Judith sat back and thought.
Why? Judith thought. Why did this happen?
Her father, a senior manager at the Freyaspace corporate home office saw a lack of service to the planet Kennedy. He identified the lack of service as an opportunity to be exploited. Her parents, Andrew and Kira Stern, would come to this world to establish the corporate base for the service.
Upon arrival it became very clear why there was a lack of service to Kennedy. No one in their right mind wanted to come here. The colony had been originally established as a means to get rid of the old school Northeastern Liberals who still infested their part of the old United States and Eastern Canada. But there were enough Boston Irish colonists on planet to make it attractive to members of the Irish Diaspora in general.
Instead of becoming the intended East American Liberal hellhole the planet had become a systematic negation of human life based on old Catholic Ireland.
A point that was very apparent was the extent that the local branch of the Catholic Church was now backed by the force of the state. The Minister for Religion wasn’t an elected member of parliament but was instead appointed by the Archbishop of the planet. Other Christian denominations were barely tolerated and weren’t allowed to independently operate schools for their own children.
The attempt by her parents to establish a fully secular school for herself, her sister, and the dependents of those employed by Freyaspace was immediately squashed by the government.
It was at this point that Andrew Stern decided to finally terminate his attempt to create a scheduled service to this planet by the Freyaspace Corporation.
That would have been the end of the nonsense were it not for her illness. In coming down with pneumonia, Judith, along with her parents, wouldn’t be able to leave the planet. And Judith required hospital treatment if she was to survive.
The hospitalization worked. It was everything else on this mind forsaken world that had negated Judith and her family.
Then there was Doctor Fuller, who may or may not be the only friend she had on this planet. She was the one sane person she could count on in this mess.
Judith’s train of thought was interrupted by the duty nurse.
“There’s someone here to see you.” She said with a smile.
“Who?”
“Father Kirkman.”
Ernest Kirkman was the hospital chaplain. He was the walking negation who had imposed this nightmare upon her.
“No,” said Judith, “I don’t want to see him.”
“Oh!” Said the nurse. “You really can’t mean that!”
Judith tried to maintain a calm exterior as she answered.
“Nurse? What part the word of NO did you not understand?”
The nurse was surprised and struck speechless at the question.
At this moment Father Kirkman appeared beside the nurse and spoke.
“May I come in?”
Judith could not help allowing a note of anger enter her voice.
“No,” she said, “haven’t you done enough to negate my life?”
“We haven’t even begun on your path to salvation!” Kirkman replied.
Judith assumed an adversarial tone of voice in her response.
“You haven’t done enough? You’ve separated me from my parents and from the people I know and trust. You’ve even censored my attempt to record my thoughts! What more can you do?”
Kirkman was taken aback. He took a moment to recover before speaking again.
“Child,” he said, “we have saved you from eternal damnation.”
“No,” replied Judith Stern, “you have done nothing but negate my life. I’ve nothing now, absolutely nothing.”
Kirkman spoke again.
“But you’ll be released from the hospital soon. You’ll have a new home and a new school soon.”
With absolute firmness Judith replied.
“My name is Judith Stern and I’m a citizen of the Republic of Freya. My parents are Andrew and Kira Stern. Our family home is at Nineteen Eighteen March Street in the Northeast neighborhood of Landfall on Freya. I attended the Robert A. Heinlein Basic School and I accept the Truth as the Truth.”
Kirkman smiled.
“But you won’t going back to that trash dump and we will teach you the fullness of God’s truth.”
Judith sat straight up and raised her voice to reply.
“‘Existence exists--Existence is Identity--Consciousness is Identification.’”
Kirkman stuttered.
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand.” She replied. “And you don’t want to understand. There’s no God, there never was a God, and there never will be a God. And as a result nothing you can say to anyone can ever be the truth.”
Kirkman was now angry. He shouted at her.
“How dare you! How dare you challenge my authority as a messenger of The Lord!”
She raised her voice in reply.
“You have no knowledge and you have no authority! What you believe is the absolute negation of the truth! And with it you've destroyed my life! And all you can do as a witch doctor is to destroy lives!”
Kirkman shouted.
“SILENCE!”
He then slapped her with his right hand. She fell back onto the bed.
Judith then sat back up. This monster had struck her directly. A moral line had been crossed and it was clear to her what had to be done now. She picked up the ballpoint pen with her right hand. She then jumped forward from the hospital bed. With her left hand she grabbed Kirkman by the front of his clerical collar. With her right hand she jammed the pen into his left ear. With the open palm of her hand she pounded on the pen to force it further into his head.
Ernest Kirkman stared blankly into nothing and then fell to the floor.
Judith felt no emotion on killing him. There was certainly no sense of fear or of shame.
For her it was simply the killing of a predatory animal.
In the evening a personal meeting was held at the residence of the prime minister.
In a room across the city Prime Minister Thomas Gratton had a question for his old friend.
“What can I do now?”
George Cross, the former foreign Minister, was seated at across the dining room table in the prime minister’s residence. He sipped his cup of tea and then answered the question.
“Tom, in my opinion we should immediately deport Miss Stern to Earth. Hand her over to the Freyan Embassy in Omaha and be completely done with it.”
Gratton replied.
“I can’t do that. The Archbishop himself has called for the execution of Miss Stern for the murder of Father Kirkman.”
Cross shook his head before responding.
“If you do that then you may as well kiss your sorry ass goodbye. And everyone else’s on this planet, the Freyan rescue expedition will become a mission of retaliation. They’ll see the execution of Miss Stern as an act of murder and respond accordingly. They may even come out of the Nuclear Closet for it.”
Gratton stared at his friend as he responded.
“Use nuclear weapons on us?” He said. “They can’t do that!”
“Do you really believe that?” Cross replied. “Not all the nuclear weapons constructed before The Unification Wars on Earth were ever accounted for. And a new completely functioning weapon can be built around an already existing fissile core element. And that’s not all.”
“What?” Said Gratton.
“Freya was one of the oldest, and furthest of the colonies out from Earth. It had taken six standard months for a first generation starship to go out there. As a result the Freyans used local resources as much as possible in the early days. They actually built an old school fission reactor to power their initial settlement.”
Gratton shook his head silently.
“No, that can’t be so...”
“Yes,” Cross said, “they’re making their own Plutonium. And the reactor’s still in operation.”
“And the Federation has allowed them to do it?”
“Yes.”
With both elbows resting on the table Gratton dropped his head on to his hands,
“Why? Why?” He said. “We’ve done nothing wrong?”
George Cross answered the question.
“The Freyans are Metaphysical Realists, in their view there’s no Heaven nor is there a Hell, there’s only human life in the actually existing universe. Because of this the actual physical human life has to be the foundation of all moral values. And because of this they hold that a valid moral code must be founded on the clear exercise of rational thought.”
“But God.” Said Gratton. “What about God?”
“God in the view of the Metaphysical Realist simply can’t exist. For something to exist it must be something specific, and God as we were taught simply isn’t anything specific. And the Universe has to always exist because a fully functioning mind must have something to perceive. That is, something has to exist to for a person to be aware of.”
“But why did Miss Stern murder Father Kirkman?”
“It wasn’t murder, it was a purely rational response to a serious crime.” Cross replied. “It appears to me that she’d lost all hope of ever returning to her home and family. And when the man responsible for her imprisonment, who’s clearly in her view had to be an absolute monster, slapped her for speaking the truth, she had to take him out.”
Gratton sat silently.
“Tom, there is no other way out for us, we have to let her go.”
“But the church, the Archbishop?”
“To Hell with them.”
“You can’t say that!”
“I have to.” Cross replied. “The Church started the mess by demanding that this government kidnap Miss Stern. The Church made it worse by demanding the seizure of her sister. Now they’re demanding that she be put to death. An act that’s a clearly in the rational view an act of murder and of human sacrifice. You have to put a stop to this madness and only you can do so.”
Faced with the alternatives Prime Minister Thomas Gratton could only sit silently.
In the sitting room of their first safe house the members of the retrieval team sat in silence as they watched the televised coverage of the current events. The arrest of Judith Stern on the charge of murdering the hospital chaplain had very thoroughly set back their operational plans. They now sat as the local news channel began their coverage of a public speech. A platform had been set in the public square before the Cathedral of Saint Mary in New Boston. Speaking upon the platform was the Archbishop of the Planet Kennedy, Patrick Whelan.
The Archbishop was a fully white haired elderly man dressed completely in a white robe. Short purely white hair barely showed beneath his white cap. The ensemble was completed by a gold crucifix which clearly depicted the crucified Jesus Christ upon it. He was a spot of lifeless white was at the center of the living mass of the audience in the square. The Archbishop began his speech to the mass of people present in the square.
“My children, today I bring you the saddest of all news. Yesterday a true servant of Our Lord Jesus Christ was murdered in a most foul manner. Father Ernest Kirkman served as the chaplain of the general hospital here in New Boston. In the course of his duties he came across a child in the direst need of salvation. The poor girl was born on a Godless world that was named for a false female deity. This poor girl had never heard of the word of Our Lord on her home world and knew nothing of Our Lord. When Father Kirkman tried to bring the poor child to Our Lord her depraved parents stood in his way. But he eventually bypassed their pathetic attempts to block him from bringing her into the light of Our Lord.”
Reality was real and the truth essentially differed from the message of the Archbishop.
Andrew Stern essentially ignored the warning he was given. Tamara Zev was present for the initial interview with the parents at the consulate after the rite of baptism. Judith’s father, Andrew Stern was very clearly angry.
“We were in the process of closing down our corporate operations on this world when Judith fell ill.” He said. “We had to stop everything and take her to the hospital. There was no choice.”
“That witch doctor approached us during the worst stage of her fever.” Said Kira. “He wanted to do that stupid voodoo ceremony on her. We clearly said no to it.”
At no point was parental consent given for the rite of baptism.
“We tried to keep a watch over her.” Andrew said. “When Kira and I couldn’t do it alone we asked for volunteers from the office to stand in for us.”
Members of the Freyaspace staff who came to the planet with the Stern family had stepped in to prevent access by the chaplain. Although the ritual was meaningless the principle of parental consent had to be upheld. It was the New Boston Police who intervened to arrest and remove the Freyaspace staff member on the overnight watch and allow performance of the baptism.
An act of force by the irrational shouldn’t have been a surprise. Even though the ritual was essentially meaningless, Andrew was outraged and Kira was heartbroken. But that wasn’t the end of the issue.
The Archbishop continued with his lie.
“But the poor girl’s parents were blinded by the devil! They demanded that they take the child back to their depraved homeworld to be raised in the satanic doctrine of the harlot Ayn Rand!”
Andrew and Kira Stern were fully rational parents. They were raising their daughters to be fully rational women. It was by the command of the church that the hospital refused to release Judith to the custody of her parents.
As the Consul for the Republic of Freya, James March, stood up for the parents and demanded the release of Judith to their custody. He made a clear statement to the public.
“If the government doesn’t comply with the demand to release Miss Stern the Republic of Freya will respond to the act of kidnaping Miss Stern with full military force.”
The government responded to the official Freyan demand for the return of their daughter by deporting Andrew and Kira Stern from the planet. But that wasn’t enough, the planetary government had also attempted to seize the second daughter from the Sterns. It wasn’t enough at this point to simply report on the actions of the planetary government. Consul March sent a formal request for full military action to the homeworld. But he understood that military action simply wasn’t enough, he laid the foundation for a covert operation on this world. A team of volunteers was brought together to stay behind in the event of the consulate being deported.
The Archbishop continued to speak to the crowd.
“There was nothing that could be done for her depraved parents! It was by my request that they were righteously deported to the Earth. But then one of their so called diplomats spoke, with the voice of the devil and demanded that the child be returned to Freya or they would come to this world and murder those who brought her salvation!”
In the Republic of Freya the kidnaping of a child was a capital crime. And someone would be made to answer for the kidnaping of Judith Stern.
On stage the Archbishop simply wouldn’t shut up.
“With that threat our prime minister, a man of true courage, deported the consulate of Satan!”
In the view of all members of the retrieval team Prime Minister Thomas Gratton was a sniveling coward whose leash was firmly held by the local branch of the Catholic Church. Blind obedience was his sole feature and no act could ever be wrong for him when it was demanded by the church. A bullet was duly set aside for his head.
The Archbishop droned on.
“When the child was at last separated from the depraved influence of her parents Father Kirkman went to bring her the truth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It was at this time that she used a simple ballpoint pen to perform the foul act of murder. To seek justice for the depraved act of murder we are left with no alternative but to call for the penalty of death!”
“Murder their victim.” Said Corporal Sterling. “No surprise there.”
On the stage the Archbishop came to his conclusion.
“It was too late to save this child from the foul influence of the satanic whore Ayn Rand! But we can save the children of our world! We must expel her influence, we must destroy all of her works on this planet now and forever!”
Tamara Zev spoke.
“It may have been my fault.”
Ruth Newman, the junior member of the team, spoke up.
“Why’s that?”
“I told Doctor Fuller to tell Judith that the navy was coming to rescue her, but not to say that there was anyone present on the planet. As a result Judith may have thought that she was alone here.”
“Ma’am,” Said Corporal Diaz, “We’re improvising as we’re going along. In this case we erred on the side of caution.”
“We?” Said Tamara.
“We’re on this mission together.”
“But it was my thought and decision.”
Diaz simply nodded.
“Orders, ma’am?” Said Corporal Sterling.
“We continue to work on breaking Judith out of their custody.”
The next morning all of the news channels on planet were carrying coverage of the indictment of Judith Stern on the charge of murder. The clerk of the court read the charge on live television.
“Your honor, the defendant Judith Stern is charged with the murder in the first degree of Father Ernest Kirkman, the chaplain of the General Hospital of New Boston.”
Then Judith Stern was brought in and surrounded by heavily armed police officers into the courtroom in order to enter her plea.
The judge, an elderly white haired man, spoke.
“How do you plea?”
Judith was standing on her own. She looked straight at the judge and replied.
“I won’t enter a plea.”
The judge was put off. He raised his voice to speak to her again.
“Miss Stern you must enter a plea on the charge before the court!”
Judith Stern answered in a clear and level voice.
“This isn’t a court of law. You’ve renounced truth and thus rejected the concept of law. You’ve renounced reason and thus rejected reality. You’ve renounced the moral standards of civilization and thus are savages. You’re in fact nothing but a pack of predatory animals fit only for extermination.”
The team watched the proceedings from the sitting room of their safe house. Corporal Sterling was the first member of the team to comment.
“Yes!” He said.
She’s clearly one of us. He thought.
The proceedings in the courtroom had degenerated into pure noise. Only Judith stood still and remained silent through the mass of motion and shouting.
The judge pounded with his gavel and shouted.
“Order! Order in the court! Silence! Silence! Be quiet!”
It would take roughly ten minutes for order to be restored in the courtroom.
Ruth had a comment.
“When Atlas Shrugged was originally published a reviewer had interpreted it as a call for the mass murder of the irrational.”
“Nonsense,” said Corporal Sterling, “Ayn Rand attempted to introduce reason back into American culture. She wanted everyone to adopt reason as the way of life for themselves. And in rational life there were no grounds for anyone to inflict any punishment on any irrational person. The consequences of irrationality are self punishing.”
Tamara spoke her turn.
“A thermonuclear weapon isn’t self punishment.”
Corporal Sterling replied.
“Ma’am, if this lot murders Judith Stern they’re clearly asking for it.”
“Yes.” Said Corporal Diaz.
Everyone in the courtroom had settled down. The judge spoke again.
“Miss Stern you must enter a plea.”
Again she answered calmly.
“No, what you want from me is to help you pretend that you’re not in fact a gang of murderers.”
The people in the courtroom erupted again. It was at this point that the judge ordered the clearance of the courtroom. The television coverage then switched to studio commentary.
For an uncounted number of minutes the team was silent. Then Tamara spoke.
“This is clearly insane.”
The next morning all of the news channels on planet were again carrying coverage of the indictment of Judith Stern on the charge of murder. The clerk of the court read the charge on live television.
“Your honor, the defendant Judith Stern is charged with the murder in the first degree of Father Ernest Kirkman, the chaplain of the general hospital of New Boston.”
Then Judith Stern was once again brought by heavily armed officers into the courtroom in order to enter her plea.
The judge, an old and white haired man, spoke.
“How do you plea?”
Judith was standing on her own. She looked straight at the judge and replied.
“I still won’t enter a plea.”
The judge was put off. He raised his voice to speak to her again.
‘Miss Stern you must enter a plea on the charge before the court!”
Judith Stern answered in a clear and level voice.
“I said this yesterday and will repeat it today. This isn’t a court of law. You continue to renounce the truth. You continue to reject the concept of law. You continue to renounce reason and reject reality. You continue to renounce the standards of rational civilization and thus continue to remain a body of savages. And you continue to be a pack of predatory animals fit only for extermination.”
The team continued to watch the proceedings from the sitting room of their safe house. The proceedings in the courtroom had again degenerated into pure noise. Only Judith stood still and remained silent through the mass of motion and shouting.
The judge pounded with his gavel and shouted.
“Order! Order in the court! Silence! Silence! Be quiet!”
It would take another ten minutes for order to be restored in the courtroom.
Once again everyone in the courtroom had settled down. The judge spoke again.
“Miss Stern. I repeat, you must enter a plea.”
Again she answered calmly.
“No, what you want is for me to help you pretend that you and your gang aren’t the murderers.”
The people in the courtroom erupted again. It was at this point that the judge ordered the clearance of the courtroom. The television coverage again switched to studio commentary.
For an uncounted number of minutes the team was silent. Then Tamara spoke.
“Let’s get to work.”
Judith Stern had been removed from the courtroom. As she waited to be moved again the door to the holding cell was opened by a bailiff. In walked a tall middle aged man with long black hair and a beard who wore wearing granny glasses with a worn and out of fashion business suit.
“Good morning.” He said.
“Really?” Replied Judith. “And who’re you?’
The man was visibly shocked to have heard the question.
He replied with a clear note of annoyance in his voice.
“Miss Stern, I’m Douglas Green, your court appointed attorney. I’m to represent you in these proceedings. Didn’t you pay attention?”
“Yes, I do pay attention, when it matters.” She replied.
Now the attorney was truly annoyed.
“Do you think this is a child’s game you’re in?”
Judith Stern answered in her now practiced level voice.
“Not at all, this alleged trial is nothing more that a ritual to create the appearance of legitimacy for an act of murder by the state, and you’re nothing more than an actor in the play.”
The attorney blinked.
“I don’t think you’re taking this situation seriously.” He said. “I just entered a plea of not guilty for you.”
Judith shook her head gently.
“I’ve taken the situation dead seriously and I fully understand where I actually stand in the big picture, you simply don’t.”
The attorney was speechless.
“Go away.” Said Judith. “Go home, grow up, and get a life.”
There was nothing else to say.
Although George Cross was no longer the Minister he still had an office in the Foreign Ministry Building. It was now time to finally had to clean out his desk.
Part of the process was to copy or completely remove personal files from the Foreign Ministry system. It was as he doing this that he had a visitor. A young woman employed by the ministry.
“Minister, may I speak with you?”
George smiled and replied.
“It’s just George, now. What did you need to speak to me about?”
“Sir, I was going over the Freyan Consulate files and I may've found a discrepancy.”
“What is it?”
The young woman was clearly worried now.
“Sir, there're four people assigned to the consulate who weren’t accounted for in the deportation.”
“Do you have a file?”
“Yes, sir.”
She held out a standard flash memory chip. George inserted the chip into his work station. He quickly read the file.
According to records of the ministry the four people missing were a junior diplomat, two marines from the security detail, and a navy medic from the same detail.
A covert operations team? He thought. Was this a deliberate plan or did they improvise on the spot? Would they attempt a rescue?
George Cross sat and thought for a moment.
If this is a rescue mission then for our own good it has to succeed.
The young woman spoke up.
“Sir? What should I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Sir, I don’t understand.”
“Miss...I’m sorry I don’t recall your name.”
“Miss Brennan, sir.”
He looked straight into her eyes and answered.
“Miss Brennan, The government’s clearly in the wrong. If Judith Stern is executed then we here on Kennedy we will be subject to reprisal by the Freyans, and it will be a nuclear bombardment just like on old Dublin during The Unification Wars. The people the Freyans left behind here on Kennedy may be the key to preventing that fate from falling on us. You mustn’t tell anyone else about what you’ve found.”
Miss Brennan stared blankly.
“Miss Brennan, do you understand?”
Miss Brennan returned to active consciousness. And then made a decision.
“Yes sir, I understand.”
“Not a word.” He replied. “Was there anyone else who saw this file?”
“No sir.”
With those words the meeting ended. Cross sat back in his chair and thought.
How the Hell do I contact those people?
Then something else suddenly came to his mind. He opened his work station to the entire government network.
Let’s see how sloppy the Ministry of Justice is? Cross thought.
He discovered quickly that his high level clearance was still in effect. With this he entered the Ministry of Justice network and performed a search. The object of the search was the plans for dealing with Miss Stern. There was a plan to transfer her to the central prison for the execution. There was no plan for dealing releasing Miss Stern upon her acquittal.
This wasn’t a surprise to him.
He copied the file on the transfer plan to the flash drive.
There was one more thing to find. He checked the roster of doctors at the general hospital. He found that Doctor Fuller was still stationed in the Intensive Care Unit.
She had to have been the point of contact between Judith Stern and the Freyans. He thought.
He also found that the doctor was on the night shift.
Very likely as a punishment. He thought with disgust toward the hospital management.
With his searches completed George Cross logged off of the government network for the last time.
An entire local day would have to pass before he could contact Doctor Fuller.
Even though he still held a seat in the House of Commons he decided to take the day off. He was sitting in his library when his son came home from school.
“Dad?”
George Cross, Junior was in his school uniform. The uniform was a bit ruffled. From his own experience as a student he knew it was from being in a schoolyard fight.
“What happened.” He replied. “What was the fight about?”
“How did you know I was in a fight?”
“I went to the same school.”
Junior sounded as if he were reluctant to answer.
“Dad. The sisters at the school are saying that you’re a bad man.”
“Did they say why?”
“Because you’re not obeying the Archbishop.”
George Cross wasn’t surprised. Members of his own party were saying the same thing. Perhaps it’s time for him to completely leave the government?
“Son, the Archbishop is simply a man, and like all men he can be wrong. And in this case he’s clearly wrong. Judith Stern did nothing wrong, but the Archbishop has wrongly declared her a murderer and demanded that she be executed.”
He continued to the next issue.
“The boys who assaulted you are clearly wrong and they must answer for what they did.”
“It wasn’t the other boys at school,” said Junior, “it was the Sisters.”
George was shocked to hear that. The Sisters were the nuns who taught at the school.
It was at this point he now made a fundamentally life changing decision.
“Son, the Sisters shouldn’t have done that, and I won’t let them do it again. I’m taking you out of that school. I’ll find you a new school, on another planet.”
Junior was astonished.
“We’re moving to another planet?”
“Yes son, we have to.”
Junior broke into a smile and came forward to hug his father.
“Was there something else?” Said the father.
The son replied.
“The Sisters said you were an evil man and that I would be taken from you and Mom.”
He leaned forward and replied.
“That’ll never happen. I promise.”
George Cross then sat back and thought.
God sent two angels to convince Lot to leave the doomed city. I only had to speak to my son to make the same decision.
His wife Aileen had gone out on her errands for the day. When she returned home there was a long discussion.
“You’re leaving everyone and everything we have behind?” She said.
“What do we have?” He replied.
“Our friends! Our families! Our property!”
“Do we have that?” He said. “Our friends have turned their backs to us. Both of our families are doing the same. And there are those in the church who want to take our son from us. Given all of that, on what grounds do we have a claim to property?”
“Because you are defying the Archbishop.” She said.
“All the Archbishop cares about is his own power over the people of this planet. He doesn’t care if anyone lives or dies as long as they grovel before him. And he clearly doesn’t care about the truth.”
“And the truth is?”
“The truth is that the government at his direction has committed a great crime. If they’re not stopped they’ll commit a greater crime. And that there’ll be a devastating response to those crimes.”
Aileen was silent. George spoke again.
“The Freyans see Judith Stern as an innocent child in mortal danger. And they see themselves as her protector and will try to rescue her. And if they fail to rescue her then they’ll retaliate against the state that murdered her and they’ll use nuclear weapons to do so. There’ll be nothing left for anyone here.”
Aileen was now silent. Her face had turned white and tears were appearing to flow from her eyes. George leaned forward to whisper.
“My dear, there may be a way out for everyone.”
She blinked and her eyes lighted up.
“Yes?”
“The Freyan’s may have left some people behind when their consulate was deported to Earth. I need to speak to them.”
“You can find them?”
“I have an idea, but you’ll have to trust me on this.”
The color had returned to her face. She nodded, smiled and spoke softly.
“Do it.”
It was almost before the end of visiting hours at New Boston General Hospital before George Cross could speak to Deborah Fuller.
“Doctor Fuller?”
“Yes?”
“I’m George Cross, I was the Foreign Minister in the current government. If it’s possible I need to speak to you alone about Judith Stern.”
“Why?”
“I want to help.”
She looked up and down the corridor for anyone who could listen. Then she replied.
“I’m parked on the top level of the ramp. Can you meet me there in fifteen minutes?”
“Yes.”
With a mutual nod they separated. Cross then returned to the main entrance of the hospital. It was there that he found a general map of the facility. He was examining the map when someone stepped up and spoke to him.
“Sir, may I help you?”
Cross turned to see a hospital security officer. He was roughly his height and about forty standard years old. The security officer has a fringe of blond hair, wore glasses, and a dark blue uniform with long sleeves and a black tie.
Cross answered.
“I’m afraid I lost my way. I parked on the top level of the ramp.”
“Not surprised sir.” The officer replied. “They built this place in sections over the decades and stuffed new sections into any available space on the blocks.”
The security officer continued.
“Okay, the main ramp is that way down the north corridor. And the door opens straight into the elevator lobby for the ramp.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Sir, I should thank you.” The security officer replied. “Mister Cross, you’re right, the government should’ve let the entire Stern family go. And I certainly don’t want to be here in New Boston when the Freyans show up in response.”
With that the two men shook hands.
Cross followed the directions and quickly found the top floor of the parking ramp. Right on time Doctor Fuller stepped out of the elevator.
“Doctor,” said Cross, “what do you know about the security guard on duty at the front desk, the bald fellow with the glasses?”
“Les? He’s one of the few sane people on the planet.
Cross nodded in response.
Deborah spoke.
“So what did you need to see me about?”
“Before I cleared out my desk at the Foreign Ministry a staff member had found that four of the people at the Freyan Consulate weren’t accounted for. And I also accessed the Ministry of Justice plans for the execution of Judith Stern. And there’re no plans for releasing her if she were acquitted.”
Doctor Fuller waited for the word.
“Doctor,” he said, “if there’s a Freyan covert operations team on this planet, they need this information.”
“You want me to put them in contact with you?”
“Yes, if you could.”
Deborah Fuller had a net address for contacting the team. She thought about it for a very brief moment.
“I’ll try.” She replied.
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