Starship Armstrong - Season 2

Part 81 - The Trial Of Dr. Kang (XVII)

The Judge was reading a pad with obvious skepticism.

"I have here a submission from the Defence to amend the witness list," she said "Is there a reason, Mr. Diamond, why you are making this motion at the zeroth hour and not before trial when the witness list was due?"

"New evidence has come to light that wasn't reasonably available at the time," said Diamond "It's all there in my motion."

"Mr. Gibson, do you have any objections to adding a new Defence witness?"

"None, your honor," said Gibson, standing briefly.

If Diamond didn't know any better he could have sworn the Prosecutor had been smiling a little.

"Really?" asked the Judge "In that case, I'll give you this one Mr. Diamond."

"Thank you, your honor. The Defence calls Zaro Naxi.

A scrawny man in an unkempt little suit walked into the courtroom and took a seat in the witness box.

"Good morning," said Diamond "Could you please state your name for the record?"

"Zaro Naxi," he said.

"And what do you do for a living Mr. Naxi?"

"I'm what you call a freelance computer security consultant," said Naxi, grinning.

Diamond didn't waste any time. He brought over a pad he was already holding.

"Mr. Naxi, this document is Defence Exhibit 14. Could you please identify it for the court?"

"It is the raw logs for Heliodore Kang's T-Node on the night of September 3rd," said Naxi.

"How did you acquire this log?" asked Diamond.

"I remotely hacked the regional master node and stole it off the server."

There was a murmur in the gallery.

"Your honor I move that Defence Exhibit 14 be introduced into evidence," said Diamond. He took the pad from Mr. Naxi and handed it to the Judge.

"Mr. Gibson, objections?" asked the Judge.

"None, your honor," said Gibson, rising briefly.

"You have no objections to any of this?" asked the Judge, incredulous.

"I recognize Mr. Naxi, your honor. I have personally prosecuted him for computer crimes several times in the past. The Prosecutor's Office is willing to take his claims of having committed these illegal acts at face value."

"I see," said the Judge "Mr. Naxi, are you aware of your right against self-incrimination?"

"I am, your honor," said Naxi "I still want to testify. I know justice will prevail."

"Very well. I'll accept this as Defence Exhibit 14. Go ahead, Mr. Diamond." said the Judge.

"Mr. Naxi this has been a long trial. I'm not going to waste anyone's time. Could you please play the full log for the phone call Dr. Kang made to Dr. Po?"

"I'd be delighted to," said Naxi, and he did.

"I have something very important to tell you and not much time to tell it," came Dr. Kang's voice from the pad "Dr. Dresden and her faction within the council are going to initiate a coup by killing everyone who opposes her. They already attempted to recruit me into the conspiracy and I know she has most of the others in her pocket. You need to flee Mars as quickly as possible."

"That's ridiculous," said the voice of Dr. Po "Why should I believe you?"

"Because if you don't, you're going to die," said Dr. Kang.

There was a click as he hung up. The last part matched the clip played earlier in court exactly.

The gallery burst into a flurry of chatter, and the Judge banged her gavel.

"Order in the court!" she demanded, and the chatter quickly subsided.

* * *

Two more experts validated the integrity of the data and that the sound was a match. The Jury deliberated for less than an hour. Dr. Kang was found not guilty.

The court was a bustle of activity once the hearing ended. A lot of people wanted to congratulate Kang or touch him, but he was in the mood for neither. Instead he ran from the courtroom, giving chase to the nondescript man he had tried to slip out unnoticed as soon as the verdict was read.

He caught up to the man on the courthouse steps.

"Hey you," said Kang "Wait."

He put his hand on the man's shoulders, and the man spun around in shock.

"Some trial there eh?" said Dr. Kang "Looks like Dr. Po was killed by someone else after all. And I guess it's in the court records now that she was warned about someone named Dr. Dresden the night she was killed. If I was Dr. Dresden's drone, and I was making a report to her about what happened in court today, I'd make sure to mention that part. Whoever really killed Dr. Po is probably going to want to lay low for now. They might want to start by dropping whatever other clumsy frame jobs that may be traceable back to them."

Dr. Kang let go of the man.

"Anyway if I was her mindless sub-sapient drone, I'd tell her that," he added.

The man who didn't really consider himself a drone glared at Dr. Kang and left without a word.

* * *

"What the hell was that? That last minute surprise witness HV show BS? That trial was in the bag!"

Ms. Jahangir was taking this loss very personally, more personally than she took losses on files she worked on. Gibson suspected she had been drinking.

"The new evidence cast more than reasonable doubt on our case. The jury did their job," said Gibson "Justice prevailed. That is supposed to be our goal."

"Our goal is to win," replied Ms. Jahangir "That's why our system is called adversarial. You lost a high profile case. An important case! That should be your takeaway. You should have recused yourself when you had an excuse. This one is going to haunt you."

Xenophon Gibson left Ms. Jahangir's office for his own, where he typed his letter of resignation.