The Cost of Victory

A One Shot

Oct 16, 2024

*Interior of St. Cunerakerk, Rhenen* by Bartholomeus van Bassen

A scrap of hull drifted across Casaran's vision, twisted and scarred like all the rest, unremarkable. Ten thousand ships floated, cracked and splintered by his hand. Everywhere he looked were mangled hulls, more numerous than the stars. How many had been his own? How many the enemies? That was a question for historians, not Admiral Casaran. He had done his duty. He had saved the Commonwealth.

'Admiral, is it true the Bozjuran's requested peace talks?'

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'Positive.'

The man paced, his bespoke tailored suit shifting in the harsh lighting. 'Are you sure?' He paused, turning to the Admiral with raised brows. Casaran remained silent. 'I have here copies of official communiques from the Bozjuran High Command offering terms.' He held up a wad of paper, his thumb partly obscuring the Bozjuran tiger.

'They are not official,' the Admiral said. A white hair from his moustache caught his eye, he flattened it with a practiced motion. Spotlights bore down from marble pillars illuminating the ancient stone and contemporary people, each out of place with the other.

'Have they been submitted to this court?' Grand Magistrate Osiris peered down his oval spectacles, the other Magistrates taking note. Osiris, in his white, and his fellow judges in their black were at home in the High Court, as dusty as the picture frames holding oil paintings of their predecessors.

'There was no time, these communiques have only recently come to light.'

'When?' Magistrate Herat caught the barrister with an eagle stare.

'This morning.'

'Submit all you have, now. Continue your line of questioning, we will discard it as inadmissible if we find anything a miss,' Herat cawed.

'Of course, Magistrate,' he leered at Admiral Casaran, the disdain impossible to mask. He marched toward the High Court bench with one wad of papers and set them down with a slap. Turning, the barrister daintly lifted a sheaf of paper from his inside pocket, 'Admiral Casaran, Judges, ladies and gentlemen, I will read the following from a diplomat of Bozjuran, present on the planet Freya,' he cleared his throat for effect. 'Honourable commander I offer terms beneficial to your triumphant nation. The Autarch and his High Command accept defeat in this conflict and are willing to cede the systems of Freya, Halon, Matoy, Kosc, and Tivirin as well as agree to a non-aggression pact of ten years in which our military capabilities will be constrained by treaties to be written at a later date. I pray, honourable commander, you accept these terms.' The barrister turned, his waxen mask set, his eyes suitably misty. A clutch of women weeped near the back of court, nestled behind great marble pillars under the shadow of the flag Casaran had fought for, it's twin-headed lion fluttering in the heat blowing from grates in the floor. 'What say you, Admiral?' spittle bubbled between the legal expert's teeth at the last word.

Casaran regarded his prosecutor with the same disdain he did the Bozjurans. The leather of his chair creaked as he leaned forward, 'Do you know what was on the surface of Freya?' his legal defence began to raise but a sharp look from the Admiral held him down.

'An army of Bozjurans, starving and willing to surrender,' the prosecutor answered.

'There was an army alright, and a navy more than six thousand ships strong, and a weapon that would have annihilated this planet like sugar in tea. Vapourised,' he clicked his fingers, 'just like that.'

'And what proof of this do you have?' Magistrate Herat groaned, he tapped his pen while the other magistrates tutted the interuption. Osiris did not strike it down.

Admiral Casaran waited for Herat's silence to strain the air and when he heard a woman sniff he said, 'I used it, that is my proof, and my burden.'

The prosecutor's eyebrows shot up as a wave of indecent gasps fluttered through the High Court. Casaran's defence hung his head, his advice ignored fully and totally.

'What record is there of this?'

'Our victory, Magistrate. The total destruction of our enemies military capabilities, the sand that stains the orbital path of a planet once called Freya, the ten thousand broken ships that circle that systems star littered with our dead and theirs. Those ghosts are mine to be haunted by, that stain is mine to be reminded of every day in every smudge of ink and every drop of tea spilt. This Commonwealth will never thank me, not while I am alive, but perhaps it will grow to understand why.'

'Admiral...' Herat's voice choked on that stain of sand. 'How is it you survived?'

Casaran peered up at the Magistrate, the walnut bench obscuring the lower half of his visage, 'Has the court inspected my ship? It is a miracle I am here, my ship, Widow's Grief, will never sail again. Her back is broken, her hull more bolts than plates, her analytics core is cracked, every porthole shattered, every missile bay twisted. One thousand three hundred and forty seven crewmen lost their lives getting home, a third of the crew, my crew. Men and women I promised to return to their families. They died for this Commonwealth, do not smear those one thousand three hundred and forty seven heroes because I dared to win a war.'

'You speak of the dead on your ship, but what of the dead on Freya? How many is it Admiral? How many ghosts do you carry round with you? I have heard that in the elite units, the ones the public aren't meant to know about, they tattoo tears on their faces for the people they kill. How many tears must we paint on your face?' the prosecutor said.

Casaran felt the words rush the air like a knife, and like a knife they bent against his armour, harmless, pathetic. 'You stand there playing with words, so desparate to win an argument, to show up your opponent, that you have lost sight of why. This is a game to you, it is not a game to me,' he growled, teeth clenched. 'Freya was home to three million enemy combatants, a further five hundred thousand administration and logistics staff responsible for those three million plus those scattered throughout the system and aboard the more than six thousand warships at anchor. Have you every seen six thousand ships, prosecutor? The stars vanish like you're standing in the centre of Tarabul on a summer's eve with all those towers of steel and neon lights that never fade where the sun never truly sets. At least thirty million combatants resided in those warships I mentioned, a further ten million in our own. The non-combatant population was six billion, I know not how many of those worked on the Bozjuran weapon. Would you rather we were still at war? Would you rather more of our worlds, and theirs, burned in the midnight sky? How many more moons would you have liked to see glassed? How many more mothers had to mourn their sons without a body to bury? How many children have to grow up without fathers, without mothers? How many prosecutor? How. Many.'

The prosecutor, in his fine suit neatly pressed, stroked his silk tie, a bead of perspiration rolling down from behind his ear. 'You believe you were right to slaughter over six billion souls?'

'I won the war and saved a trillion lives, that alone makes me right.'

A silence descended upon the court, a silken veil masking a swirl of emotion. The prosecutor scratched his head, his breath held, and dared to break the quiet a moment too soon. His voice broke and all that escaped him was a wheeze. He coughed, 'Excuse me,' his words slicing through the veil. 'You killed ten million of our own citizens?'

'Yes, and everyday I read a hundred names and send personal letters of condolence to the families.'

'You'll never reach the end.'

'That's not why I do it.'

'You killed ten million Commonwealth citizens, why?'

Admiral Casaran drew his lips into a thin, sad, smile, 'Prosecutor, when I gained access to the Bozjuran weapon I had only a vague understanding of what it did. Each of those men and women who died defending our home earned the highest honours that day, they paid the ultimate price, and I must carry the burden that created. I do not relish killing. The weapon could have easily killed me along with everyone else, it didn't, though not for lack of trying. Two thousand and forty three souls made it home alive.'

'Not even enough to crew a warship...' Magistrate Herat crowed, his beady eyes peering over the lip of polished wood. Hate lingered in those black beads.

'Quiet, Magistrate,' clubbed Grand Magistrate Osiris.

'The Magistrate is right. The Bozjuran weapon has set our military back decades, centuries perhaps, but the weapons destruction brings us peace. Had our enemy used the weapon do you imagine the result would have been better?' Casaran growled.

'But they didn't,' the prosecutor said.

'But they would have. It is foolish, idiotic, to leave a weapon that powerful in the hands of an enemy. Had peace been made with Bozjur while that weapon survived we would have never known rest, fear would nibble at the edges of our minds, of our nation, slowly worming inwards until life was impossible to live for fear of annihilation at any moment.'

'Justify it however you want, Admiral. I forfeit my remaining time,' he straightened his tie and stepped away without so much as a glance at Casaran. The barrister joined his team, plain faced and silent.

'Thank you, prosecutor,' Grand Magistate Osiris croaked, the long sleeves of his white coat creating peaks and valleys atop his desk. 'We will now deliberate, a verdict will be announced at sunset today.'

The air sparked with renewed tension, no one had expected such a swift deliberation after months of argument had been presented, Admiral Casaran only present for a sliver of them. Chatter erupted forth from the observers, whether ministers of state, reporters, or interested individuals. The sudden volume rankled Casaran. The Admiral rose, his wrists in chains, and was guided out via a slim door to the holding room. The door closed and magnetically sealed, offering quiet once more.

Grand Magistrate Osiris stood in the centre of the room, a podium had been erected with a golden lectern, the twin headed lion shimmering from it. Hundreds had poured between the marble pillars, the seats had been removed and the galleries above opened, cameras lined the back wall and hung from the ceiling along with a meteor shower of microphones. Bodyguards shoved and elbowed people away from the War Minister and his subordinate on the front row, a key proponent in prosecuting Casaran. The white robed magistrate tapped the microphone, flanked by his black robed colleagues all sharing pained expressions.

Admiral Casaran was shuffled in, his chains clinking as he climbed the witness stand. He hoped his family had stayed at home and forgotten what day it was, somethings were best not witnessed.

'I, Grand Magistrate Osiris, along with Magistrates Herat, Felor, Jaskatha, and Nal have unanimously agreed the outcome of this trial,' his voice boomed, silencing the legions stuffed between marble pillars and oil portraits. 'Such a verdict, as that we have chosen, is not given lightly and the weight of this trial cannot be understated. Over the last several months we have bore witness to the most important trial of our Commonwealth in its one thousand year history and likely forever. The evidence and argument we have heard is all public and I am certain current and future historians will write reams about it and the people involved yet I implore each and every one of you here now to consider the man who stands before us, the war we have recently emerged from, and remember the blood and toil our nation has endured for twelve, long, years. War takes from us our innocence, our joy, our friends, our family, it takes our kindness, generosity, and even our very humanity. Admiral Casaran is many things but I will not comment on those here, as I'm sure a million pens are already scribbling to define the man to someone else's liking. Instead I am here to pass a verdict on whether the Admiral is guilty of war crimes, of murder on such a scale as to cease to be a tragedy and merely a statistic, and whether destroying a planet, knowingly or not, is a crime to begin with. Precedent will be set here today, I hope there will not be cause to reference it in the future. With that, this High Court of the Commonwealth, and I, Grand Magistrate Osiris, condemn Admiral Casaran to exile beyond the Outer Reaches, to live out his days alone and in obscurity forbidden from returning to Commonwealth space, and prevented by our vast territories from traversing to any other known or unknown civilisation within the galaxy, on pain of death. A ship, fuel, and food will be provided to last two thousand and forty three days, one for each of the people he brought back from the horrors of Freya. Beyond that, he is on his own.' Osiris stepped back from the lectern, his eyes bloodshot and his jowls sagging. The other magistrates surrounded him as they retreated out of the court room.

'Exile!' the War Minister barked. 'No one! NO ONE has been exiled in eight hundred years! What is the meaning of this! Answer me!' the bald and beardless man thrashed against the security in front of him. The security guard remained placid, his hands resting in the small of his back. The minister's bodyguards ushered him out, parting the crowd with polite tones and well placed palms.

'What do you think, Admiral?' 'Are you pleased with the verdict?' 'Why do you think they spared you?' 'Where you expecting execution?' Reporters pecked and hawked as the crowd ebbed out through the tall, black doors.

Casaran was left to the wave of questions and theories thrown about the room as the magistrates scurried out, their verdict delivered their reasoning to be published at a later date. No one came to shuffle him off the witness stand. He surveyed the waiting eyes of reporters young and old, their questions becoming a single mush of sound, like the Bozjuran weapon as it crushed ten thousand warships and tore out the heart of a planet. Casaran made to speak and the change in his demeanour silenced the room, 'A nation that condemns its war veterans condemns itself to history.' The Admiral stepped off the witness stand and made his own way to his sealed chamber. The hawking and hollering burst into greater fury but he did not hear them as he faced his destiny beyond the Outer Reaches.