America's Galactic Foreign Legion - Book 1: Feeling Lucky (12 page)

#1: And you asked Lieutenant Czerinski to
explain himself?

#14: Yes. I asked Lieutenant Czerinski how he
was able to accumulate over 300 identification crystals without
taking even one prisoner, not even civilian families, juveniles, or
babies. Lieutenant was evasive and tried to divert our discussion
to the welfare of the human pestilence under his command. Our
discussion was cut short when I stepped too close to his cage and
he reached out striking at my throat. At the same time another
human pestilence stabbed me from behind. When I fell to the ground,
Lieutenant Czerinski struck at me again through the bars, but I
rolled away just in time. I almost died. Lieutenant Czerinski
stated that he would kill me if it was the last thing he did.

#1: What did the other human pestilence have
to say when confronted with partially eaten baby limbs found in
their backpacks?

#14: The second in command, Sergeant Lopez,
admitted that they had all gorged themselves on the families of
Habitat #40. Sergeant Lopez apologized for this atrocity.

#1: Do you believe Sergeant Lopez was sincere
in his apology?

#14: No. It was Sergeant Lopez who stabbed me
in the back. He then threatened to exterminate our entire
species.

#1: And you have all this recorded on tape
for our review?

#14: Yes. Their vicious nature is quite
startling.

#1: Any other interviews?

#14: The third in command, Corporal Green,
stated that baby spiders tasted light, but were not filling, and
that he wanted more. Only next time, he wanted tartar sauce. He
thought the whole matter was funny. Corporal Green, who I think is
mentally unstable, then went into a tirade accusing me of having
sex with my mother and with goats. He is quite odd. Of the
seventeen other humans I interviewed, sixteen admitted to eating
the families of Habitat #40. One human, Private Williams, said he
refused to eat the dead and argued with Lieutenant Czerinski about
the matter. This is backed up by subsequent analysis of their
helmet video camera recordings.

#1: What else did you find from captured
computer and video camera data?

#14: I found a pattern of intent to
exterminate our species and not take prisoners that ran from the
highest levels of their command to the lowest private. I found
electronic communications that ordered Lieutenant Czerinski to not
take prisoners. This was before Czerinski even landed on the
planet. Upon landing, Lieutenant Czerinski killed a sentry of an
elite commando unit. They toyed with #100’s decapitated head as
#100 begged for mercy. Viewing the helmet video camera recording is
quite disturbing. Sergeant Lopez, again using his knife, stabbed
#100 through an eye socket. Lieutenant Czerinski and his platoon
then went on a rampage, indiscriminately throwing nuclear bombs
down habitat entrances. Research shows the Legion itself has a
brutal history. They are a bunch of expendable criminals and
misfits that are used as cannon fodder and to do the dirty work of
the United States Galactic Federation’s many wars. They are
butchers.

#1: When Lieutenant Czerinski entered the
habitat tunnel system, he encountered a security patrol. What does
the captured video images of that contact show?

#14: The three tunnel guard sentries fought
the twenty human pestilence in close quarters combat and were
killed. At one point Lieutenant Czerinski knocked a sentry to the
ground by viscously smashing a leg out from under him. The sentry
threw his rifle away and put his arms up to surrender. The sentry
begged for his life. Lieutenant Czerinski crushed his head with the
stomp of a boot. The other sentries were torn apart.

#1: What happened at Habitat #40?

#14: Lieutenant Czerinski and his platoon
snuck up on Habitat #40 and opened fire with rocket propelled
grenades, small arms, and a machine gun, slaughtering 323 males,
females, and babies. After the slaughter, the victims were cooked
and eaten. Some babies were boiled alive.

#1: The habitat families were unarmed?

#14: Yes. Weapons were stacked. Habitat
families were herded into a corner and cut down. Babies were shot
off the ceiling. Then an eating frenzy followed.

#1: You said members of the human pestilence
claimed they were starving, and later regretted their action?

#14: What they regretted was being caught. We
have a recording of Lieutenant Czerinski discussing the matter with
Sergeant Lopez. Sergeant Lopez stated that it would not be good if
they were ever captured. He was right. And, we have a recording of
Lieutenant Czerinski discussing the massacre with General
Kalipetsis. General Kalipetsis ordered Lieutenant Czerinski to nuke
the habitat in order to cover up the atrocities.

(All recordings, images, and electronic data
were played for the court)

Cross examination by Defense Officer #2, of
Intelligentsia & State Security Officer #14:

#2: Well, #14, you left a lot of information
out of your testimony, and presented a lot of evidence out of
context. Isn’t that right?

#14: No, I answered the questions I was asked
to answer.

#2: You testified that Lieutenant Czerinski
interrupted your interrogation by striking at your throat, but you
forgot to tell the court that you had just told Lieutenant
Czerinski that you had the eaten a female member of his platoon the
day before. Yes?

#14: Yes.

#2: But you said no earlier?

#14: Yes.

#2: Which is it? No or yes? If you lie about
small matters, why should we believe you about important matters?
You lie a lot, don’t you?

#14: No.

#2: You lied when you told Lieutenant
Czerinski that you had eaten the female human soldier. In fact, she
was removed from the area to prevent mating. Yes?

#14: Yes.

#2: Why did you deliberately lead Lieutenant
Czerinski to believe the female human solder was dead?

#14: I was angry and wanted to make
Lieutenant Czerinski suffer.

#2: So, you only lie when you are angry?

#14: No.

#2: You lie at other times, too? Do you ever
tell the truth? You had better start being truthful, or there will
be consequences. It’s all recorded, you know.

#14: Yes.

#2: You provoked Lieutenant Czerinski?

#14: Yes.

#2: Then you easily ducked back from his
expected lunge, at which time you sliced off his hand?

#14: Yes.

#2: Do you know that humans can’t grow back
their limbs?

#14: Yes, but I did not know that at the
time.

#2: And that makes your actions better?

#14: No.

#2: Aren’t there rules about abusing
prisoners of war?

#14: Yes.

#2: So let’s summarize for the Court. You lie
when you are angry? You break rules when you are angry? And you
abuse prisoners of war when you are angry?

#14: No. That was an isolated incident.

#2: Isolated? You strung up Corporal Green
and left him in a web, up side down? More anger issues?

#14: Yes, and I’d do it again, too. Green is
a mouthy little human pestilence. I did nothing wrong. They are all
vicious murderers. I did my duty investigating their war
crimes.

#2: By lying?

#14: The captured electronic communications
and video camera recordings speak for themselves.

#2: Yes, and they were presented out of
context, too. As a member of the State Security Intelligentsia, you
followed our troops into battle during the invasion of New
Colorado. And, you analyzed captured documents and interrogated
civilian prisoners?

#14: Yes.

#2: And you presented all relevant
information you found to your superiors?

#14: Of course. What are you getting at?

#2: What was the human population of New
Colorado before our invasion?

#14: It was a new human colony, so they only
had about 30,000.

#2: The invasion began with the nuking of all
small towns and industry?

#14: Yes.

#2: And all their military installations?

#14: Yes.

#2: What? Isn’t it true that the humans had
no military presence on New Colorado? You lied to us again?

#14: We hit strategic targets that might have
dual military and civilian uses, such as the air port, the space
port, power generation, and the constabulary.

#2: You are being deceptive, and that is the
same as lying to us again! You are saying that a power station, an
airport, a spaceport, and a few cops are military targets and
justification for nuking an entire defenseless civilian population
engaged only in the honorable mining of minerals from the
ground?

#14: The targets were determined by the
General Staff, not me.

#2: But it is your job to analyze the data.
To tell the General Staff if they did a good job in target
selection?

#14: Yes.

#2: Did they?

#14: Yes.

#2: But there were no military targets.

#14: No.

#2: How many civilian prisoners did we
take?

#14: About a thousand.

#2: What happened to the rest?

#14: I don’t know.

#2: Speculate. It is in your job description
as an intelligence officer.

#14: Most killed. Some evacuated. Some are
still hiding underground or in the woods.

#2: Evacuated? How would that happen if you
nuked the spaceport and there was no military presence on New
Colorado?

#14: I don’t know.

#2: I’m getting tired of that answer. What do
you know? Did the humans have a military presence in orbit?

#14: No, just unmanned communications and
weather satellites.

#2: In summation, and it is like pulling
fangs from you, we slaughtered an innocent defenseless civilian
population?

#14: Their very existence in imperial space
threatened the Empire. The Emperor said so himself.

#2: Yes, so he did. And I will not argue with
the wisdom of the Emperor, unless he based his information on
intelligence from idiots like you. Did any humans resist the
invasion?

#14: Yes.

#2: As you broke into their isolated homes
and farms? I say that because all the towns had already been
nuked?

#14: Yes.

#2: And obviously most of
those who resisted were killed? You took a thousand prisoners out
of thirty thousand? That is an extermination, not a military
invasion. You call the humans
pestilence
? Isn’t pestilence something
that needs to be exterminated?

#14: Again, I was merely using the words of
the Emperor. You are treading on dangerous ground.

#2: Do you threaten me? If so, you just made
the biggest mistake of your whole sorry-ass career!

#14: I meant nothing by that.

#2: Just a little angry, eh? Let’s move on.
You collected intelligence on the humans because we do not quite
understand what the humans are all about? We can combat them better
if we can understand them better?

#14: Yes.

#2: So if we do not understand what humans
are all about, it stands to reason that that humans do not
understand what we are about, either?

#14: Yes.

#2: You said that after the battle at Habitat
#40 Lieutenant Czerinski and Sergeant Lopez discussed what they had
done.

#14: Yes, they knew there would be
repercussions if we caught them. They expected to be killed
slowly.

#2: Actually, weren’t they just coming to an
understanding of what they did?

#14: How do you not understand that you
slaughtered whole families?

#2: I don’t know. How did you not understand
that when we nuked every town on New Colorado?

#14: General Kalipetsis knew. He understood
right away. That’s why he ordered the habitat nuked. To destroy the
evidence. To cover up the massacre.

#2: Probably. Lieutenant Czerinski and
Sergeant Lopez also discussed the identification crystals. They did
not know what they were.

#14: Yes. They thought the crystals were
diamonds and that they could get rich from them.

#2: Isn’t that evidence of a lack of
understanding between us and humans?

#14: It is evidence of ruthless looting of
the dead, and a motive for more unnecessary killing.

#2: Did our troops loot?

#14: No.

#2: The captured video camera recordings
clearly show #100 drinking and smoking intoxicants and possessing
stimulants taken from human civilians.

#14: Those were insignificant items taken by
young troops. The defendant hoped to get rich from his loot.
Lieutenant Czerinski even cited Legion history when Mamelukes were
victimized the same way.

#2: It is your job to collect intelligence
and to pass it on to your superiors. In regards to the humans, have
you done that to the best of your ability? Have you gained a
greater understanding of what humans are all about?

#14: Yes, I believe so.

#2: Humans do not seem very forgiving, do
they?

#14: No, they don’t.

#2: Are we still at war?

#14: We are at truce. Their armada was
stopped. Both sides were badly mauled. We hold the north half of
the planet and the moons. The humans hold the south. Prisoners have
been exchanged, and face-to-face negotiations are ongoing.

#2: So, the war is over?

#14: I hope so.

#2: And the humans have forgiven us for the
slaughter on New Colorado?

#14: Not likely.

#2: Are we doomed?

#14: I beg your pardon?

#2: Are you going to lie to me again? Or be
deceptive again? I asked if we are doomed? Based on the
intelligence you have gathered what are our future prospects of
survival?

#14: If you are asking about future military
operations, you should be asking the General Staff questions like
that. Not me.

#2: The General Staff isn’t here. I’m asking
you to state an opinion based on the facts you have gathered. You
said earlier that the very existence of humans in imperial space
was a threat to the Empire. That was when the human presence on New
Colorado was merely a civilian mining operation. Now that our only
two fleets have been savaged, and the United States Galactic
Federation is mobilizing its military, are we in even more danger
than before?