TRIALS (The Red Trilogy, Band 2) - Softcover

NAGATA, LINDA

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1481440950 ISBN 13: 9781481440950

Verlag: Pocket Books, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Lieutenant James Shelley and his squad of US Army soldiers were on a quest for justice when they carried out the unauthorized mission known as First Light. They returned home to America to face a court-martial, determined to expose the corruption in the chain of command that compelled their actions. But in a country still reeling from the nuclear terrorism of Coma Day, the courtroom is just one battlefield of many.A new cycle of violence ignites when rumors of the elusive, rogue AI known as the Red go public―and Shelley is, once again, pulled into the fray. Challenged by his enemies, driven by ideals, Shelley feels compelled to act. But are the harrowing choices he makes really his own, or are they made for him, by the Red? And with millions of lives at stake in a game of nuclear cat-and-mouse, does the answer even matter?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Linda Nagata is a Hawaii-based American author of novels, novellas, and short stories. She has been awarded the Nebula Award, and The Red: First Light was a 2013 finalist for Best Novel for both the Nebula and John Campbell awards.

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The Trials

“WE ARE BEING ASKED TO crucify Colonel Kendrick.”

My words are directed at my soldiers—the Apocalypse Squad. That’s the name the mediots have given us and it works for me. The seven of us who survived the First Light mission are all here, seated around a cheap oval table in the center of an otherwise bare, white-walled conference room in the federal courthouse in Washington, DC. It’s the first time in the five months since we stepped off the plane at Dulles that we’ve been allowed to discuss our case all together, with no lawyers present.

I need to know we are all still on the same side.

I’m James Shelley. I presently hold the rank of lieutenant in the United States Army, but that will change at the conclusion of our court-martial.

“Our attorneys have decided that since Kendrick is dead, he’s not going to scream and he’s not going to argue when we hammer the nails in. So they want us to testify that the colonel used undue influence to get us to participate in a conspiracy. They want us to claim we were not mentally responsible at the time and therefore it is not our fault.”

Our return to the United States was voluntary and we’re widely regarded as heroes. It’s a status I’ve leveraged to get us the privilege of this ten-minute session to confer on our defense strategy. Not a private session—camera buttons are watching from the corners of the room and the ocular overlay I wear like contact lenses in my eyes is always ­recording—but we’re used to that. We’re LCS soldiers, and in a linked combat squad you expect to be observed.

“In just a few minutes, each one of you will meet individually with counsel, where you will be advised to pursue an affirmative defense, claiming a lack of mental responsi­bility.”

Travel and communication have been a challenge ever since Coma Day, when seven improvised nuclear devices were used to destroy data exchanges across the country, shattering the Cloud and collapsing the economy. So an agreement was reached to hold our court-martial in the centrally convenient federal courthouse in DC. We are using the facility but not the staff. The army is conducting our court-martial, with a court composed of army personnel and presided over by a military judge.

Our court-martial hasn’t started, and we will not be in court today, so we’re all wearing the informal brown camo of combat uniforms. Everyone but me is also wearing their linked combat squad skullcaps.

The caps look like athletic skullcaps, but they’re embedded with a mesh of fine wires that interact with the neuro­modulating microbeads implanted in the brain tissue of every LCS soldier. Some of those microbeads are chemical sensors that report on our brain state, but others trigger neurochemical production. The skullcap is able to switch them on and off to affect the way we feel.

I don’t wear a skullcap anymore because I’ve moved on to a more permanent setup. I use a skullnet: a mesh of sensor threads implanted on the surface of my skull. Like a cap, it houses a simple artificial intelligence tasked with monitoring and stabilizing the activity in my brain. It could be my get-out-of-jail-free card, if I want to try to use it for that.

I tap my head, where my black hair is trimmed to a short buzz cut. “The attorneys want me to say Kendrick controlled my thoughts, my emotions, my ­decision-making processes, through my skullnet. They want each one of you to say he hacked your heads through your skullcaps. They want us to argue we were not in our right minds and that we didn’t understand what we were doing.”

Specialist Vanessa Harvey speaks up first: “Fuck that, LT.”

She crosses her arms, fixing me with a glare that could stop bullets . . . almost did, at Black Cross, where she was shot in the face. Her visor took the impact of the slug, and she got away with only a broken nose—but no sign of that injury remains in her sharp-featured, bronze-­complexioned face.

Specialist Samuel Tuttle expands on Harvey’s sentiment. “Fuck them.” The rim of his skullcap enhances his scowl as his brooding brown eyes shift from Harvey to Sergeant Aaron Nolan, who must have been his big brother in some other life.

Nolan is six foot one, broad shouldered, with deep-brown skin. He told me once he was half Navajo, half white. Generally, he’s a congenial man, but now he drops his chin and coldly informs me, “Those shit-eaters can go to hell.”

Little Mandy Flynn, with her green eyes and fair skin, is only a private, but she’s more eloquent than anyone else. “No way are we pissing on the colonel’s grave, sir.”

“Damn straight,” Specialist Jayden Moon agrees. Moon is tall, skinny, and dark eyed, the offspring of Asian and European bloodlines mixed in some complicated formula. He used to have a tan, but our stint in jail has bleached his skin to a pale cream. “LT, this is just bullshit.”

I turn to Sergeant Jaynie Vasquez, who sits, somewhat loyally, at my right hand. Jaynie is the ranking non-com in our squad. She’s got a lean build and moderate height. Her skin is smooth and black. She tends to regard the world with a reserved expression that perfectly reflects her nature: smart, controlled, determined, and not entirely trusting of my judgment. She answers my questioning look with a nod, letting me know she’ll back me up as long as I say the right things.

I return my attention to Moon. “Of course it’s bullshit, Moon. It’s the same bullshit we LCS soldiers get all the time.”

Outside the linked combat squads we are commonly believed to be soulless automatons, emotionless killing machines controlled by our handlers in Guidance. It’s a prejudice our attorneys want to exploit.

“But it’s a bullshit that can be used to buy you a not-guilty verdict and a medical discharge.”

Moon looks confused. His gaze shifts to Jaynie. “I don’t get it. That’s not why we came back.”

He’s looking at Jaynie, but I’m the one who responds. “No, it’s not why we came back. The crucifixion of Colonel Kendrick is an option we are being offered because both trial and defense counsel are under extreme pressure to limit the scope of our court-martial. They do not want to look into the chain of responsibility—”

“Lack of responsibility,” Jaynie interrupts in a low growl.

I concede the point with a nod. “They do not want to look into the layers of corruption that forced us to take the action we did. We are here to expose that corruption, to confront it. That’s why we came back. But this is not a game. We are facing life in prison, very possibly execution. If you want to reconsider your reasons for being here, now is the time. Just know that for the affirmative defense to work, all of you will need to agree to it. If even one of you dissents, that will cast doubt on all the others.”

Harvey’s arms are still crossed, her brow wrinkled in suspicion. “What do you mean, we would have to agree? What about you, LT? I thought we were all in this together.”

“That’s up to you, Harvey. There’s no fucking way I’m going along with it. But the rest of you can claim your commanding officers exploited your sense of...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pocket Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1481440950
• ISBN 13: 9781481440950
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 480
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar