Eleven men were led into the room surrounded by a security team with bullet proof shields and armour. The soldiers sat them in chairs shackled and handcuffed facing the main part of the court. Five judges followed them and stood at the raised benches at the front of the courtroom. A voice intoned, "All rise for the honourable judges." As the people stood he observed the men in the chairs and saw the major players on show.
Whitbourne, MacIntyre, Jeffries were present as well as faces that he only recognised from vid casts, all of them looked arrogantly at the courtroom. He noticed that Whitbourne even smiled at Jeffries as the court resumed their seats. Glancing around the room he wondered what the hell Whitbourne was finding so fucking amusing. Quickly Sydney established that there were a few faces in the crowded balcony that were staring intently at the 11 men and occasionally they were making eye contact.
Sydney focused internally. Alfred's face appeared in his mind's eye as he reported that it appeared that there may be trouble at the first day of court hearings. He gave Alfred some visuals and relaxed when Alfred said to keep his head low.
Shortly afterwards armed guards appeared in the balcony area and the occupants of the seats that he had recorded as possible trouble were discretely asked to accompany the guards out of the area. Whitbourne suddenly looked uncomfortable as he scanned the balcony and failed to recognise anyone in the front row seats.
Paul Keane stood, as part of the security team, impassively at the side of the court and his eyes roamed the building checking its inhabitants. He spotted Sydney. At first he wasn't sure that the old man who gave him a small smile was his friend until briefly the disguise dropped and he saw the familiar dark-blue eyes and black hair. The man was in the shadows of the balcony and Paul's eyebrows lifted in surprise. He didn't even know that his friend had returned to Townsville after his exploits with bat and in the field in the recently completed one day series against New Zealand that Australia had won against all odds 3-2. It was the second time they had beaten them in the last two seasons. He grinned to himself and made a mental note to keep an eye on him with a view to catching him up at a recess.
He received a call over his earpiece to send some men to the balcony to investigate some people of interest. Richardson, his Captain, sent a couple of his comrades upstairs leaving him on duty.
The first day dragged interminably as the judges took turns in reading the charges against the 11 men in the docks. The charges ranged from treason, kidnap and rape, the mere word sent shivers down both his and Syd's spines, to robbery, murder and embezzlement.
By lunch time recess Paul was resigned to spending the rest of his life in this courtroom as he escorted the accused back to the rooms at the rear of the court. He thought to himself that the whole country will go broke feeding and clothing this useless scum while the case dragged on.
The final charges were read by late afternoon and the central judge asked the accused how they pleaded.
Paul was not surprised that they all answered, "Not guilty." However, he was pleased when Whitbourne answered that the court had no right to be ruling on anything he did as he was the saviour of the entire region. It gave Paul the opportunity to give the ex-general a bit more lip as he hauled him protesting from the courtroom and threw him into the transport hover with the rest of his crew.
The following days were filled with boring and long winded summaries of the case that would be presented and defended as the teams of lawyers pranced and primped across the floor in front of the jury. Paul was only able to keep awake because of the long hours he had spent on guard duty that trained him for this sort of inactivity. When finally the opening arguments had been presented the panel of judges called the day to an end telling the prosecution to begin the presentation of witnesses the following day.
The next day the court resumed the prosecution began its case. The first witness to be called was an attempt at shocking the jury right onto their side and keeping them there. It was deemed a master stroke by pundits after the event, for Paul it was a sickening joke and one that he ended up very much regretting being part of.
Mrs Margaret Compton was called to the stand. Both Paul and Sydney watched the little woman take her place in the witness stand facing the 11 accused. The two men detested the lawyers within the court and it was all Sydney could do to keep his mouth shut as he watched from his place in the audience.
The Compton's plight was well known. As were the reports of the abduction of her 20 year old daughter and 5 of her classmates some three years before. An under-age sex trade with an off shore country was blamed but only recently did the public find out their actual fate.
All of the girls had been found within the clutches of Project BF and it appeared they would be one of the only groups of women who were returned, successfully, to their parents. The six young women were inseparable. Thelma and Martha had tried to find them loving partners but the women had steadfastly refused anyone else to enter their group. The arrival of the girls' parents had been a blessing as the women flung themselves into their arms and appeared to be in need of the parental love that the psychiatrists observed. After several months they were allowed to leave with the parents and established themselves in the large housing area that was reserved for them in Cellarium.
Tragically the girls had not been able to cope, it had been an elaborate ruse. In a murder-suicide pact they had taken their own lives in the basement of the Compton's home. They had taken their lives two days before Bonnie's twenty-first birthday.
Margaret Compton spoke in a low harsh voice and her deadly whispers were picked up by every ear in the room as she told in harrowing detail of the injuries to her daughter and her girlfriends. She turned to the men seated in their shackles and raised her voice only slightly. "Do you know that as you raped my daughter and her friends that you not only broke their bodies but you broke their minds as well?" she glared at all of them.
Whitbourne ignoring her sneered and remarked to Jeffries beside him. "I think I remember the tight cunted little sluts!" The courtroom erupted in pandemonium as the judges banged their gavels.
Syd and Paul had eyes only for Margaret Compton who in the ensuing melee removed two guns from her blouse and pointed them straight at the men and pulled the triggers 6 times. The heads of Whitbourne, MacIntyre and Jeffries disappeared in a spray of blood and grey matter, as did the heads of several more to the left of them. The others sagged in their seats as bullets entered their hearts or throats. Margaret Compton was a deadly shot.
Both Sydney and Paul heard the click of the pistol in her right hand as it failed to fire a bullet. The central judge also heard and rose to her feet shouting, "Hold your fire!" The security team had unholstered their weapons and trained them on the sobbing woman in the witness stand. None of them had fired a shot. Paul believed he had held his own fire because the woman in the stand deserved her justice. Let the Gods determine if they were wrong he thought as he trained his weapon on the woman.
Margaret Compton raised her hands. "They are empty. I only had 11 rounds." The courtroom was deathly silent with the only sounds coming from the sobbing Mrs Compton as she held the guns aloft.
"What happened to the twelfth round Mrs Compton?" Paul found himself asking and her pitiful eyes turned to him.
She looked directly into his soul as she stated softly, "These are the guns the girls used to kill each other with. Frank and I couldn't stop them. We were locked outside the door and could only see in through the window as the Wilson twins hugged each other and then stepped back and shot each other through the heart."
Her voice broke but she took a deep breath and continued to tell the story of what they had seen. To Mrs Compton the only person in the room that could save her was the big blonde sergeant who locked eyes with her. "And then Alison and Juanita picked up the guns and did the same to each other and finally my Mary and Louise kissed each other goodbye and and and ..." The woman stopped and squared her shoulders.
Paul saw the anguish in her eyes, she was pleading with him to end her misery. He asked again, "Mrs Compton what happened to the other round?" He hated himself for asking but they had to know.
"I used it to shoot Frank this morning before I came here... He begged me to kill him because he couldn't kill me first..." her voice trailed off.
"I was running late and I couldn't find any more ammunition so I just took them as they were." She looked at the judges and then turned back to Paul. Mrs Compton's pitiful eyes pleaded with him, silently begging him to save her. She spoke directly to his soul.
"The last bullet was going to be for me if you people didn't shoot me first and now it seems I have failed..."
Paul's hand shook slightly. Of all the security people there he was the only one that hadn't lowered his weapon. Margaret Compton lifted the guns to her head and pulled the triggers and her mouth twisted into a sorrowful scowl as neither of them exploded and ended her life. Her eyes pleaded silently with Paul again. He squeezed the trigger on his 9 mm and the deadly projectile slammed into Mrs Compton's chest killing her instantly.
