[CaptRR]

Short chapter this time
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Chapter 22

"You are hereby charged with Treason, Conspiracy to commit treason, attempting to incite a revolution, and plotting to assassinate the Prime Minister. How do you plead?

Somar listened to the words; most of them were correct charges, except the assassination plot. It didn't matter though, in the two months since Somar had been arrested while leaving Hamal's house, he could see everything leading to this point. It was a classic setup, his trial was a secret, if it was ever even revealed to the general public, the only thing that would be known was the verdict, and of course the sentence. Which Somar had no doubt would be death.

The small room he was in now, didn't even resemble a court room. In fact their were little decorations at all, only a small table where the "judge" sat, and two other tables for the defense and prosecution. In all only about 4 people other than he were even present. Somar didn't even have the option of a lawyer, he was being forced to defend himself, but again he doubted that a lawyer would affect the outcome in the least. He was a dead man.

The Last 2 months had been hard, he and Hamal had both been arrested and shipped to this secret prison. Once they arrived at the prison he had lost sight of Hamal, that was also the Last time he had seen the older Draven, but he had heard, oh creator how he had heard. Mostly at night, he would hear the screams, that seemed to Last forever, occasional a name would be screamed out, no doubt Hamal was being tortured to give the name of so called co-conspirators, and also no doubt those names would be exactly what his torturers had wanted him to say.

Somar didn't blame Hamal either, their was no way a person could stand up to torture forever, everything had its breaking point. Somar by contrast hadn't been treated badly, other than the lack of toilet facilities, and the distasteful food, he had been treated remarkable well, even if he was locked in his cell the entire day, and was forbidden to see any visitors.

It hadn't taken long for Somar to figure out why he was being treated well. It was simple, he was being fattened up for his trial. No doubt the star witness for the prosecution would be Hamal himself, after he had been properly conditioned that is. Somar's suspicions were confirmed once he walked into the courtroom. In a corner chair sat Hamal, or what looked like Hamal. He had aged considerably over the Last 2 months, the man looked look frail, like a moving corpse.

Somar took a breath, if he claimed innocence he would convicted then shot. If he pleaded guilty, he would be forced to make a statement, then shot. Neither choice appealed to Somar, but his options were limited, and damn if he was going to go down he would go down swinging.

"Not guilty", Somar managed to say.

The judge didn't even flinch, only nodded, then looked over to the prosecutor. "Tanat, is the Government ready to present its case?"

"Yes it is Sir," Tanat motioned to Hamal in the corner. Hamal obeyed however slowly, and made his way to the seat beside the judge.

"Representative Hamal," Continued Tanat, "You have admitted to the government that you and several other Representatives in the Peoples Committee conspired to assassinate the Prime Minister, is this true?"

Hamal spoke, but it sounded rehearsed, fake, devoid of Hamal's usual charm. "Yes"

Tanat didn't even skip a beat, "And is it also true, that Representative Somar orchestrated the entire thing?"

Somar was on his feet instantly, "that's not true!"

The judge pointed towards Somar, "The defense will remain quite or be held in contempt."

"I will not. If I am going to be dammed I will be dammed on my own terms. This entire government is a sham, it has been taken over by Yalare, and has no representation of what the founders intened. Yalare..."

Somar never finished his sentence, a guard game up from behind him and hit him in the head knocking Somar to the floor. As reality slowly faded away, and blackness seeped into his vision the Last thing he saw was Hamal staring at him, his eyes saying what his mouth could not.

Later that day, Somar along with 56 other Representatives were shot for treason. In effect the Peoples Committee died in a lonely field just on the edge of Capital city.

Chapter 23

Yalare watched the news, it was no surprise of course when it was told that Somar and 56 other representatives had been convicted of treason. Yalare had complete control of the media, and the only thing that got out was what he wanted to get out.

He leaned back in his chair, ignoring for a moment the two other people in the room with him. If the people knew the truth about the Yalare they would certainly have him killed. In fact when Yalare had first learned the truth about himself he had wanted to kill himself. The voice, had turned out to be nothing more than a figment of his imagination. A way for his mind not to accept what he had done. After the voice showed him, he finally had to deal with the reality. It took a while, for several weeks he had refused to leave his office, but in time, he had come to accept that what he had done was for the good of the republic, if his plan worked, the Draven republic would be stronger than ever, and the looming threat of the CCCP would be gone.

Yes, he had planed the destruction of Landing City, but had been the only way to get rid of that foolish president, while inciting a war against the Terrens. For the most part his plan worked, unfortunately the Draven armed forces hadn't fared too well against the Terren's the loss of the sledgehammer fleet had been upsetting, but not disastrous. In the end the war with the terrens had been nothing more than a distraction to the big picture, which Yalare was now seeing with unparallel clarity.

Their was a problem though, that fool Josha had apparently caused some sort of communications blackout with the Acamar system. Everytime he tried to contact the system, or even the Central Powers his communications were getting bounced back to him. Josha was obviously up to something, he just had to find out what.

"Prime Minister" one of the men in the room finally said, "are you sure you have the Josha situation in hand, if you do not we need to know now so we can take care of it." The man's accent betrayed where he was born, even if he had been genetically altered to look like a Draven.

"Tell you boss, that Josha is a bug, and that I will take care of him. The only thing he could do is call on those despicable weyrlings, and if he does that he'll being plying right into our hands."

The man looked at his companion for a moment, then back at the prime minister, "We are troubled by the delays, you should have had Josha taken care of months ago. If you don't take care of Josha, we will be forced to withhold the shipments."

Yalare stood and gave the man the sternest look he could, "don't you dare threaten me, your boss needs us more than we need him. I will take care of Josha, you take care of the shipments."

The man hesitated for a moment, "Assuming you have Josha taken care of, the shipments will be here in 3 months."

"Good," said Yalare, and then retook his seat, "I'm, sure you boss will be glad once this entire situation is behind us."

The man nodded and then turned to leave, but stopped, "is their anything you wish me to tell him?"

"Yes," Yalare couldn't hide his smile, once Josha was taken car of Draven's would take their place in the Universe, "Tell Stalin, that he will soon have the Weyrlings on a platter, cooked and stuffed curtsy of the Draven Republic."