of the Star Kingdom's prohibitions against admitting electronic evidence gathered without benefit of a court order.
Unfortunately, the very wealth of those records worked against a sense of sureness in the instances in which there was no recorded evidence. And in this instance, it did more than that, because they did have imagery —complete with time and date stamp—of Mangrum reporting to the storage area for the garrison's powered armor for a routine day of scheduled maintenance. What they did not have was imagery of him actually working on the armor... or of him crossing the base to his quarters, where Weiller's body had been discovered that afternoon. The pickups inside the Morgue had been few and far between, and no one had bothered too much over whether or not they were in working order. Which made sense, since no slaves were ever permitted anywhere near the battle armor, and the main function of the system was to keep an eye on them. But if they didn't have Mangrum on chip performing the scheduled work, they did have his log sheets for the day, and they seemed to support his claim that he'd been in the Morgue all day.
'Of course,' McKeon murmured, 'we only have his logs' word for the fact that he actually performed any maintenance checks. He could have falsified them. God knows it wouldn't be the first time someone did that to get out of a little work!'
'I know,' Longmont said, her expression as troubled as Gonsalves' had been. 'And the fact that he didn't log a single component replacement is certainly suspicious. According to his records he worked on—what?' She consulted her own memo pad. 'Here it is. According to his log sheets, he up-checked fourteen sets of battle armor... and he did all that without finding a single faulty component?' She shook her head. 'I find that highly suspicious, but it's not enough to offset the fact that we don't have any evidence that positively places him at the scene of the murder.'
'He knew about the pickups in his quarters,' Hurston pointed out. 'We know he deliberately disabled them on at least four other occasions, and someone sure as hell disabled them the afternoon Weiller was killed. What makes you think it wasn't him that time?'
'What proves it was him?' Simmons countered. 'Certainly the fact that he knew where they were and had previously shut them down indicates he could have done the same thing again. But each of the four times we know the pickups were down as the result of his actions and not a genuine malfunction were very shortly after he brought her back to Styx. It certainly looks like he was shy about being recorded having sex with her—'
'Raping her, you mean, Sir,' Gonsalves said grimly. Simmons paused, then nodded.
'Raping her,' he agreed, and Longmont nodded sharply.
'You're quite correct, Captain,' she said, and managed a wintry smile. 'Neither Commodore Simmons nor I ever said he wasn't a loathsome, revolting piece of human garbage. I simply said we don't have any supporting evidence of Hedges and Usterman's contention that he's the one who murdered her. And the point I believe the Commodore was going to make is that he'd become increasingly less shy about performing for the cameras.'
She glanced at Simmons, who nodded as if to resign the ball to her, then continued.
'In fact, he hadn't shut them down for over three local months prior to Weiller's death. So unless we're going to stipulate that he knew ahead of time that he was going to kill her—that it was a carefully planned murder, not unpremeditated or an accident—and wanted an alibi, why should he have disabled them on arrival this time? And why should he worry about establishing an alibi when Citizen Commander Tresca had made it abundantly clear that no one would be prosecuted for something as 'inconsequential' as the murder of helpless prisoners?'
The loathing contempt in the Citizen Admiral's overcontrolled voice underlined her disgust at having to make any sort of argument in Mangrum's defense, but ultimately, that only gave it more power.
'She's got a point there, Cynthia,' Hurston said, manifestly against his will, and Gonsalves nodded unhappily.
'I know,' she confessed. 'That's what I meant when I said there were too many holes in the documentation. I just hate the very thought of letting him walk away from the hangman. Whether he actually killed Weiller or not, he's the sick animal who dragged her back here, raped her, made her his toy, and put her in a position for someone to murder.'
'I don't like it either,' Longmont said. 'And just among the five of us, I wish to hell the UCC made any case of rape a capital offense. But it doesn't. And if these trials are going to be justifiable under the Deneb Accords—'
She shrugged, and McKeon nodded with an unhappy sigh.
'I think I'm hearing a consensus here,' he said. 'Does anyone want to call for secret ballots, or is a voice vote acceptable?'
He looked around the table, then directly at Longmont as the senior officer present.
'A voice vote is acceptable to me,' the citizen admiral replied, and he glanced at the others.
'Voice,' Simmons said, speaking aloud for the recorders faithfully taking down everything that happened in the conference room.
'Agreed,' Gonsalves sighed.
'Agreed,' Hurston said more grudgingly.
'Very well. How vote you on the charge of second-degree rape, Commander Hurston?' McKeon asked formally, beginning—in age-old military tradition—with the junior member of the court.
'Guilty,' Hurston said flatly.
'On the charge of kidnapping?
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of abuse of official authority for personal advantage?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of murder?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of second-degree rape, Captain Gonsalves?' McKeon went on, turning to the next most junior member of the court.
'Guilty,' Gonsalves replied in a voice of cold certainty.
'On the charge of kidnapping?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of abuse of official authority for personal advantage?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of murder?'
'Abstained,' Gonsalves said with a grimace, and McKeon turned to Simmons.
'On the charge of second-degree rape, Commodore Simmons?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of kidnapping?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of abuse of official authority for personal advantage?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of murder?'
Simmons opened his mouth, then closed it. He sat hunched in his chair for several seconds, glaring down at the table top, then raised his eyes and looked at McKeon and Longmont almost defiantly.
'Guilty,' he said in a hard, cold voice.
McKeon nodded. He wasn't really surprised, despite the discussion which had preceded the vote, and he simply looked at Longmont.
'On the charge of second-degree rape, Citizen Admiral Longmont?' he asked.
'Guilty,' Longmont said without hesitation.
'On the charge of kidnapping?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of abuse of official authority for personal advantage?'
'Guilty.'
'On the charge of murder?'
'For acquittal, due to lack of evidence,' Longmont said unhappily, and McKeon nodded once more.
'The vote on the first three charges being unanimous, and the vote on the sole capital charge being
