Chapter 56

A Court-Martial, An Inheritance, And A Family Reunion: Not in that Order

One thing that every human in the military has the right to is trial by Court-martial. Any time you get an article 15 for disobeying direct orders that led to the eradication of a hostile enemy force, do so. Honestly, see how your peers think of you, regardless of how you saved them all. This is a fun challenge that I hope everyone gets to see.

I like to think of this as a game. Basically, do my peers hate me so much that despite my actions during combat, are they willing to punish me with anything from half pay and extra duty, to being completely discharged from the military. I am banking on the latter; I will even put in an appeal to say as much.

“I can’t believe you wanted me as your legal counsel. To put it mildly they have you by the balls.” Captain Chet Goldman, my older brother, and closet-mind-rapist, is here serving as my legal counsel. Can he do this? No. Is he qualified in the least to do this? No.

So why do I have him here? Simple. I want to nip his mind raping tendencies in the bud. I don’t think he will be able to be my true lawyer, but as a senior officer in the field, and a family member he has been chosen as my initial legal counsel to talk me out of this course of action.

“Oh, how so?”

“The Article 15 is about failure to follow orders in combat. Something that could result in the death penalty if you push it.”

Hearing that I smile a slight sinister smile. “Can you first define combat?”

“Combat has traditionally been applied when shots were fired by one of two opposing forces.”

I nod. “To my knowledge no shots were fired. Am I wrong, or are they going to state that my rubber ducks on the practice ship were fully operational?”

My brother shook his head. “Look, just take the plea deal.” My brother who always hated losing arguments, just went to his primary option. Mind Control, I had seen them, the powers that had been hidden to me until recently. But now that I am here and knew where to look, they appear like glowing hot plates.

“And to think. I was going to give you a chance.” I say.

“Huh?” Is all my asshole brother, can eloquently quip before I go to town. In a second I begin carving into his mind like it is a pumpkin, and I am an overly enthusiastic Halloween-ist. Within seconds, I find the four sections of his mind devoted to devious actions: I find the portions for Mind Control, Mind Theft, Mind Alteration, and Mind Erase. Then with deft strikes I use my Mind Rend to remove the cancerous parts of his mind.

Once the portions of his mind are torn and rendered clear, I then do a modified healing on him. I haven’t had much chance to use this new power, but I feel here is a perfect spot for it. Mind Heal is applied to force together the now loosely flapping skin portions of his mind. In a way I figure this to be a form of mental cosmetic surgery, you know take off a few pounds and make the deviant mind look healthier and more vibrant.

Blood is flowing down my brother’s nose, apparently this much work doesn’t go unnoticed. I cast Heal on him and let the swelling that was overtaking his brain cease. I now note my control over healing is astounding. Not only can I stop the swelling, but my control over healing now allows me to redirect the blood flow in his body.

Blinking.

My brother is blinking rapidly for a second. By all accounts half a minute have passed. During that time, I removed four mind raping powers that would have put my brother on the serial mind-rapist watch list, that is if he reported them. Then I permanently healed his mind so it could never regain those powers again, then healed the excess damage from my severe tampering. All in all, I have to say it was a quick job and am mildly surprised with myself.

“What just happened?” My brother says, touching his head.

“I don’t know, you just focused hard on me. Then you started bleeding out of your nose. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear you tried to use Mind Control on me, or some other form of magic. Fortunately, we know you don’t have those powers. While just having the powers is not a crime, they would put you on a watch list. Then not reporting not just one, but four to include but not limited to Mind Control, Mind Theft, Mind Alteration, and Mind Erase would be a huge deal. Would also call into question all your recent promotions. Fortunately, you no longer have that problem.” I state with a smile forming on my mind.

“You, stop that!” He shouts, and I can see him reaching for power that is no longer present in his mind. More blood begins to pour down his nose at the sudden exertion.

“You, have a little something…” I say, gesturing to just under my nose with my finger.

“FREAK! What did you do with my sweet little brother.” He stands up and demands, pointing one blood covered finger at me.

I just laugh. “Ah, don’t like it when your little brother comes back and is no longer a push over?” I ask.

Crack.

I feel more cracks forming in my mind. These are images and memories of my brother from before I joined. I don’t know how I am suddenly able to start remembering my true past, but he was mean. Constantly shouting, using us, his family, as test subjects. He would find us, me, and use all his powers over and over against us. I remember trying to hide, whenever he was around. Realistically I knew I had no reason to be afraid of him, but something always told me he was dangerous.

Feeling these memories bubbling to the surface, I feel a fit of rage. In that instant I want to take him and crush him like a pancake with my Telekinetic grip. But then I think better, right now I have nothing on me for a crime against my brother. And if I act out now, I will just be reinforcing the narrative that he is the victim.

Instead, I decide to go the other direction. I lean back in my chair and smile.

“That is a very good question, one I could ask you. What did you do to your sweet little brother?”

Hearing my words, his eyes go wide with panic as recognition begins to fill his mind.

“You know?”

“Oh, I know.” I say, putting my arms behind my head in a confident relaxed pose.

Trembling.

He trembles for a second, then begins to stand up on wobbling legs.

“Your mind, why can’t I read your mind?” He asks suddenly frightened.

I felt his mental groping against my mind for a while now. Though I mostly let it go, but now that I see it is getting to him, I smile even brighter.

“You just now realize you were completely out classed by your little brother?” I ask, as I lock eyes with him. Well, I attempt to, he immediately averts his eyes. Apparently, he doesn’t like heterochromia eyes.

“You are a freak. Are they doing something to you? Is the military doing something to you?” Chet asks, and for a second, I almost want to believe that he cares for me.

“What are you going to do. Get me out of here? Say I shouldn’t be in the military anymore?” I ask, suddenly wondering if this is a new way out of the military, towards my new goal. Of not being in the military.

“No. God no. You are too much of a weapon to be released into society. You need to be sent to the front lines.” Chet answers, then in a rare bout of honesty he continues. “In fact, that was part of why I was sent here. To help see how close you were to being fully combat ready.”

There it is, they think I am already ready to be sent to the front lines. But just where are the front lines? As far as I know the scourge are everywhere.

“They are on to you. They know you somehow managed to integrate with the system early.” He pauses as I look at him like he is crazy. “Don’t say it isn’t true. Twenty-Six, that is how many attribute points you got from your misuse of certs. Additionally, you managed to change your class rarity to Omega for both your Mage and Psionic classes. Along with getting class evolutions. Meaning you spent extra certs on improving the odds of a favorable evolution. Given the estimated number of certs that appeared in your cockpit and your dual class evolutions. You managed to get a combined 78 levels in your two classes. That is the only way to explain your sudden increase of twenty-six attributes.”

I look at him like he is crazy for a moment, then I realize there were likely cameras in the cockpit with me. Cameras that recorded the fact that at one point I had so many certs that I could not move the instruments to fly properly one second. Then the next they were gone. While I had used some to increase my Mage Class from Support to Prime Support, I didn’t use the others to gain levels. As far as I could tell I was still not integrated, but then their rationale of being a combined seventy-eight levels in both Psionic and my Mage class would explain the twenty-six-point attribute increase I received. Never mind the fact that more than a few of those were gained from sheer hard work and determination, then the rest were gained by the Gemini Temple run. Because in this world physical attributes are set, until you level. So, my coming back with such an increase, in only a few seconds, could logically only be explained by leveling.

“All right, so what if I used my certs to increase my level? A level that doesn’t show up mind you? Also how do they explain how I could both change my class rarity and level up at the same time?” I asked. My mind spinning as I tried to remember all the weird, nuanced rules of this unique universe. One that I missed so much, until a moment ago. Greenhouse gasses are always greener in someone else’s universe, I guess.

“First, you are a soldier, which means all certs gained while conducting official military operations are subject to seizure by the military war machine. This means that any subsequent use of certs by you without military authorization is grounds for investigation by fraud, waste, and abuse. The fact that you used more than sixteen hundred certs, is grounds for serious reprimands.

Over 1,600? I thought, then realized they were basing it off of expected volume of the craft and likely however many certs they thought it would take to increase my class rarities, and level to seventy-eight. Wow, so odd as that was almost the exact amount I used. I used 1,048 to increase the rarity of my Magic class, then the next one thousand to buy Healing Aura. I then had a few hundred magic certs that were also applied to my next Magical ability that was still locked.

“In fact, your only saving grace is that you left well over five thousand certs in the ship’s hull. Meaning that you would be entitled to a few hundred certs. Not the full 1,600 that you are estimated at a minimum of pilfering.”

“Pilfering?”

“Yes, as a fully trained soldier you would only be authorized to use ten percent of the certs gained. As a cadet, that number is far less. In fact, you shouldn’t even be able to generate certs, which is why normally this isn’t a problem. The problem comes with the fact that you took more than double the allotted amount for a soldier. Meaning according to military regulations you owe 11,000 hours of combat.”

“What? Where do they get these ridiculous numbers from?”

“That was why I suggested you take the deal. You had to take sixteen hundred, forty-eight times two to increase your class rarity for both Mage and Psionic classes. Then assuming you split the 78 levels evenly between both classes, which I hope you did, you are looking at 800 certs from both of those alone. Meaning you should be charged with closer to 1,700 certs taken. They are effectively gifting you the class rarity increase. Then on top of that they misused five hundred for your ten percent contribution of certs obtained. Meaning, your remaining ledger is only for 1,100 certs taken. Then you factor in the fact that each cert is roughly equal to ten hours of combat experience, and then you get to your time owed the military.”

My mind literally hurts from the numbers. I can see where they got the numbers and estimations for.

“But you can’t prove anything. I don’t have levels yet, meaning I haven’t integrated. You assume that my attributes increased due to leveling, but can you prove that?”

Chet just shakes his head. “We don’t have to prove it. We can prove that by volume well over a thousand certs had to have been in your cockpit. Certs that then disappeared. You need to prove you didn’t apply them. We already have you on changing your class rarities.”

At this time, I realize my brother didn’t come to console me, he came to make his track record look better. He wanted me to confess to a crime. A crime of stealing from the military who was in turn stealing from me.

“Wait, these numbers don’t add up.”

“What?”

“You said, there were five thousand in the hull, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I am being accused of taking 1,600 thousand from the cockpit. Wouldn’t that make it, so I earned 6,600 total? Meaning I was due 660 of those certs? Making it so I only owed a theoretical 940?”

Chet just shook his head. “Those are stolen certs, which means they cannot be added to your overall contribution.”

I was done. So done with this.

The ground around me started to tremble, as I realized I was subconsciously wanting to get out of here. I might not have control over earth, but my Telekinesis was second to none, in any universe.

Knock. Knock.

Two crisp knocks were heard on the outside of our interrogation cell. That is what this place was, a place to interrogate either POWs, or soldiers suspected of conducting crimes. In my case I was suspected of conducting a crime meant to send me to the front lines of combat, again wherever that was, for the next 11,000 hours. Or 458 and a third days, over a year straight. No, I was not going to be stuck here that long on some trumped up charges.

“Good afternoon.” The familiar voice of Dr. Charleston rang out in the room, and I instantly felt relief. “I have two points of discussion to bring up with my patient.”

“Two?” Chet asks.

“Yes, the first is a standard competency test, to ensure he is capable of rational thought.” Dr. Charleston began.

“And the second?”

“Oh, that is simple, I need to tell him some rather unfortunate news. Related to his personal life.”

“You mean the fact that his girlfriend got offed by a runaway auto-cab?” Chet asked nonchalantly.

“WHAT?!” I screamed, as my mind both registered the words, and the flippant way that my brother disregarded the news. I take it back; I wasn’t going to let him live in his suffering. I was going to make him suffer in a ball, then die. Fortunately, the Doctor could either sense my killing intent. Might have had something to do with all the lights going out around us, as the ground continued to shake itself apart.

Rumble.

“There is also the issue with the inheritance and needing to sign your forms on whether you wish to continue your military service.”

“What?” I asked. The room suddenly went still as I released the tension I had been building to.

“Well, assuming you have not already agreed to any crimes. You have been listed as the sole beneficiary to a rather large inheritance. This means that one of the two factors the military must control you, is now non-existent. The two factors of course being time and money.” The doctor added the last part to make sure I was tracking. This was why there was no buy-out clause for expending certs. The only ramification would be time.

So many things were all coming together. My brother knew about the death, and inheritance and had likely been issued an order to make me plead guilty to a crime. Then I realize something.

“What happened to Mel?” The words and concepts were floating in my mind. But I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what they said. I wanted clarification, as if there was some other girlfriend I had.

“Your girlfriend and fellow Cadet Melissa Gardner was killed today in a freak auto-cab accident. She has listed you as both the beneficiary of all her material possessions, along with the insurance money from the Auto-cab. Apparently, she took the time to list you specifically as the beneficiary when first hailing the cab.”

The doctor said.

Billions of crypto, that was what she had won from my ticket. Then she left it as an inheritance for me? Then she died?

I also remember the words of the Rayquel Puppeteer telling me that Mel wasn’t right for me. As if she was somehow aware of her.

Crackle.

I could feel false walls breaking in my mind as my mind tried to understand everything that had happened.

I was a hero, allegedly. I single handedly stopped an invasion, but I used the certs I gained from that battle without authorization, so I was being brought up on charges. Charges that were trumped up with time, rather than money evaluations, as the military knew I would be gaining a financial windfall and wished to keep me under their lock and heel for 458 and one third days of combat. During which time I would likely be found guilty of other crimes.

There is also the fact that they sent my brother, knowing that he would talk me into these terrible conditions. Since he favored his military career over his own family, this was a given choice that he would jump at.

Then there was both the doctor telling me about Mel, and the fact that Mel died. Mel died and at eighteen years of age, had a will dawn up and took the time to fill out the random forms that pop up every time you hail an auto-cab. These are the same forms that always ask you to fill out for a beneficiary, should anything bad happen. They cannot be auto filled and must be penned in manually. Most people never fill them in, as they are so time consuming, and the chances of a payout are minimal. Because in a way, you are basically filling out the form, almost assured that you would get into an accident.

Tremble.

My mind trembles as it tries to comprehend everything that is happening. So many things don’t add up. Or are too coincidental to be a coincidence, after a certain point. Like how does the good doctor know about Mel?

As I come to this conclusion, I turn to look up at the doctor. “Cadet Melissa Gardner came to me earlier today. She seemed extremely distressed. I cannot parlay what was said during our meeting, but she had terrible visions of a bad ending. The auto-cab she hailed was supposed to pick her up right outside of my office. That is when the brakes of the vehicle failed and proceeded to crash her into the nearby office building.”

The doctor trailed off as he let those thoughts fill me.

“For what it’s worth, she was extremely worried about you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, she thought you would soon be in trouble as well. One where your life would also be put in danger.” He paused, “seeing her insight of this morning. Then hearing about the impending psychiatric evaluation, I volunteered to come as quickly as possible. If for nothing else than to let you know the tragic news.”

Okay, so that explained the doctor, somewhat. But what about my brother. There we just so many things that didn’t add up. One thing was for certain. I was going to get out of the military. I had been granted a gift by Mel’s death; Gods that sounds so terrible. I almost hate myself for thinking that. But I am free, or close to being free. I just need to get over this mess and get out while I can.

Yes, I just need to spread my wings, so long as they are not butterfly wings, and fly away. That also leads me to my case.

“My violin case?” I asked.

“Yes, I have been given permission to hand it over to you. You will of course need to pay for the violin that was issued to you, if you cannot find the old one.” Dr. Charleston said, as he left the room then came back in with my modified case. “It has been scanned and no signs of weapons or dangerous modifications have been identified. Given your mental state, I have urged the chain of command to accept your use of the violin to help calm your nerves. At least until this whole matter is settled.”

With that I had my case and felt its weight and power as soon as I touched it.

“There were quite a few questions about the glowing seed that is in there…” Dr. Charleston said.