In council assembled

[Montezuma/Kukulcan]

Varrus, sitting opposite from the rest of the Guildmasters, rose to his feet slowly as his strategic mind raced, thinking of all the possible outcomes of the trial that lay ahead. He took a deep breath, and with his mind still ablaze, he began to deliver his first and obviously rehearsed statement to the Council.

"My lord Guildmasters, I must assure you that I am innocent of the charges that have been brought before me, as I had followed the due process laid out as a precursor to a full scale planetary assault. The loss of our fleets and armies came about through no fault of my own, for none of us could have foreseen what would happen. Had we known, the assault would have been aborted, but our intelligence proved woefully inaccurate."

He looked down at the table before him and stretched his left hand out to his side, to which one of his retinue responded by handing him a sealed file. He placed it upon the table and stood upright once again, placing one outstretched hand on top of the file as he did so.

"What I have here are the records of all the intelligence details surrounding the area around Omicron Minor for the month leading up to the invasion."

He opened the file and began reading from it.

"Date... December 27th, 03:45 hours... The last Order guerillas in Omicron Delta have been put down... Scouts sent into the more distant charted Omicron systems have reported little to no alien activity... The way into Omicron Minor is clear of hostile forces, and a perimeter has been erected several systems wide to ensure we are not disturbed during the pacification of the system..."

He turned over a few pages and continued reading.

"Date... December 28th, 14:25 hours... The perimeter is clear and the fleet is moving out, no hostile ships have been detected outside of Omicron Minor..."

He turned over yet another page and continued.

"Date... December 28th, 23:15 hours... The fleet has entered Omicron Minor in force and the battle has commenced, the perimeter is still clear for the most part, though a small Nomad group has been sighted in sector 44-Alpha, but it is of no threat to the fleet..."

He closed the file and pushed it to one side, then stood to address the Council once more.

"After that, the transmissions from the scout command were unintelligible, so there is no way we could have known what would happen. Surely I cannot be blamed for this? Perhaps during the battle, errors were made, but without the alien intervention, we would surely have been victorious, I am certain of it."

He sat back down and awaited the response of the Council, to which he was already planning his answer. However, this was already becoming a taxing experience, as evident on Varrus' face, which was not only fatigued from all that had transpired in the past month, but beginning to sweat.

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