The Ragged Book.

[Rmorph]

Chapter 1.
The Trial.



"Commander I put it simply to you. Your son's life is forfeit; he is exiled. And more - his treacherous actions have effectively ended your own career prospects".

A cold room on a mercilessly hot day in the sparse granite offices of the 4th Government compound of New Montezuma; a city of bureaucrats and soldiers only, located in an obscure part of restricted desert nothingness on the crimson planet of Crete, perpetually baked by the near and violent orange sun.

Here, a bureaucrat and a military officer faced each other squarely. There was no desk. No chair. In the starkness typical of any Corsair courtroom there was only the single unlit console that stood between the two men like a forlorn chess piece.

The orange sun peered through the tall windows and cast its glaring gaze through inadequate electro-tint glass, but no artificial light was present in the room to soften it, and the two men cast long shadows where they stood.

"I am so informed," said the officer.

The bureaucrat, an agent of some seniority, looked up from the dim console blankly. There was something in the tone of voice. Or the lack of something.

The fleet officer before him was staring straight ahead; standing at hard attention and unmoved.

Navy buttons aside, I could be staring at an apple farmer, thought the agent. A curiously composed one, though.

"You heard what I said?"

"I did. I have been so informed;" An entire absence of concern.

Was this mockery? The agent pondered. The grizzled man that stood before him didn't seem the type.
Frankly you couldn't find that type wearing the uniform of a Corsair battleship commander.

Moments ago he had been disinterestedly performing the most routine of tasks - Cutting a soldier down to size and discarding him like flotsam. Now, Rmorph, senior intelligence officer for the Crimson Codex, was suddenly awake, though he would be damned if he could yet say why.

A cats hackles rising when another predator enters the room?


Rmorph raised his head purposefully to intercept the man's forward-facing stare. It was an authoritative damn-your-eyes gesture that could break lesser mortals, and not to be ignored. In this granite room and for these proceedings it was as ignorable as an atomic bomb.

The commander returned his gaze steadily. Met it and held it and held it longer. A brief flicker in those steely eyes confirmed the notion: Here was something else; something hard-edged.

The agent considered his next words with precision, like selecting bait for the spring.

Quietly: "For the good of the Corsair fleet you must resign your commission immediately. And your son is now dead to you, as he is to all other Corsair".

This left a silence that stretched open between them like a chasm. Such a gulf that lesser men might easily fall into - yet the old man before him stood as stone, unflinching. Before replying in a measured tone, "It is done."

As if the harvest had been collected. As if the ****ing apples were sorted.
He has just murdered his son.

Rmorph resumed the pretense of examining the screen before him; it was a rubbish jumble of encrypted errata far distant from his true thoughts. Inwardly he smiled to himself.

"Good -
That is all".
The old man marched silently out.

Old man? How old?
How experienced? Certainly not useless.

This trial was to have been so routine that he hadn't bothered to do the background. He decided to remedy that.

"Caretaker: Pull up the files on Commander Raphael Barbarossa, previously of the flagship Codice Carmesi".

The data flashed across the lace of his neural net like dust strewn over a spider web, and the agent'€™s irises darkened. In seconds he had what he needed: A whole life story: A complete service record. The history of honors past and recent family shame.

Heavy fleet experience'€¦ a solid officer. Willful but disciplined. Determined'€¦ to stubbornness perhaps. Quite the keen old terrier.

Rmorph leaned back and mused.
Not useless at all.


He now knew what had woken him up. As an intelligence officer, Rmorph prided himself on the one-second talent of his craft: The instantaneous knowing of human beings who wear their souls on the outside like tattered ribbons, and give the facts of themselves away in a thousand small tells and ticks, plainly visible and exploitable to a cunning eye and purpose.

Corsairs especially will refuse to play the ignoble game of concealment, and wear their tempers like livid scars across the brow. To manipulate a Corsair was akin to wrestling a child - and Rmorph was a master manipulator.

But this Corsair?
Rmorph had brought the man in to ruin him. - to kill his career and his honor and his family. He had expected protestations and begging apologies. Finally, even the violent recriminations and threats.

Rather take away a Corsairs balls before you take their ship and their fight away. Combat and the lust for it define our species. For those who seek glory like hounds after blood, more shameful still than failure in battle is the suspicion of an ignoble discharge.

Rather face death and die a thousand times before that crime...

Yet in dismissing this ruined officer he had met a wall of composure. A rare quality.

A solid man '€“ A solid wall: Can I bend him to my purpose? Will he bend at all?

He shrugged. "Caretaker - Print all this to paper and put this man in the record,"

He'd been wrong on motives before, perhaps - but the intelligence agent was never mistaken about character.

"- Also a communication to The Admiral: High priority'€¦"
"'€¦We've found our man."




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