Page 7 of Claimed By the Condemned Alien

“Sign.”

“No.”

The investigator leaned close. “You misunderstand your position. The document will be authenticated whether or not you cooperate.”

“Then why ask?”

For the first time, annoyance touched his face.

“Because voluntary records produce cleaner archives.”

Kesta smiled through the ache in her split lip. “Then your archive can stay dirty.” When the investigator left, Kesta tested the restraint field until it burned a red line across her forearm. There was no weakness in it. The only thing she could still control was the evidence hidden beneath her skin and the truth she refused to repeat in the empire’s language.

She thought of her brother, Tomas, who would receive a death notice with no body and no explanation. He would believe she had died in an accident because that was easier than believing the state could erase a living person. Kesta promised him silently that she would make the lie expensive. The tribunal convened four hours later. It lasted eleven minutes.

Kesta stood inside a glass restraint field while a judicial avatar read charges she had never seen. Her appointed advocate appeared as a muted icon. The casualty file was classified. The living prisoners were listed as cremated. Her medical cuff had become evidence of data theft. Iven was not present.

“Where is Orderly Lio?” Kesta asked.

The avatar continued reading.

“I asked where he is.”

“Personnel matters are outside the scope of this hearing.”

Major Senn testified remotely. He stated that Kesta had altered medical records after suffering an acute stress event. The prosecution displayed a confession bearing her biometric seal.

“I never gave that statement.”

The avatar’s eyes remained flat and courteous. “The seal is verified.”

“You took my blood during intake.”

“Do you dispute that this is your biometric identity?”

“I dispute everything attached to it.”

Her appointed advocate’s icon flickered once, still muted.

“Do you understand the sentence?” the avatar asked.

“No.”

The tribunal had shown six minutes of evidence, all of it fabricated. A security recording placed Kesta alone in the archive after shift. Another showed her deleting casualty files. The woman in the recording had Kesta’s face, Kesta’s gait, and none of Kesta’s impatience with doors that opened too slowly. The prosecution called the difference irrelevant. Kesta asked to examine the original metadata. Denied. She asked for Iven Lio to testify. Unavailable. She asked whether the twenty-three patients declared dead had been physically examined by an independent physician. Classified.

The judge avatar waited while the prosecution summarized her motive: resentment of military authority, professional instability, and extremist sympathy toward nonhuman combatants. Kesta almost laughed. Her instability consisted of three citations for refusing incomplete records. Her extremist sympathy consisted of believing that breathing patients should not be incinerated.

“Medic Frank,” the avatar said, “do you dispute that you removed protected data from the casualty system?”

“I copied it.”

The defense advocate assigned to her went still. The prosecutor leaned forward. “You confess?”

“I preserved evidence of murder.”

“You preserved classified military records.”

“They listed living people as dead before their procedures were complete.”