BSE Chapter 3-10

A few days passed since the guard debacle and Alexander stood at the center of the remaining Council as the captured insurrectionists were led into the atrium. They had to use the intake area because there were too many people to fit anywhere else.

A few notable people were missing from the Council. Nancy and Sheila were present, but Damien and Gabriella were both absent, not because they were part of the insurrection. Far from it in fact. Damien had gotten jumped by a group of at least eight men, some of who had been guards, the man survived but was being treated for his injuries. Gabriella refused to leave his side while he was in the medical wing. Alexander could hardly blame her for that.

Harper and his three cronies were here, but unlike Harper, who stood next to the other Councilors, his three cronies were being led into the room in shackles. Alexander had caught the three inside the security office when he burst in to deal with the problem. Somehow Harper had managed to keep his nose squeaky clean in this clash.

Alexander kept a part of his attention focused on the man as the last of the insurrectionists were forced to kneel in front of him and the Council. Harper took a step forward and was about to speak as he was going to lead this sentencing, but Alexander cut him off.

“Councilor Harper, I will be handling matters from here.”

The man spluttered. “Wh- What? But this is Council business.”

“You heard me,” Alexander lowered his voice dangerously, making the man stumble back a step until he was back in line with the other two.

Alexander had played around with this charade long enough, it was time to put a stop to this nonsense so he could focus on real issues. He slowly walked through the groups of kneeling people as he spoke.

“I understand why you did what you did. You thought I was some alien sent to subjugate you going by the rumors I heard.” He continued his slow pace, making sure to walk past each and every person present. “I won’t deny those rumors completely.”

That statement garnered shocked gasps and quiet murmurs, but nobody here raised their voice to shout out or interrupt him.

“That’s right. I can’t deny my alien nature. Are you truly surprised, look at me,” he gestured to his body. “Have you ever seen a robot or any piece of human tech that has ever looked anything like this?”

More murmurs spread through the accused as Alexander started back through the collected people. “Despite my body being alien,” he tapped his torso loud enough for the sound to get everyone’s attention. “What’s in here is human. I am not here to subjugate you. You are all so quick to forget that I offered everyone here the option to leave when I arrived. Most chose to stay. That was your choice. Never once did I force anyone to work for me, in fact, I offered generous compensation for those who choose to accept work. Some of you who are now right here before me. Had any of you bothered to ask me if these rumors were true, I would have told you the truth. I wasn’t trying to hide it, there are plenty of people in Eden’s End who already knew about my situation.” He didn’t name names, because that would just make Damien and Gabriella look even more guilty of being his puppets.

Alexander continued speaking as he slowly walked through the prisoners. “Someone convinced you that I was here to enslave you or do something equally as bad. I know you’ve forgotten the options I gave you when I first arrived, but are your memories so short that you do not remember my contributions during the pirate attack? How I put myself in harm's way to save people. I see some of those people I saved kneeling on the ground today as well.”

Alexander had to pause as a wave of anger passed through him.

“It disgusts me to believe that after all I have done for everyone on Eden’s End, you would turn on me, and the other residents at the drop of a hat. If we were in the STO, I would have shipped you off to a prison colony and washed my hands of every single one of you. Except for you,” he stated grimly, stopping in front of the man who had fired the grenade launcher.

Not being able to ship their troublemakers off the planet, Alexander had to figure out a way to deal with them personally. As much as he would like to, he couldn’t simply kill them all and be done with it. While their crimes were many, most did not warrant a death sentence.

The one man who did was the man he declared to have committed attempted murder. “You have a choice. Firing squad, or you can be banished to the surface.”

The shock he heard from Nancy and a few of the accused did not sway Alexander’s decision.

It took the shaking man over a minute to respond. “I- I- wish to be banished.”

“So be it,” Alexander said, walking away from the man.

Two of the Hawks grabbed the man and lifted him to his feet. They would take him via a shuttle to a remote section of the planet, and leave him there.

Once the room settled down, Alexander stepped up next to the Councilors and turned to address the remaining people. “As for the rest of you, you will be remanded to forced labor for your crimes. Anyone refusing to work will join the gentleman who was led outside. Once your sentence is complete, you will be banished from Eden’s End and Unokane. Any questions?”

“What about our families?” one person cried out.

“What about our livelihood?” another desperately pleaded.

“Those are things you should have thought about before taking on these reckless and downright idiotic actions. I know you were fooled, but you are still accountable for your own actions. But don’t worry, the people responsible will be joining you.” Alexander gestured and his holo emitter went from showing his avatar’s face to a recording of Councilor Harper discussing his plans with his other cronies. The four laughed as they thought they were secure and that nobody would ever know what they spoke about.

There had been no cameras in that room, but sound still traveled and the facility recorded all sorts of interesting things like seismic data. The video was a composite of that data, constructed through a program that Lucas had helped him build. Was it perfectly accurate, no, but their tests proved that it was over ninety-five percent accurate.

Of course, Harper saw this and tried to make a run for it, but Alexander had positioned himself next to the man after he returned to the front of the room. The Councilor, and chief architect of this coup made it less than a step before Alexander wrapped his long fingers around the man’s neck.

The man gagged as Alexander exerted just a bit of his strength.

“Councilor Harper, being the architect of this attack, will be subject to all of the same charges as everyone below him.”

Based on how the man started to struggle to get free, he understood the implications of those words. Good.

“I will give you the same option I gave the guard. Firing squad, or banishment?” He let up just enough to let the man catch his breath.

Like a typical politician, Harper wasted that air as soon as it entered his body. “I don’t know what this nonsense is that you-,” Alexander squeezed down again, cutting the man off.

“Fine, If you don’t wish to choose, I will allow the people you tricked to choose for you.” He jerked the man forward so he was facing the rest of the accused. “Raise your hand if you think this man deserves a firing squad.”

No hands went up. Only accusatory glares met the short-lived Councilor.

“Raise your hand if you think he should be banished to the surface.”

The only hands that stayed down this time were his three cohorts. Alexander was tempted to pile on the same charges to those three, but the evidence clearly showed that Harper was in charge, and the man had used them just as much as the rest of the people.

“Looks like the choice has been made.” Two more Hawks came over and grabbed Harper. “Gag him as well, I don’t want to hear another word out of his mouth.”

As soon as Alexander let go, the man tried demanding his innocence before a wad of some unidentified cloth was shoved none too gently into his mouth. Then Harper was dragged away, kicking and screaming through the rag as he was led to the shuttle.

He sentenced every other person to a year of hard labor for their role in the attack. The three former councilors got three years. As for the men who attacked Damien, they were still looking through the video records to find who the responsible parties were, at least the ones that Damien hadn’t killed or knocked unconscious during the scuffle. Once they did, those people would receive attempted murder charges as well.

As for the attackers that survived Damien, Alexander would deal with them once they woke up.

Even surprised and outnumbered, the Head of Security had managed to outright kill three of those individuals before they managed to subdue him. And he did this with his bare hands and a stun baton.

Alexander knew the man was a martial arts expert, but this really put it into perspective for him.

He turned to Nancy and Sheila. Nancy was sobbing, but Sheila was stoic through the whole ordeal. “You are dismissed. Nancy, I’m sorry you had to sit here and watch this. I promise you won’t have to do that ever again.” He didn’t mention it was because he was removing the council’s power.

The woman nodded but didn’t respond to him before she hurried off.

With this ugliness out of the way, Alexander headed toward the medical wing to check on Damien and Gabriella.

He didn’t need to worry about the prisoners. The Hawks had that handled. They were already setting up a prison camp at the far end of Atrium D with the help of Yi Na. The walls going up would keep any curious people away.

Even with the insurrectionists imprisoned, things were going to change around Eden’s End. Despite wanting to dissolve the council completely, he couldn’t do that. The people needed a voice or he was just going to run into this issue again and again. He also didn’t take any other drastic options like evicting the entire drifter population. Most of them had nothing to do with Harper's coup attempt.

The other concern was for his time, Alexander simply did not have time to manage the day-to-day issues of over four thousand people. The Council could still do that, they just wouldn’t be able to make any laws or have any actual power. Anything of note would need to come through him until he could find someone competent enough to handle that for him. That person wouldn’t have a leadership title, but they would be a BSE employee, ensuring Alexander remained in charge of this facility. If people wanted to make their own cities on Eden’s End, or in the system, they were more than welcome to do so. They would need to follow BSE’s rules, but that was to be expected.

He had a few candidates in mind for that position, but he would need to speak to them first to see if they were interested. For now, he needed to get to the medical wing.

Alexander found Gabriella sitting next to the hospital bed, reading something on a tablet. She looked up as he entered.

“How is he?” Alexander asked. He had only been able to check in once since the conflict had been resolved.

“Lucid, when he’s awake,” she admitted as she set the tablet down. “Is it over then?”

Alexander nodded his avatar. “Harper was given exile to the surface.”

“Good,” the woman spat. “I hope he suffers a good long time before he suffocates.”

Alexander chose to change the subject. “And the other man?”

“He’s unlikely to recover. Which is a shame, I would like to watch him marched out of the facility without a mask as well.”

Ok, perhaps it wasn’t the best change of topic, but he couldn’t think of anything else to discuss with the woman. He felt extremely out of place here.

“You shouldn’t say stuff like that,” Damien’s raspy voice saved him.

“And you should be sleeping,” the woman said, her vitriol fading away to worry.

“Hard to sleep when I have two people yapping next to my bed.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexander stated. “I probably should have waited until you were recovered some more.”

“I’ve had worse,” the man said, trying to push himself up, while Gabriella tried to get him to remain still. The woman eventually won, settling the bandaged man back into the bed.

There was a long drawn-out silence before Damien spoke again. “I failed in my duties. For that, I’m sorry.”

Those were certainly not words he ever expected to hear from the cantankerous man.

“That’s not nes-,” Alexander started to say when Gabriella cut him off.

“We failed. If you want us to leave, we will leave.”

Alexander was a bit shocked by the woman’s statement. “You both made poor choices, that’s true, but I believe you are both still the best fit for your respective positions.”

Gabriella gave a tiny nod as she squeezed Damien’s hand. “Even so, I don’t believe we should be the voice for the people anymore. Our choices are subject at best.”

“The council will change, but it will be the people who decide who their voice is. If you don’t want that responsibility, simply tell them. We can discuss the specifics when you’ve recovered. Until then, I will let you get some rest.”

Alexander wished them well and left the medical wing, glad to put this ordeal behind him.