David Weber - The Road to Hell

He made a brief notation in his PC to question the few witnesses they did have on this subject, but even there, he anticipated trouble. While Bok vos Hoven could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered an impartial witness, neither could the other three witnesses available to him.

Trooper Sendahli could have been impartial immediately after Toppled Timber, but he was only in Portalis to be interviewed because of his status as a victim of Lance vos Hoven in a case against the shakira soldier that hinged heavily on Hundred Olderhan’s testimony. It was a mess.

Battalion Chief Sword Threbuch was almost even more of a mess, from a legal perspective. Sogbourne had no personal qualms at all about Threbuch’s honesty, but his ties to the Olderhan family went back decades. He’d served under Hundred Olderhan’s father, earning high commendations and an income for life for saving the life of the current Duke of Garth Showma. Threbuch was ordinarily an honest and impartial witness, with an unimpeachable record for scrupulous honesty and meticulous accuracy.

However…

The situation wasn’t much better with Magister Kelbryan. Just for starters, she wasn’t a soldier. In fact she wasn’t remotely close to a soldier! Not only was she a civilian, she was a Ransaran who didn’t understand military protocols, regulations, and duties or even the standard operating procedures of a platoon-let alone the emergency procedures necessary to deal with a serious crisis. Had she been Andaran, trained to understand military realities, he would have been more inclined to trust her assessment of the Hundred’s performance.

But the gods had seen fit to give him a Ransaran, and Ransarans were notorious for their total lack of understanding of all matters military. Ransaran scholars, in particular, were noted for their appalling lack of military savvy and their inordinate pride in that lack, as though willful ignorance was a virtue. Amongst Ransaran academicians, it was .

So Sogbourne patiently took vos Hoven through the entire chase Olderhan had conducted through that distant forest, on the trail of unknown killers with weapons that struck horror into the very souls of the men doing that trailing, and tried to sift truth from skillful, vindictive manipulation of fact. Either vos Hoven was a great deal smarter than his personnel scores indicated or he’d received some highly skilled coaching from someone , because he managed to paint an ever blacker, damning picture of a rattled commander jumping at shadows, without quite crossing the line into outright fabrication and triggering the courtroom’s verifying spellware.

When they reached the fateful moment of arrival at the wind-toppled pile of twisted timber, Sogbourne asked vos Hoven to describe exactly what had transpired.

“Well, Sir, as nearly as I can recall, Hundred Olderhan ordered Fifty Garlath’s squad to search the clearing for concealed enemy personnel. Fifty Garlath had already lodged a strong protest over the advisability of pursuit, given the potential for a large number of the enemy to overwhelm our platoon. The Hundred told him that falling back to wait for reinforcements was out of the question. Magister Gadrial actually accused Fifty Garlath of cowardice, which was a dirty lie. The Fifty was only concerned for the safety of his men, and it turned out he was right to be. We were overwhelmed by enemy firepower and damn near lost the entire platoon as a result of the Hundred’s hasty actions.”

The lie-detection light might have flickered just slightly, but Sogbourne couldn’t be sure. Anger or hatred could be used to partially beat the truth spells if the speaker had enough boiling emotion to convince himself of a false reality, and vos Hoven had more than enough rage towards Jasak Olderhan to attempt it. For that matter, he probably had enough to achieve it completely spontaneously!

Sogbourne narrowed his eyes, but decided against pursuing the line of questioning that pile of dragon manure warranted. Not yet. Instead, he said, “The Hundred ordered the clearing searched. What was Fifty Garlath’s response?”

“Why, he complied, of course. It was plain suicide, sending men into the open, like that, but the Fifty did his duty, did it bravely, I’ll tell you!”

This time lie-detection light behind the witness did flash. But before Sogbourne could react, vos Hoven continued his embroidered-for-effect tirade.

“The Fifty obeyed the Hundred’s orders and he died for it, Sir! I know what you’re thinking of me, standing here in chains, but I’m telling you plainly, the Hundred sent the Fifty out there to die. Hundred Olderhan conceived a hatred of the Fifty almost from the moment he arrived in the Hundred’s company. I’m convinced the Hundred deliberately sent Fifty Garlath out to be killed, to rid himself of the problem his own prejudice had created!”

The light behind vos Hoven flashed again.

“Really?” Sogbourne murmured. “That’s an interesting theory, Specialist vos Hoven. Perhaps you’d care to explain to this Court why you’ve lied twice in the past ninety seconds?”

Vos Hoven’s face went totally blank, then collapsed into a sick expression as he realized what he’d done in his zeal to convict his nemesis. He started to jerk around to look at the lie-detection light behind him, then controlled that instinctive reaction and got himself turned around again, facing the officers of the court. Before he could say anything further, Commander of Five Hundred Anshair Kolthar, vos Hoven’s assigned defense counsel, was on his feet.

“Sir, counsel for the defense respectfully requests that all mention of the lie-detection alarm be stricken from the record.”

“On what grounds?” Sogbourne asked coldly.

“On the grounds that a lie-detection spell cannot be used to penalize a witness expressing opinion, rather than fact. Specialist vos Hoven was expressing his personal opinion that Hundred Olderhan bore a grudge against Fifty Garlath, a grudge moreover that was strong enough to send an inferior officer into harm’s way to rid him of a troublesome problem. While that opinion may be unpleasant to the majority of listeners, it’s still merely an opinion and cannot be used to the detriment of the witness expressing it. Again, counsel for the defense requests that all mention of the lie-detection spell’s alarm be stricken from the record.”

“An interesting request, Five Hundred.” Ten Thousand Rinthrak’s tone was cold enough to freeze fire. “An outright accusation of murder is not an expression of opinion, however. It constitutes libel, false witness, and a violation of the military code of conduct while under oath before a court-martial.

“Furthermore, the lie-detection spell didn’t register because the witness stated an opinion. It registered because the witness uttered a false opinion. If the accusation Specialist vos Hoven leveled at Hundred Olderhan had been vos Hoven’s true opinion, his statement wouldn’t have triggered the alarm.

“This court is left with the inescapable conclusion that Specialist vos Hoven lied about his ‘opinion’ as part of a pre-meditated attempt to destroy his commander’s career. His action is contemptible and your protest, Five Hundred, does not even merit a hearing, let alone being sustained.

“Be warned that you’re treading on extremely thin ice even raising such an objection when you know the mechanics of lie-detection spells and the regulations regarding them as well as you know your own name. If you don’t know them, you have absolutely no business being entrusted with the defense of anyone, not even someone who stands self-convicted of lying under oath about his superior officer. Do I make the court’s displeasure sufficiently clear, Sir?”