The Prosecution's Witness

Posted on Sun Apr 30th, 2023 @ 10:53am by Commodore Mikhail Babanin & Lieutenant Commander Finnley Keating VII

Mission: Wrath of the People
Location: Starfleet Judicial Centre. Offices.
Timeline: MD 5 - Evening.
1581 words - 3.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Finn put on her Starfleet uniform and inspected herself in the mirror. A wave of emotions flowed to the surface. She felt a sense of pride, as she always had when she put the uniform on, but now there was also sadness, guilt, and disappointment. She had worked so hard to overcome the negative emotions, yet they were still there and the knowledge of what she had to do next only made them worse.

"Don't do this, Finn," Quinn appeared in the doorway of her room.

"I have to," she replied.

"No. You don't. Let someone else do it."

"If I don't, they'll pin the whole thing on Kane and we'll never get to the bottom of the conspiracy. Besides, I'm the only senior officer with a colorful enough recent past to not stand by him due to strict loyalty. It's the only believable route. You know I have to do this," she turned to look at him. Her body stood proud with determination, yet her eyes glistened with a sense of sorrow.

Quinn's heart practically melted and he strode across the room to gather her into a hug. "I know you're doing the right thing, I just don't want to see you destroyed doing it."

"I know," she muffled a cry in his shoulder, "and I'll do my best to not let it destroy the family name."

"I don't give a damn about the family name," he pushed her away to look at her face. "You don't let it destroy you, do you hear me?" He shook her shoulders as he searched her face. As much as it hurt her to do this, it hurt him even more to see her suffer.

Finn nodded. "I won't let it destroy me." At least, I'll try not to, she thought as she wiped the tear from her eye. She then straightened her uniform and took one last look in the mirror, putting on a brave face as if everything was right in the world and the decision she was about to make. "I'll keep you updated when it's safe to do so." Finn turned back to her father and stole one last quick hug. "Keep Mom from worrying, will you?"

"I'll do my best. You stay safe and call me if you run into trouble, Finn."

"I will," the engineer nodded and then left the house.

===

Babanin rubbed his tired eyes and turned to look out the window onto the South American coastline; in the distance as the cliffs turned round in the bay he could see the buzzing pin pricks of lights belonging to homes, and he found himself very much wishing he was in his own. The day had been hard, and tomorrow would be worse. There'd been a mixture of victories and setbacks on the first day, and if he were honest with himself it had been more the latter. Commodore S'vRock was a pain the zhopa, and none of Babanin's usual methods appeared to be working on him.

===

It only took a short drive and then a short shuttle ride to arrive at Commodore Babanin's office. In total, the journey had been less than one hour. Not enough time to do much, but enough to go through what she had to do in her mind. It would all mean nothing if she wasn't convincing.

"Commodore Babanin?" She asked as she approached the man sitting behind the desk. "I'd like to talk to you about the case against Captain Kane. I'm here to serve as a witness, for the prosecution."

Babanin looked past the young lady and through the open door to his office, evidently it was so late that his administrative officer had gone home for the evening, and in doing so had allowed this stranger to just waltz into his office. Nonetheless, there was someone turning up offering to be a prosecution witness, and he stifled a yawn as he surveyed the person in front of him. "I'm sorry, Comrade-Commander...?" he asked, realising he actually had no idea who she was.

"Commander Finnley Keating the seventh, former chief engineer of the USS Athena," she held her hand out to shake his. "Sorry for the intrusion this late in the day. If I'm being honest, it took me a while to come to this decision, but ultimately, I know it's the right thing to do and I didn't want to hesitate any longer and let anything else change my mind or keep me from doing what I thought was right. Is this a bad time?"

Babanin practically launched into a hug. Could it be true what his Bajoran friends said, that the pah-wraiths really did answer prayers? Had all of his problems been solved in one beautiful blonde angel of salvation? Realising his jaw had dropped with shock at the fortune which had walked into his office, he rapidly composed himself and stood straight offering his hand to shake and gesturing to a seat with the other. "Not at all Comdrade..." he beamed, :"...may I offer you a refreshment? I have wodka, if this would make it easier uh?" he suggested.

"No, thank you. No offense, but I'm much more of a rum drinker myself. I'd like to just cut straight to the point," Finn said as she took a seat. "I don't know all of the facts of the case, so I may not be able to help you too much there," she purposely laid the trap and hoped to press upon this point later on. It left an opening for him to share more information with her, but first, she'd have to offer up something herself. "However, I know Captain Kane pretty well. Many think he's nothing more than a noble, self-sacrificing man but I've seen another side of him. I have no doubt that he could have set off that explosion...I..."

Finn paused, drawing him in. "I don't enjoy the idea of ignoring a sense of loyalty to my former Captain, but I believe the court has a right to know. It's imperative that all relevant information be placed on the table so that justice can accurately be served." She contorted her face to display a sense of determination while holding back just enough to leave some trepidation behind and prayed that it was convincing.

Babanin walked to his small cabinet and poured himself a vodka, taking it all in. This was brilliant news. Kane's chief engineering officer...he was going to nail the man to the noose himself - or whatever the metaphor was. "Da Comrade..." Babanin said, trying to feign sympathy when he was really just bounding inside with utter glee. "Loyalty is important, of course, but loyalty to those who died, are dying, and who may yet die because of Kane's actions...I'd say this is a witally more important loyalty". He took a breath in as he seated himself. "What would you like the court to know...?" he asked, deliberately posing an open question glean the best possible sense of her usefulness.

"I'll start at the beginning," Finn said before delving into actions Kane had made that could be twisted to look irrational or violent. She didn't go too deep, instead, she carefully chose which actions to present and which to leave in her pocket for a later time. When she was done, Finn leaned back in the chair. She felt sick to her stomach. Her only hope was that the Commodore would accept her words and dismiss her quickly so she could be done with this. She wasn't sure how much longer she could hold the act together. If saying these things here in this setting is this bad, how much worse will it be on the stand? Finn wondered.

Tipping back slightly in his chair Babanin listened intently with steepled fingers, there was a lot there to go on certainly. "Da spasibo Comrade-Commander" he acknowledged when the engineer had stopped talking. "You contributions will be inwaluable, and we can put behind bars this monster of a man". He studied her face, looking for clues to her motivations; "Commander...why are you testifying against your former Keptin?".

Finn sighed, twisting her features to show signs of conflict as if she were actually battling over the morality versus loyalty line that she was drawing. "It's not really a matter of testifying against him, it's just as I said before. I think the court deserves to know the truth. I can't begin to understand why he did what he did and quite honestly I don't care to. Maybe there was a justified reason, I don't know. All I know I can do is to bring forward the truth that I have and let the courts decide on what's best."

Babanin snorted slightly in a mixture of derision that someone like Captain Jacob Kane had managed to stay in post so long, and a certain satisfaction that he was going to nail the man to his own cross - so to speak. "Wery well Comrade-Commander" he acknowledged in response. Standing to indicate their meeting was over, he extended a hand to shake hers. "Commander Cameron will be in touch to arrange pre-trial procedure and to schedule your time on the stand. I look forward to enlightening the court based on your contributions...".

The Commander stood and both officers nodded at eachother, with Keating leaving the office silently. Babanin meanwhile, had plenty of preparation for tomorrow to get through...