Editing Bleeding Out (Warhammer High) (section)

===Litigation===




Arthur Hane wheeled a metal cart through the hall of the courtroom, parking it behind his desk at the front of the room.  His counterpart, Keiter’s lawyer, Felger, was pushing a similar cart over behind his own desk.  They exchanged a quick nod, before the door swung open, and admitted a third party.  Fourth Provost Marshal Rachnus marched up the center aisle, stopping before the bench, staring impassively up at its occupant.

Third Provost Marshal Mako stood, gesturing all to rise.  Both lawyers and the lesser Judge stood respectfully.  “Gentlemen.  I understand I’ve been called upon to mediate a dispute in the case of the Imperium V Ulysses Keiter,” Mako said.  The bailiff gestured for the three men to sit.  The lawyers did, but Ranchus stood, hands at his side.  Mako lifted the dataslate in front of her, reading down the motion.  “Counselor Felger, why have you seen fit to ask for the dismissal of Fourth Provost Marshal Rachnus in this case?”

“Comments that His Honor registered while I filed my motion to dismiss the case lead me to think that he had allowed himself a bias against my client,” Felger said.  He stood and carried a sheaf of paper to the bench, passing it up to the Judge.  Mako did not remove her helmet except in bench cases, but here she did, and she examined the paper Felger had given her with her own eyes.

“Counselor, your claim seems to hinge on Judge Rachnus having a desire to convict your client before the evidence had been presented,” Mako said.

“That is correct,” Felger said.

“Counselor, nearly everyone on the planet has heard of this case.  If you’re trying to find a way to prove that Judge Rachnus went into the meeting with too much knowledge of the case, you are out of luck.”  Mako lowered the papers, gauging Felger from her high vantage.

“Not too much knowledge, your Honor.  A desire for a certain outcome.  I direct your attention to line forty two,” Felger said.  Mako looked down the sheet to the words in question.

“‘Counselor Felger, your client was attempting a change of the status quo of the Imperium through killing someone,’” Mako recited.

“That sounds to me like he was assuming an outcome to the charge before the trial began, your Honor,” Felger said.  Hane’s jaw tightened.  Rachnus stared at his superior, expressionless.

Mako read the entire transcript, beginning to end, then folded it on the table, sat back with her fingers steepled, and thought carefully.  “It seems that Counselor Felger may have a point, Judge Rachnus.  Have you anything to say in rebuttal?”

Rachnus steeled himself.  “I do not, Judge Mako.  And I respectfully tender my withdrawal from this case.  I can not allow even the appearance of bias to color such a vital proceeding.”

Hane stared.  Mako nodded slowly.  “I accept your request, Judge Rachnus.  As the position of Fourth Provost Marshal is an exclusive one, I shall be handling the case myself.”

“Very well, thank you, Judge,” Felger said, nodding his assent.  Hane risked a glance at Rachnus again.  Rachnus looked more resigned than angry; Hane interpreted that as a good sign.



Freya tried not to break the vox in her hands.  “What does that mean?” she asked, keeping her voice level.

“It means nothing.  Truly.  Mako is one of the most level-headed, rational Judges in the Arbites,” her father answered.  “Trust me, she will side with Hane.”

“I sure hope so,” Freya said quietly.

Leman went quiet.  “Don’t worry.  Keiter can’t win this.  How is your project going?” he asked, diverting to what he hoped was safer grounds.

“Awful,” Freya moped.  “The presentation is fine, but the paper is crap.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I just reread it, and I don’t quite meet the citation standards,” she complained.  “I had to go rewrite a bunch of it.”

“That sucks,” Leman said, glancing out the viewport to his left.  He was standing on the launch platform for Lightning fighters on the Lunar platform on which his meeting was being held.  “Do they let people watch?”

“No, just the moderator,” Freya glumly reported.  She blew a strand of red out of her eyes.  “Otherwise I would totally let you come intimidate them.”

“That’s I’m for,” Leman said sarcastically.  “I’ll hear all about it when I get home, OK?”

“Sure thing, Dad,” she said wistfully.  “See you tomorrow.”  She clicked the vox off, dropping it in the cradle.  Alex tapped his stylus on the papers in front of them, lost in the work.

“What did he say?”

“He said not to worry about it,” Freya said, dropping back into her seat.  “Any luck?”

“The principles of higher calculus continue to elude me,” Alex reported.

Freya huffed.  “All right.  Is it answers in the back time?”

“It may very well be,” Alex said heavily, turning to the back and pouring over it.


Remilia stood patiently at the door of her father’s study, waiting for him.  Dorn stared at the news ticker at the bottom of his monitor rack to catch up, grimacing in displeasure.  “They went with a different Judge.  What the hell is Keiter up to?” he snarled under his breath.  He spotted his daughter at the corner of the room and switched the monitors off, beckoning her in.  “Remilia, welcome home.”

“Father,” she said formally.  Dorn sagged in his throne, suddenly seeming much older.

“I had a chat with your uncle Magnus, you know.”

“I was there,” Remilia pointed out.

Dorn closed his eyes, fighting down his anger.  “Yes.  So I’ve been told.  Remilia…why didn’t you just…” he clenched his fists under the table.  “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Ask you what, Dad?” Remilia shot back.  “Ask you why you slapped the shit out of me?”

“No!  Why did you need Magnus to pick over your brain when all it would have taken was a question to me?” Dorn riposted.  “I would have told you!"

“Then why DIDN’T YOU?!” she roared, civility completely gone.  “What could POSSESS YOU to think that was a good idea?”

“Do not speak to me of possession, my daughter, not for one second,” Dorn said darkly.

“Stop dancing!” she barked.  “I went to Magnus because I was powerless, because I couldn’t stop turning my life into a competition, and then, HEY!  Surprise, surprise!  YOU DID IT TOO!  And then, Magnus tells me you changed your tune when I was born.  Did you get a revelation you’d like to share?”

Remilia’s cheeks were beet red, tears pooling in both eyes.  “What did you learn, Dad?  What secrets did you stumble upon that made it all worthwhile?  Tell me, damn it, I want to know!” she said, loathing and regret cracking her voice.  Dorn clenched the edge of the table.  Very hard.

“Remilia,” he ground out, “I realized that it took more than tolerance for pain to grow stronger.”  He tore his eyes off the desk to stare into his daughter’s red-rimmed gaze.  “I wanted you to arrive at the same conclusion.”

“Why…” she asked bitterly, tears pouring down her face now, her voice barely more than a whisper.  “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Because some lessons can’t be passed along,” Dorn rumbled.  “Some have to be learned.”

“Is that why you hit me?” Remilia choked out.

Dorn closed his eyes again, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “It may be meaningless to say so.  But I have regretted that since it happened.”

“Odd way to show it,” Remilia snarled, a little fire creeping back into her voice.

Dorn’s eyes snapped open, and he shot the glare straight back.  “I have never once handed you the knife, Remilia.  I’ve never once carved a line through your flesh.  You did that.  Not me, not some memory of me, not some instruction or…or failure.  You.  It was a conscious choice, every time.  The same as when I did it to myself.”

“Small words, Dad, small words,” Remilia said, though she couldn’t deny them either.  “When did you offer to help?”

“Some lessons are meant to be learned on their own!” Dorn repeated.

“SOME!” she suddenly screamed.  “Not ALL!”  She grabbed the hem of her long sleeved shirt and ripped it off over her head, exposing the tracery of scar on her arms.  “When did you plan on giving me ADVICE?  Or a little guidance?  Or even asking me why I did it?!”

“When did you realize you couldn’t justify it?” Dorn asked coldly.

“When did you realize you weren’t interested in stopping it?” Remilia asked, lava and ice mingling in her voice in equal measure.

Dorn shot to his feet.  “Would I have told you to stop if I didn’t want you to?”

“God knows you weren’t trying very hard,” Remilia hissed.  “Something made you stop hurting yourself after three and a half millennia.  What was it, and why couldn’t you share it with me?”

“I already told you.  I realized that I was gaining nothing,” Dorn said, staring his daughter down.

“Would it have killed you to tell me?  Clearly you didn’t figure it out in time, don’t know why you expected me to.  And we both know that you’re not happy unless I’m not quite measuring up to you,” Remilia said, glaring at him.

Dorn recoiled.  “I have NEVER said that!  Ever!”  Remilia started her rejoinder, but Dorn cut her off.  “No, damn it, we have this out now!  I have NEVER, even ONCE, said that you had to match up to me for me to be happy, or even the reverse!  NEVER!”

“There’s a lot you don’t say, Dad, and sometimes I don’t catch it,” Remilia said, loathing, for herself and her father, dripping from her voice.

“Remilia…”

“But sometimes I get enough.  I can’t lead an Army or design the Palace or break an Ork in half, but I can read between the lines well enough,” she said, neatly ignoring her own argument for how her father should have told her to stop and explained why outright.  “When have you ever actually helped me accomplish anything?  When have I struck an obstacle, and had you there to help me over it?”

“I am proud of you every single time you accomplish a goal alone,” Dorn said.

“But I shouldn’t have to do it alone,” Remilia said angrily.  She drew herself up to her full height, and slapped a hand across her heart, clenching her hand in the sports bra’s strap.  “If you see me struggle with something, no matter what it is, and you’ve overcome it yourself, you have NO REASON not to help me!  Not do it for me,” she said angrily, cutting her father off.  “But help me!  Is that so much to ask, damn it?”

Dorn stared at her, his own anger boiling under the surface.  “I am…not a good father, Remilia.  I didn’t need Magnus to tell me that.  But I have looked to make you stronger the same way I made myself and my Legion stronger.  I showed you what it was to overcome an obstacle.  I showed you how to find power in a challenge.”

“No.  No, Dad.  You’re not a bad father because you showed me all that shit.  You’re a bad father because you left me to figure it out by myself, and never told me when I got the answer wrong,” Remilia said, her exhaustion and anger burning a hole in her emotions, until all that was left in her voice was emptiness.  “I’m not one of your solders, Dad.  I’m not a Space Marine.  I’m a seventeen-year-old girl.  I have one cousin on the edge of a drug addiction, one in the hospital for a gunshot wound, and one whose mind is falling apart.  And when you see me hurting, and see me wanting the pain to stop, your approach is to berate me.  I don’t care how much pride you find in me getting shit done.  That one reaction is all I need to know about what you think fathering is about.”  Remilia’s eyes were flattened, her voice dead and cold.  She shrugged her shirt back on in silence.  “…I think I need to go see somebody.  I don’t know who.  I have my vox.  Call me some time, tomorrow maybe.  I need to get shit figured out.”

She turned on her heel and walked out, her knees weak.  She wandered down the halls of the manor, scooping random detritus from her room into a bag and throwing it over her shoulder.  She dropped her copy of the graduation paper in the bag, too.  It was her day tomorrow, after all.  Couldn’t forget it.  Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked, trying to push them back.

She grabbed her vox, switched it on.  With a final once-over of her room, she grabbed her dataslate and slung it on its strap.  She walked down to the drive, bags and sling in hands.  She knew her father would be watching from his study, but she didn’t turn around.  Let him stew.  Let him rot, in fact.  She didn’t care.  Not yet.  She walked up to the family limousine, opening the rear door.  The driver, an elderly Legion serf, huffed up to it as she got in.  “I do apologize, Madam Dorn, I didn’t see you come out.  Would you like me to take you somewhere?”

“Please.  Sorry I crept up on you, this is unscheduled.”

“Indeed not, Madam, it is no trouble at all.  Where shall I take…oh dear,” he said, noting the state of her.  “Madam, are you all right?”

“By no means,” Remilia said hollowly.

“Is there anything I can do?” the chauffer asked worriedly.

“Nope.  But you would if you could.  I’ve learned how much that means.”  She turned her tear-streaked face up to him and managed a tiny, completely empty smile.  “But yes.  Right now I need to be somewhere else.”

“…Your father will ask me where I’ve taken you,” he said, sitting down behind the controls.

“Tell him.  It’s not a secret,” she said as the vehicle started up and hovered of the ground.

“Back to Lord Magnus’ manor, Madam?” the man asked.

“No, no, no, no,” Remilia said hastily.  “Sorry, somewhere else.  Uh,” she said, quickly thinking it over.  “…Lord Russ’ place.  Please.”

“Straight away, Madam,” the driver said, entering the course.