Incipience

Chapter 17

"I must say, I am rather impressed."

My attention turns from the holo-tablet in my hands to the woman standing in front of me. Her appearance piques my interest enough to make me pause my lesson and completely put my device aside. Her features, while pretty, are by no means unique, but there's something about the combination of them that seems so familiar to me.

The woman takes a half step closer to offer me her hand. "Hello," she smiles. "I am Councilwoman Azelizav Firodi, one of the council members overseeing your case. It's a pleasure to meet you."

I put on a polite smile as I take her hand in mine. "It is nice to meet you as well. May I ask why you are here? I thought the court was adjourned for the day unless you all need to ask me some more questions."

Councilwoman Firodi shakes her head as she takes a seat beside me on the courtyard bench. 

"Your testimony this morning, while eloquently delivered, was more of a formality than an actual necessity for a verdict to be made. The video from the bunker's camera was more than enough to incriminate your attackers, but it is an Inovarian custom to allow all parties to speak for themselves before a judgment is rendered. All that is left is for the paperwork to be finished for a verdict to be formally announced. I simply wanted to introduce myself to you. An individual capable of what you are is worth talking to, do you not agree?"

I shrug in response. "What I did isn't all that special. I am sure my personal information's included in the case's file so you know that I was training as a cadet up until touching down on Inova. Most of the people in the Alpha unit would likely be able to do the same; it's what we were taught to do. Rombag's very big on training against the odds, so some days our barrack would have everyone do exercises similar to this. Besides, even if I didn't have that training, those three aren't good fighters to begin with or else they'd be deployed instead of guarding a bunker."

"While the young Commander Bagzah is a very impressive soldier and instructor, he is not who fought your battle. There's no need to downplay your abilities or achievements." Councilwoman Firodi laughs and gives my arm a light pat, "I should not be surprised by your statement; you are just as humble as my daughter said you would be."

My face lights up as realization clicks. I can definitely see the resemblance now that I know who I'm looking at. Zakimri inherited her mother's small, but full lips, button nose, slightly hooded eyelids, long eyelashes, and lightly tanned complexion. Only a few of Zakimri's features mirror her father but she's otherwise her mother's mini-me.

"You're Zakimri's mother! It's nice to meet you, she told me a lot about you when we spoke. I think it's cute how highly she thinks of you."

The councilwoman looks pleasantly surprised by my statement, "Well that's lovely to hear. Thank you for sharing that information with me, though I do have to say, she is much more entranced by you. You are all she has talked about this week. It was rather difficult to keep it a secret from her that I'm one of the council members presiding over this case. I do hope that you will be in contact with her soon and inform her of this happening if you so wish. I know it would cause her to hold you in even higher reverence and perhaps take more seriously my suggestion to take self-defense lessons. After all, just because the majority of Inovarians are peaceful, it does not mean that all of us are. I am sure you agree that it is better to be overly prepared than to be caught off guard."

I'm not shocked that this case was kept out of the public eye, but what does throw me off is Councilwoman Firodi requesting that I talk to a civilian about it. Similar to the governments of Earth, the Inovarians like to keep information about their representatives' misdeeds out of general circulation, so I would have thought she'd tell me not to tell Zakimri about this rather than to tell her. Interesting.