Chapter Text
The courtroom was packed. Small as it was, despite its high ceilings, it bordered on a miracle that the epauletted dress uniforms replete around Francis did not get tangled up in each other, but it was the only miracle in sight today, and not the one he was hoping for.
His skin felt sticky on his own dress uniform. He wished he could have foregone the pomp and circumstance that the Navy had begun to insist upon in the years since the Martian reconquest. Epaulettes weren’t even the worst of it, no—there seemed to be a conviction in the Admiralty that with the reconquest of Mars, the civilian government now owed them a deference that was wholly disproportionate, in Francis’s opinion. He could not comprehend why the UN let them carry on like that, war heroes or not. Most of the men behind the ornate raised desk on the far side of the room hadn’t even fought in the war.
He wasn’t here to stare at epauletted admirals, though. He was craning his neck for the sight of one pale-faced, uncanny commander.
“They’re not going to bring him out just yet, Frank.”
“I know.” Francis ceased his movements, feeling caught and obvious in his anxiety. Of course, Ross had always known how to read him, and that had made Francis like him too much for too long.
This was not a court martial, but it had all the dressings of one—these men and women who had spent their life in military surroundings knew little else. The UN representatives seemed uncomfortably out of place in their civilian suits. Their lawyers looked nothing but stoic, folders full of neatly ordered papers tucked under arms and sharpened pencils at the ready. The people from Jersey Studio were almost invisible behind the Admirals they used as shields. Francis thought he spied Gambier, but the thing about Gambier had always been his unremarkable demeanour, at least according to the profiles done on him. An exterior that contradicted his genius.
Francis walked with Ross to their seats in the gallery. He took a chair, just a little too small to accommodate a man in full dress uniform, where he sat sitting stiff-backed and sweating as the room filled up. The uniform didn’t fit right, not since their return. Too tight in places, too loose in others. The voyage had re-shaped him, in more ways than one.
“This is a sham,” he said. At the front of the room, Barrow was preparing to call the assembled to order. “We shouldn’t even dignify it with our presence. Gives it too much legitimacy.”
Ross glanced at him sideways. How much of what had passed out there in the Black had he picked up from Francis’s behaviour alone?
“This was your idea,” he said. “You wouldn’t have let James fend for himself, would you?”
The name sat oddly on his tongue. Francis wondered if it was because they shared a name, or because Ross couldn’t shake his awareness that it wasn’t a name so much as an acronym—James, J.A.M.E.S., short for Jersey Android Mechanical and Engineering Studio. He’d been only Fitzjames for Francis for most of their journey. When he’d come to call him James, it had been with an entirely different meaning. If he said James’s name now, he was sure he would betray himself.
Barrow beat his gavel. There was the shuffling of several dozen people standing up. The room fell quiet.
“First point of order.”
Francis leaned forward, gripping the balustrade. There was a man moving at the back of the room, near the second door. Francis hadn’t noticed him before. He ducked through the doorway as Barrow continued: “To settle the property dispute over the android J.A.M.E.S., built by the Jersey Android Mechanical and Engineering Studio.”
The man ducked back out of the door. Behind him followed a man that was not a man, but a close approximation of one—with skin that always had a healthy glow, a perfect subtle blush on his cheeks, hair that fell effortlessly in well-styled curls. His commander’s uniform sat stiffly on him, and the collar went up to his neck. Francis wondered if he’d be able to spy a scar there, were James to tug at his collar for a moment. Francis held his breath, hoping for a moment, just a moment where James would turn to the visitor’s balcony, just a moment where James might see him—
“Please be seated,” Barrow said, and Francis had to watch James turn his back as he faced the panel of admirals.