Read Online Numbers Ignite by Rebecca Rode - Free Book Online Page B

talked right over me. “He spent two years hunting down so-called criminals who were simply settlers trying to survive, showing no mercy to his own clan members.”
    A few people booed and yelled. NORA had watched me closely for any sign of defection. I wasn’t proud of my time in EPIC, but at least my family was safe. They were probably here somewhere. I swept the crowd, looking for my mother’s face, but she must have been too far away.
    “The second is falsehoods. When he discovered a movement to unseat the leader of NORA, he tricked his people into taking part, telling whatever lies were necessary for them to participate in his scheme.”
    “They weren’t lies,” I snapped. “I made a deal, and I kept it. Just ask Rutner.”
    The group of older men and women sitting behind Mills frowned, and a graying woman half stood. “The defendant will refrain from speaking or be removed.”
    I didn’t want to be here anyway, but now that I was here, I needed some kind of plan. “The defendant is sorry,” I replied, then nodded to Mills. “Carry on.”
    “And finally,” Mills said, lowering his voice dramatically, “a charge so horrifying I can barely stand to speak it. Vance Hawking is accused of blackmailing four of his clan members into shooting off a missile—into the very square where his own people gathered to protest.”
    I snorted, but the audience began shouting at that. Some pointed, and others even shoved through the crowd toward me. Ju-Long’s guards lining the bottom of the platform moved forward, talking to the audience. Most of the angry settlers were people I recognized. Many had been in the square, helping our desperate little group pull bodies out from under the wreckage. I frowned. These people really believed I would shoot a missile and then organize a rescue operation? What did I have to gain?
    One thing was certain. It didn’t take much for these people to believe what they were told.
    “And now,” Mills said, “we’ll hear the prisoner’s plea. To the charge of defection, what say you, Hawking?”
    “Guilty.”
    The crowd cheered. Half of them, at least. Others nodded their heads but didn’t react much.
    “To the charge of falsehoods?”
    I glared at him. “Not guilty. I told no lies.”
    There was murmuring, but no shouting this time.
    “And to the charge of collaboration of mass murder?”
    “Ridiculous.”
    A dozen or so people rushed the platform, shouting. Their words blended in with each other. “Liar!” “Terrorist!” “He’s not sorry at all!”
    The guards stood their ground in front of me again, but it was woefully inadequate. The assembly members, who sat in chairs behind me, stood and backed away. The audience shouted and screamed and moved forward in an angry wave. Then one voice stood out from the rest. Mills. “Silence!”
    It grew quieter, and the front runners slowed, but didn’t stop. Mills tried again. “You will stop this instant, or you participate in Hawking’s sentence!”
    The line of people stopped at the guards. One of them spat and missed my face, getting my chest instead. Right above the heart.
    “I mean it,” Mills said, his voice echoing across the crowd. “He will receive his punishment soon enough. Let justice be done for his atrocities. I feel as you do, but please stand down and allow us to finish the requirements of the law. The boy admitted his guilt on one count.”
    The louder individuals in the crowd stopped pushing their way toward the platform, but it was clear from their dark expressions they didn’t trust whatever “requirements of the law” Mills had in store. In our clan, we handled things a little differently. Those protestors weren’t backing down; they were simply waiting for their chance to see justice done.
    Mills asked the assembly members to step forward and deliver their sentence for my admitted crimes, then handed over the amplifier. “His sentence is service,” a stern-faced woman announced. “A lifetime of