Justin looked up and met Lofton's concerned stare with a blank one. "David, put me on the stand, or I'll find a lawyer who will."

David Lofton slowly straightened up, then rebuttoned his dress jacket. "Very well, Major, you'll have your wish." Lofton stared down at his client. "One thing, though. When I told you what sort of officer I had for a client, you said I was alone in my opinion. Don't you believe in yourself?"

Justin shook his head slowly. "The only thing I believe right now is that I made a mistake in leaving my mother's people to live with my father."

* * *

Lofton turned from his client and returned to the defense desk. "Thank you, Major Allard, for your cooperation." Without looking up, he added, "I am finished with this witness, Your Honor."

Courtney nodded. "Your witness, Count Vitios."

Vitios stalked Justin Allard like a tiger that has tasted human flesh. He stopped his pacing directly before the witness box and met Justin's hot glare with one of arctic frigidity. "What comes to mind, Major Allard, when someone calls you 'yellow?' "

"Objection!" Lofton vaulted out of his seat and stepped toward his client. "The prosecutor is insulting my client with irrelevant questions."

Vitios shook his head. "I will show relevancy, Your Honor."

Courtney waved Lofton back to his bench, then turned to Justin. "Answer the question, Major."

Justin let the hint of a smile flicker over his lips. "Generally, I would assume that someone who called me 'yellow' was accusing me of being a coward, but when a small-minded bigot like you uses the term, I assume it is a racial slur."

Vitios stepped back. "Quick to take offense, aren't you, Major?" Justin opened his mouth to reply, but Vitios started another question first.

Lofton smiled and split the confusion with a loud voice, "Objection. My client has not had a chance to answer your question."

Vitios, slightly off balance, growled. "I withdraw the question."

"No," Justin interjected. "I'd like to answer it. I understand, Count Vitios, why you hate the Capellan Confederation. I know your family died in a Liao raid on Verio. I know the attack came after insurgents had poisoned the local garrison forces and I know you've been looking under beds and in closets for Capellan spies ever since. I've heard your hatred of me in everything you've said since we first met after the battle of Valencia on Spica. Your blind prejudice disgusts me."

"Does it, now, Major Justin Xiang Allard?" Vitios returned to the prosecution table, picked up a file, and began to flip through it as he spoke. "You associate with known Liao agents. You speak their tongue and are accepted in their homes. You use a catch phrase from a tong as your 'Mech's personal security code. You abandon your men to a Liao ambush during an exercise you never wanted to participate in to start with! Forgive me my blind loathing, Major, but something here stinks, and the facts say that it's you!"

Vitios slammed the folder back down on the desk. "Major Allard, you nearly cost the Federated Suns over forty-eight million C-bills in equipment, the lives of thirty MechWarriors, and the world of Kittery. You sold out the people who accepted you as one of their own and who gave you everything you have! You betrayed everything that humans hold sacred anywhere in the Inner Sphere, and you betrayed your honor as a MechWarrior!"

The prosecutor raked fingers back through his thin brown hair, and wiped flecks of spittle from the corners of his mouth. "You take the stand and have your attorney feed you questions so that you can trot out your unsubstantiated fabrication of a battle with a 'Mech three times the size of your Valkyrie.Then you ask us to believe that story. But I know the real truth, you lying son of a Capellan slut, and so does everyone else in this courtroom!"

"Enough!" Spoken in a voice born to command, that single word silenced the uproar that had seized the spectators. The attention of everyone in the courtroom turned toward the bronze double-doors at the rear of the room, and the spectators were riveted by what they saw. Flanked by Ardan Sortek, Quintus Allard, and CID guards, Prince Hanse Davion strode smartly into the room. "I have heard enough!"

Hanse pushed open the low wooden gates and admitted himself to the center of the courtroom. He looked at Count Vitios, who seemed to recoil from the cold impact of the Prince's gaze. The Prince then looked up at Major General Courtney. "I would address the court."

The judge nodded nervously. Hanse turned slowly, then pointed at Count Vitios. "You are, without a doubt, the most shameless creature it has ever been my sad duty to acknowledge as a subject. Your very manner is offensive to me and any clear-thinking person alive today. You do not wear your bigotry like a uniform; it has utterly consumed you and poisoned everything you do. I accepted you as prosecutor as a favor to Duke Michael Hasek-Davion, but I do not owe him enough to put up with you any longer. You will leave New Avalon tonight!"

Hanse turned so that he could address both the Tribunal and the gallery of spectators. "As I have watched this trial, it appears to be an indictment of a whole nation, not an adjudication of the guilt or innocence of one MechWarrior. This trial, and the manner in which it has been conducted, is an example of power and hatred run rampant. Leftenant Lofton's valiant attempts to win justice for his client have been crushed by the vilest of legal trickery. I call this whole procedure a mockery of everything the Davions honor and hold dear."

Hanse smiled, as he turned toward the Tribunal. "Certainly, you must recognize that there is no solid proof of Justin Allard's guilt. The facts—those few that the Count has actually managed to present—are all circumstantial. Yes, Allard's Capellan middle name may be close to that of the tong designation for an agent, but would he or his spymasters have been stupid enough to choose such a codename? Have enough respect for House Liao to dismiss that idea immediately."

Hanse shrugged. "Perhaps Major Allard did display poor judgement in moving off to investigate the UrbanMechhidden further ahead. And yet, if he believed his men were faced with a possible ambush, this might have been the most prudent course of action. Strip him of his command, as you must, but is a simple act of negligence to cost him his life?"

"No command!" The Prince's words had hit Justin like a meteorite and visibly crushed him. He leaned forward heavily, hands pressed against the dark wooden railing of the witness box, staring at Hanse Davion's back. At Justin's outburst, the Prince spun around to face him. Justin gestured with his right hand at the crowd. "Do not spare me the full depth of hatred that these people—your people—feel for me. They look at me and see no further than the shape of my eyes or the color of my skin. All my life I have fought against the legacy of having a Capellan mother. I became more loyal to House Davion than anyone else I knew because I hoped—prayed—that what I held in my heart would make me like everyone else in my flesh. But that did not happen."

Anger flashed through Hanse's blue eyes, and his face registered pain at the bitter rage in Justin's voice. "Beware, Major. I offer you your life!"

"Ha! Life? For what? So that I can continue to protect these ungrateful slugs who fatten themselves in the Federated Suns core while their countless countrymen work and sweat and die to keep them safe? Do I want to live to protect animals like Vitios there ... so that they can continue their witchhunts?"