Chapter 17: The Federation’s Sins

“I killed the administrators. I drugged the guards. I admit that. And the twenty thousand hostages, I ordered their capture. I admit it all.”

“Why?” the Judge demanded. “What was your motive?”

Calvin’s face turned red. He paused, then his voice rose, shaking with intensity.

“I did it for humanity.”

“As long as Sen, Bohr, and Kashiville were alive, they were a cancer on this colony. Think about it, if they were still in charge, would Captain Jason be leading us now?”

“I spent three years looking at the future. If those men lived, humanity had no chance. Their incompetence would have destroyed us all.”

“Three years!” Calvin shouted, his eyes wild. “In all the possibilities, I found one path to survival. Just one. Those three men were in the way. I had to remove them so the Son of God could lead us out of the dark.”

“I saved you!” Calvin roared, ignoring the horror in the room. “Killing them was the price of survival!”

“Silence!” The Judge slammed his gavel down.

Jason sat in the jury box, feeling the weight of eyes on him. The “Son of God” talk was crazy, but right now, crazy was becoming real.

Humans are the top predators, but facing the end of the world makes them fragile. They needed a spiritual anchor. They needed a hero.

These days, everyone watched Jason’s every move. His strength, his work ethic, his strange powers, it all fed the story. People didn’t care about the theology; they just needed a leader who could actually lead.

“Captain,” a woman next to him whispered.

Jason turned. It was Anna, a middle-aged psychologist with sharp eyes behind thick glasses.

“I can read people’s faces,” Anna murmured. “Looking at him… I think he believes he is telling the truth.”

She shrugged slightly. “And honestly? He’s not wrong about the administration. You are much better than those three.”

“David Sen was a paper-pusher. General Bohr was a thug. And Kashiville? He only got the job because of his family connections. He knew nothing about running the Moon Base.”

“In two weeks, you’ve memorized the name of every sick worker. Those three didn’t even know the names of their own secretaries.”

“Normally, being bad in work is survivable,” Anna continued. “But right now? Incompetence is a death sentence. I don’t think they could have saved us.”

Around them, other jurors nodded. They had seen Jason work. The difference was clear.

“So, Calvin did a good thing?” one juror whispered.

“No. Murder is murder. You can’t mix up the results with the intent.”

“It’s complicated…”

The Judge cleared his throat. “Calvin. You claim you can predict the future. Is that true?”

The room went silent. This was the question everyone wanted answered. Calvin had predicted the end of the world. Was it luck, or could he really see?

If he could see the future, he was the most valuable person humanity had.

Calvin nodded. “Yes. I see pieces of it. The bigger the event, the clearer it is.”

“Then tell us,” the Judge leaned forward. “What happens next?”

“I’ll try.” Calvin closed his eyes.

Sweat the size of peas dripped down his forehead.

His brain shifted gears. In a second, Calvin felt his mind detach.

The courtroom vanished. Color faded away, leaving a world of stark black and white. Reality twisted, and probability lines wove into shifting shapes.

Calvin didn’t understand how it worked. He had read science fiction about time travel, but this felt more real.

In this black-and-white world, Jason shone like a star. While most people were dull gray, Jason glowed with a bright, steady light. That was why Calvin believed in him.

The scene sped up. Images of possible futures blurred past, ten per second, then a hundred, then a thousand.

Crunch.

Calvin tasted hot copper in his throat. He coughed violently, spraying blood from his mouth.

He slumped in the dock, gasping for air, his eyes dull.

“I’m sorry…” he rasped.

“The future isn’t fixed. Every decision changes the path. But I saw… staying on the Moon is dangerous.” Calvin wiped the blood from his chin. “A threat is coming. Soon. I don’t know what it is. But we are not safe here.”

The court murmured. Was he faking it? But the blood was real.

“Next question,” the Judge said, trying to take back control. “Based on your visions, you started the ’Cult of the Void’ on Earth. You convinced ten thousand people to burn themselves alive. How do you answer?”

“No!” Calvin screamed, his control breaking. “I didn’t do that! That’s a lie!”

“Jack, Lucien… Rona… they were kids. Good kids. Why would I burn them?”

“The killer… was the Federation!”

The courtroom froze.

“When I found out about the Perfect Element, I wanted to expose it. It belongs to humanity, not the elite!”

“We organized a protest. We gathered ten thousand people to force the Government to listen. We thought having large numbers would protect us.”

“I was wrong,” Calvin sobbed, tears mixing with the blood on his face. “Firebombs. They dropped firebombs on the crowd. They burned us to keep the secret.”

“I underestimated them. It’s all my fault… all my fault…”

The jury erupted.

This was explosive. These people were scientists and engineers who lived in a world of logic. The idea that their government would kill ten thousand civilians to protect a secret was devastating.

“Quiet! Order!” the Judge shouted, banging his gavel.

“He’s lying!” someone yelled.

“Is he?” another voice countered. “My friend worked in Sector 4. He disappeared last year. They said he went back to Earth. I never heard from him again.”

“The restricted zones… people vanish all the time…”

The murmurs spread like fire. The dark secrets of the Base were suddenly out in the open.

In the corner, the surviving members of the old Security Force stood silently. Their faces were pale. Sweat soaked their uniforms.

Suddenly, Captain Mark, the one-eyed officer Jason had saved walked to the center of the room. He dropped to his knees.

“I am guilty,” Mark said, his voice hollow. “I have done terrible things. My conscience has been eating me alive.”

“I am guilty too,” another officer stepped forward.

“And me.”

As the enforcers confessed, the dam broke. The dark truths of the Moon Base, the disappearances, the cover-ups, the brutality everything spilled out.

The crowd’s shock turned to fury. These were real lives. Real people murdered to protect a secret that didn’t even matter anymore.

If this was true… then the old administration deserved to die. And Calvin, the monster, was maybe the only one who had tried to stop them.

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