The trial was a fast, a piece of brutalist theater engineered not for justice, but for calculated humiliation.
It was convened within a High Military Tribunal Nexus on Corvus Prime, a frigid industrial world whose iron-gray skies mirrored the cruelty of Imperial law.
The chamber itself was a vast, cavernous amphitheater of obsidian alloy and holo marble, where gravitic dampeners pressed down on every breath, making the air feel heavy, oppressive.
Kaelen stood alone at the center of the tribunal ring, restrained by a faintly glowing null field collar. He wore a simple gray penal uniform, its fabric woven with tracking filaments, all insignia of rank and command surgically stripped away.
The general who had once commanded entire star systems now stood as a solitary figure beneath the cold gaze of the Empire.
The gallery tiers were filled with courtiers, senators, and military elites that are the same individuals who had toasted his victories beneath crystal chandeliers only weeks earlier.
Now they watched with morbid fascination, their augmented eyes flickering with data overlays, their expressions a mix of disbelief, hunger, and barely concealed greed.
General Vorlag served as Chief Prosecutor, his voice amplified through the chamber by resonant vox-projectors. It rang with manufactured authority as he presented the so-called evidence.
A terminal communication retrieved from Kaelen's father's cybernetic implant, containing a "confession" so poorly forged it insulted reason, detailing a conspiracy to overthrow the Emperor, with Kaelen named as co-conspirator.
Fabricated financial ledgers showing encrypted transfers to Kaelen's accounts from known insurgent factions. Terminal communication logs and finally, the piece of resistance: holo recordings of Kaelen standing over his father's corpse, his own boot print rendered in perfect resolution against a pool of blood.
Every item was a lie. A carefully constructed lattice of falsehoods, each piece another reinforced strut in the architecture of his condemnation.
Kaelen remained silent throughout. A state-appointed defender, a young junior officer had been assigned to him.
Kaelen had dismissed him with a single look. What was the point? The verdict had been sealed the moment the emperor had dispatched him on that so-called "special mission." To speak would legitimize the spectacle. To argue would be to participate in the lie. His silence was the last weapon left to him.
He stood with perfect military posture, spine straight, shoulders squared, his gaze locked on a blank section of the far wall where no holo projections played.
He did not acknowledge Vorlag's triumphant sneer. He did not look at the whispering gallery. He did not meet the eyes of the three high-ranking flag officers seated as judges, these men he had once outperformed, outthought, and outlived on the battlefield.
Rage. Grief. Betrayal. He sealed them all inside a cold, isolated partition of his mind, a mental black site. He would not fracture here. He would not give them that satisfaction.
The trial concluded in less than one standard cycle. No defense witnesses were summoned.
Vorlag delivered a grand closing statement about the corrosive poison of treason festering beneath a hero's mask. The judges withdrew into a sealed deliberation chamber. Fifteen minutes later, they returned.
The lead judge, he is an admiral with eyes glowing faintly blue.
"On the charge of high treason," he intoned, his voice devoid of inflection, "this tribunal finds the defendant, Kaelen, formerly General of the Imperial Fifth Army, guilty. On the charge of patricide, this tribunal finds the defendant guilty."
A ripple of gasps and chatter swept through the gallery. Kaelen did not move. He had already accepted this outcome. The only unknown variable was the sentence.
"These crimes represent the highest betrayal an officer of the Empire can commit," the admiral continued. "They strike at the core of our civilization: loyalty to the Emperor and genetic honor to one's lineage. The prescribed punishment is execution."
For the first time, Kaelen felt something close to relief. Death would be an end. A clean termination of this nightmare.
Then the admiral's lips curved into a thin, cruel smile.
"However, His Imperial Majesty has determined that execution would constitute an act of mercy. You will not be granted release through death. You are to serve as a living deterrent. A permanent reminder of the cost of treason."
The chamber seemed to grow colder.
"You are hereby sentenced to life imprisonment, without appeal or parole, on the maximum security penal world designated Tartarus."
Silence fell a horrified silence.
Tartarus was not merely a prison. It was a planetary oubliette. A toxic hellworld with corrosive atmospheres, predatory megafauna, and no orbital extraction protocols. A place where the Empire exiled its most violent, irredeemable failures to be erased from history. No one returned from Tartarus.
Ever.
The Emperor's cruelty was elegant. Kaelen would not die a martyr. He would be unmade. His name, his legacy, his legend, it all dissolved beneath a poisoned sky. It was the final victory for Valen. The perfect betrayal.
For the first time, Kaelen's composure wavered. A tremor of pure, burning fury ran through him. He crushed it down, burying it beneath layers of discipline. He met the admiral's gaze, his eyes hard as forged alloy.
Then came the stripping of honor.
Two Praetorian Enforcers advanced, their armor humming softly with power. They carried no weapons but rather only ceremonial instruments.
In full view of the tribunal, they performed the ritual with clinical precision. Insignia were cut from his uniform. Service marks were erased. A laser scalpel hissed as it burned away the military identification tattoos etched into his forearms, the acrid scent of scorched flesh filling the chamber.
Kaelen did not cry out. He did not move. His mind was a fortress.
The final act followed.
"By decree of the Imperial Throne," the admiral declared, "you are stripped of all titles, ranks, and identity. From this moment onward, you have no name. You are designated Prisoner 734."
As mental power restraints locked around his wrists and he was led from the chamber, the murmurs of the crowd trailing him like carrion birds, Kaelen felt the last remnants of his former self collapse into ash.
The hero.
The general.
The son.
All Gone.
Only Prisoner 734 remained and a single, burning question that echoed through the ruins of his soul:
Why?