1. Prelude - Giant of the Stars

• “Sir, its your turn, 2 minutes” — told the bailiff to John as he was sipping his coffee, barely looking up as just another day in the never-ending litigations after the accident.

Accident, the word repeated in his mind over and over again, the loss of so many lives, an old but expensive and sturdy ship over at [REDACTED] system. Even my thoughts are redacted from the official records! The place is so big of a secret, why would not any other part of the story?

Some data never lined up, but could not figure out an explanation, yet… soft door opening interrupted his thoughts, looking up from his notes, coffee cream still on his lips, the bailiff nods to him and waves to join. Time is up, jury and judge wanna hear the expert testimony. He stood up with some melancholy, when these gonna end… cleaned his lips with a linen cloth that he sheeted seamlessly into his pocket, bit of fix of his hair as he was entering the room.

Stopped halfway toward the witness chair, one hand in air, reciting the oath to tell the truth and only the truth while bright light and repeated flashes bothered his eye. The media was all over the mystery of this case, what mystery? The crew was incompetent as almost all of them, the ship was half-old, maintained on a dime as the corporation heads getting out all the money they can. Run on the mill case as his usual investigations went, just as the litigations were usually senseless, never putting the actual responsible decision makers on trial.

Sat down in the witness chair, a touch screen front of him blipping to life as the prosecutor takes the podium starts to questions:

• “Please state your name for the record”
• “John J. Sotomayor” — he responds in his baritone ready to dive in as a high-school professors lecture.
• “What are your credentials?” — the prosecutor continues to build the foundation for him to deliver the full testimony.

Few minutes back and forth of boring listing of his achievements from the degrees he acquired to the lengthy history of his record testimonials in cases such as this one, John looks over to the jury, 18 random citizens of the colonies, some wearing ties and glasses, the others any day clothing, as much as they could afford to look to their best.

Hope those glasses are not augmented, or this testimony worth even less of anyones time, John thinking to himself, as those glasses could gather information from the net without a single command of their wearers and would lead to mistrial and start with new set of jury later.

• “What was your task in relation to this trial?” — comes the monotone voice of the prosecutor.
• “Nothing specific from the trial or the lawyers”
• “Then why were you called as witness?” — still only the foundations being built up.
• “I was the lead investigator from the GTSB assigned to the case of the Giant of the Stars luxury liner, and one of the co-signers of the final report delivered 3 years after the incident.” — from the corner of his eye, he noticed at least some respectful nodding in the ranks of the jury.
• “Thank you, so, can you lead us through the findings delivered in the final report? Amy, can you please pull up evidence 1234-A from plaintiff, page 789…” — many screens in the room and over the live streamed media blips up with the few bullet points — “Thank you, can we please blow up the full second paragraph”
• “Yes, of course, … “

As the paragraphs became readable for all, John was reminiscing for the first day he arrived at the accident scene…