Hock Watcher may sound like a funny position, but Caldr Giordana is
responsible for the rehabilitation department of the entire ship. Here,
rehabilitation is being used in its loosest definition. It’s a pretty simple
concept. You break a law, you go in hock. If a ruling needs to be made
beyond that, you go to trial, and either go free, or stay in hock to serve
out a sentence. When you’re done, you go free. There’s no real
rehabilitation, and there is no program for reintegration into society. It’s
never been needed. Most crimes have been straightforward, committed by
people who clearly made a mistake, but which can’t be categorized as
menaces. Three of the men presently in hock are different, and more
complicated, and Olindse Belo feels that something needs to be done to
reform the system. She is not capable of doing this without the approval and
aid of others.
The hock is a special department, which acts as an unlikely spot to bridge
the gap between passengers and crew. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a
civilian or a civil servant, if you commit a crime, you go to the same place
as everyone. Hock Watcher is one of the most complicated roles to fill, and
equally illustrates that bridge. First, the government nominates the most
promising candidates. Then the passengers vote to narrow the pool further.
The crew then votes for the winner, but the Captain is free to veto any
decision, and restart at least part of the process. If that were to happen,
there would be even more deliberation to decide how far back in that process
the cycle has to restart. To get where he is today, Caldr had to really want
it, and now that he’s here, it would be all but impossible to get rid of him
unless he wanted to leave. He wields a lot more power than one might expect.
When Consul Vatal was discovered to be a True Extremist spy—or rather, outed
himself to a spy—his job needed to be backfilled. He had his own sort of
apprentice, who was prepared enough to take over, but the nature of his
departure made that more complicated. For more than two years, the new
Consul tried his best to carry out his duties, but everyone who required his
services hesitated to reach out to him. The consul is not a lawyer. They are
primarily an ethicist who understands the law down to the very last
punctuation mark. By being untruthful about where he came from, and where
his loyalties lay, Dvronen was quite ironically proving himself to be
unethical at the highest order. If he’s the one who trained the apprentice,
could that apprentice have good ethics himself? Well, probably, since he
went through his own education, and had his own ideals, but we’re dealing
with humans here, and humans are complicated. The crew, especially the
Captain, found it difficult to trust him with their ethical needs. It
essentially made it impossible for him to do his job, and he just couldn’t
take the stress. He stepped down, and while quitting the crew is usually a
complex process, Captain Leithe made an exception, and simply let him go.
Any other member of the crew could have contested this ruling, but no one
did, so it went through.
Renga Mas was fresh out of school, and didn’t think she was ready to take
the job, but she was pretty much the only option. Others studied law, but
they were predominantly on the other two of three tracks. One track focuses
on civilian law, and that’s the route most students take. The other concerns
itself with destination law. Such students are intended to become teachers,
so they can pass their knowledge down to further generations. There are a
lot of skills that people living on the ship won’t, or might not, ever use,
but which their descendants will find critical. It would be irresponsible of
them to let this knowledge disappear before the mission can be realized two
centuries from now. If you want to take the third track, which prepares you
to possibly become Consul, you have to complete an independent study
program, and while Renga isn’t the only one who has done that, she’s the
only one with sufficient competency. She likely would have apprenticed for
Dvronen’s apprentice, and ultimately secured the job anyway, but the
timetable had to be moved up. Today is her first major project.
“Okay, so, uhh...um.” Renga fumbles with the tablet before she realizes it
isn’t even hers, so it isn’t signed into her account. That’s why her
passcode didn’t work. “All right, I don’t think I need it. Is this being
recorded? Are we recording?”
“We are,” First Lieutenant Corinna Seelen replies. Captain Leithe doesn’t
need to be part of the decision-making process in this case, so Corinna is
in charge. “Go on.”
Renga is responsible for running the meeting itself. “Great. Uh, that’s
great.” She clears her throat. “Okay. This is the...hearing?”
“Proposal meeting,” Corinna corrects.
“Right, proposal meeting for the question of whether to accept Olindse’s—”
“Admiral Belo,” Corinna corrects her again.
“Admiral Belo’s prisoner reintegration plan. Thanks.” Renga nods sharply,
proud of herself for managing to get through that, and forgetting for just
one second that it’s literally only the beginning.
Corinna urges her on with her eyes, but no words. She may have to take over.
Renga continues, “Olin—Admiral Belo.” Olindse took Renga under her wing at
school. They were studying completely different things, but they became
friends, and the latter often mined the former for advice. It’s proven
difficult to remember that she should not be so informal with this. “Please,
begin your presentation.”
“Thank you,” Olindse says. “I’ve already given you my written proposal, so I
won’t go into detail, but I’ll sum it up. I believe that our justice system
leaves something to be desired. It’s far too simple. If you’re guilty, you
go in hock. Maybe you’re given limited computer privileges, but for the most
part, the severity of your crime dictates how long you’re there. Prisoners
are not provided resources to help them rehabilitate, or later return to
society. When and if they’re released, they’re just thrown back into the
general population, where they have to move on on their own. Many will have
been changed by the trauma, and their lives will be more difficult than
necessary. I believe that this is unfair and unjust.”
Corinna holds up a hand, and closes her eyes, like it’s a performing arts
audition, and Olindse’s minute is up. “Currently, the only prisoners in hock
are...” She checks her tablet, but only to find the file for the least
infamous prisoner. “A spy, a mutineer, a disgraced former officer, and a
saboteur.”
“It was a prank,” Olindse argues, “not sabotage.”
“Tell that to the eighteen people who drank the contaminated water, and
suffered from heavy diarrhea for the next three to four days.”
“No civilian charges were filed,” Olindse reminds her. “That’s not my point.
I’m not here to argue if any of them deserve to be in hock, or not. I’m here
to argue that we should be helping them learn from their mistakes.
Egregious, or forgivable,” she adds before Corinna can debate the definition
of a mistake, or contend that two of them did not simply make a mistake.
“My point,” Corinna goes on, “is that only the...prankster will be getting
out of hock outside of a body bag. The other three are enemies of the state,
and will have to make their respective cells their homes for the next
however many decades are left of their lives.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect and compassion,” Olindse says.
“I’m not saying that,” Corinna claims. “Though, I don’t have any personal
respect or compassion for two of them in there, and I don’t much care about
the fourth. I shouldn’t have to name names.” She doesn’t. Everyone still
loves Halan Yenant, and no one likes Dvronen or Ovan. “I’m asking why we
should divert time and resources to helping people we know will never be
able to reenter society. You even call this the reintegration program.”
“That’s a catchall term, but it doesn’t just address actually placing
prisoners back in the general population. There are many ways to
reintegrate,” Olindse explains. “Besides, as you saw in my proposal, I also
discuss counseling for those who have been given life sentences. And as a
side note, Admiral Yenant has not technically received a definite sentence.
His potential for parole is always there.”
“Don’t call him that,” Corinna demands. “I don’t like it any more than you
do, but we legally can’t call him an admiral. Right, Consul?”
“Right,” Renga answers uncomfortably.
“Who do you suppose will provide these counseling services for the
prisoners?”
“Nearly every job on this ship has a surplus labor pool. It won’t be hard to
find someone to fill this void,” Olindse figures.
Renga realizes she needs to speak up more, since this is supposed to be her
show. “I didn’t see this in the proposal—even though I read it...” She eyes
the Lieutenant.
“I’m busy, I skimmed it,” Corinna defends.
Renga goes on, “I didn’t see anywhere that dictates whether this new
counselor will be a member of the civilian workforce, or the crew.”
Olindse nods and points, having predicted this would come up. “It’s not in
there, because I wasn’t sure about that. I hoped we could work together to
figure that out. My first thought is to make it a joint effort, like the
Hock Watcher, but still appointed, rather than voted upon.”
“That is a tall order,” Corinna says. “We would have to all vote in order to
make this new flavor of job even a thing. What say you, Hock Watcher
Giordana?”
Caldr had been listening intently and respectfully to all sides of this
argument. “To be honest, I wouldn’t mind having one or two other people on
the team. It can get lonely down there. Also to be honest, I sometimes chat
with Mr. Yenant because of it.”
“That’s not illegal,” Renga assures him. They actually did consider
fraternizing with the prisoners completely illegal, because it could
theoretically lead to a conflict of interest, and even possibly a prison
break. They had to decide against such harsh rules, because it was more
unethical to restrict who a resident of the ship could be friends with. They
made it so hard to become Hock Watcher in the first place in order to lower
this risk. Caldr bleeds integrity.
“Okay,” Corinna begins, “let me read the proposal in full. I’ll assign some
duties to my Second LT to make the time. We will reconvene in two weeks to
discuss this further, and hopefully come to some conclusion. Vice Admiral,
create a list of candidates for this counseling job, and determine whether
you want anyone else on this expanded hock team. Consul Mas, you can
tentatively approve them. Does this sound fair?”
“Yes,” they all agreed.
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