“Do you have an alibi for this time?” Commander Tyrell asked.
I swore I saw Liam blush. “I was alone in my quarters. I’d completed my testing for the Interstellar Brides Program at the medical station and returned to my quarters. Have any of you been tested for a match?” he asked the panel.
I knew Evon’s father was mated, obviously, but hadn’t been matched. All of the others shook their heads. Either they weren’t mated at all, or had found their mate without the assistance of the Brides Program.
“It is grueling and I spent time in the shower before I fell asleep,” Liam finished.
Grueling? It was a sex dream. An epic sex dream and I’d come like an overeager youth. Thankfully, I hadn’t come in my pants and it had been easy to laugh off my hard-on to the doctor who facilitated the test. That was just the way I was. Surely the doctor had seen it all before. I’d wanted to jerk off, to ease the pressure after the testing, but we’d been immediately matched. I could well imagine the sexual frustration. I was not surprised that Liam needed to find relief by taking himself in hand in the shower.
Was that why he blushed? He had no interest in telling the panel he was masturbating while someone was being murdered. It wouldn’t bode well for a guard of his standing to admit it, even though all of the males in the panel had surely taken themselves in hand before. Surely the female from Sector 1 got herself off a time or two.
“Your personal security code was used. That is strong enough evidence to require a formal trial,” the commander said.
“It’s not strong evidence,” Bella said, popping to her feet. “Anyone can use someone else’s code to hack into a system.”
Evon took hold of her arm and tried to tug her back down, but she would have none of it, twisting her arm in his grip and pulling as hard as she could.
“Silence,” Commander Tyrell tilted his head, his gaze gone from severe to angry.
Bella didn’t sit down. Nor did she stop talking. “I don’t care how advanced you think your cyber security is, even if someone can’t break his code, they can hack the system that created it. There is always a back door, always a way in. Someone using Liam’s code proves nothing.”
“The codes have never been broken,” the woman from Sector 1 insisted.
“I can break them.” Bella’s declaration brought the room to sudden silence.
The commander rose to his feet, a very clear threat in his eyes. I rose to stand next to her as Evon did the same.
“My mate is a highly skilled computational technician,” Liam offered. “She is well versed in this type of activity.”
Meaning, she was a hacker and could break into systems.
“I can prove it,” she said. “I can prove Liam is innocent and that you have a very serious problem in your security system.”
Evon’s father arched a silvery brow. “You’re from Earth?”
“Yes.”
“Such a primitive planet. How do you think you can infiltrate Coalition systems?”
She crossed her arms, but focused on the woman from Sector 1, or rather, on the tablet she carried.
“Is that tablet linked to the rest of the system?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“If I may use that, I can show you.”
The other members of the panel were looking to Commander Tyrell, not at Liam.
Liam looked as if he were about to fling Bella over his shoulder and run off with her.
Evon was as still and fucking stiff as a statue.
The commander remained silent for a moment, then nodded. The woman held out her tablet. Bella looked up at me, determination in her eyes. I followed her up to the raised dais where she took the proffered tablet.
Her head lowered as her fingers flew over the flat screen. “I assume the video or whatever visual evidence you should have had from the transport room doesn’t exist.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Whomever did murder the poor technician and transported the stolen goods, they would have appeared on the security vids. If they erased all video evidence, only the security access code would connect someone to the crime. Liam.