Nuremberg Part II
Posted on Tue May 26th, 2026 @ 11:33am by Lieutenant Commander Corin Layal & Lieutenant Ezra Van Wijnbergen
Edited on on Tue May 26th, 2026 @ 11:34am
2,330 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Episode 3 - The One Who Got Away
Location: Holodeck 6 - Deck 6 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD002 1430 hrs
Everything stopped. The MP froze halfway upright. Dubost stood with one hand resting on the edge of the podium. Madame Vaillant-Couturier remained seated in the witness chair, her hands still folded together neatly.
He let out a slow breath as he caught the lithe figure of Layal standing next to the holodeck arch, near the rear of the gallery.
"Computer, current time."
[Fourteen thirty-eight hours.]
That settled it. He had gone well past his block.
Turning back to Layal, he suddenly noticed her bag, her boxing gloves, and her red-wrapped knuckles. Without the noise of the trial, the room felt like some old cathedral long after services.
"Sorry," he said. "I lost track of time."
Gesturing vaguely toward the frozen courtroom, he added, "That happens in here."
"Maybe," Layal replied feeling flushed. "But this must be the wrong holodeck. There's supposed to be a class starting in 5. "I'm sure I'm just lost. These hallways still all look the same to me."
She turned toward the arch to clarify where she was, but she couldn't find the information quickly enough - if it was even there. She was a fish out of water on starships still. Her body missed the grounding effect of the land beneath her feet, and how the horizon naturally guided her bearings. Everything here was different - even the halls, rooms, and holosuites were different.
"Um, I'm sure you have plenty of time left," she added. "You look immersed."
"What are you doing anyway, is this some kind of research project or something?" Layal asked taking in the courtroom layout.
He realized he was still holding the headphones in one hand and set them down carefully on the bench, showing immense respect for the item.
"It's not research," he murmured. He scratched absently at the back of his neck.
He surveyed the room again and pointed to Marie-Claude in the witness box.
"This is Madame Vaillant-Couturier. She was in the French Resistance and survived an infamous concentration camp." His voice stayed level but somehow softer. "What you walked in on is her testimony at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Earth date 1946."
"I don't know that much about Earth going that far back, to be honest," Layal admitted. "I know there were a lot of wars before the last world war - as they called them. It seemed like a lot to learn. I never really made the time."
Ezra nodded slowly.
"That's fair," he said.
He leaned one hand against the back of the wooden bench and looked out across the courtroom again.
"Earth had many wars," Ezra said. "But this one..." He paused, searching for the right edge of the thought. "You could say, this war rearranged the moral pieces of humanity."
He gestured toward the witness box where Madame Vaillant-Couturier sat frozen.
"The regime on trial here believed certain people shouldn't exist. Entire populations. Those of certain faiths or ethnic backgrounds. Even some political dissidents. They believed those born with disabilities should be killed. Homosexuals, too." He sighed heavily. "Anyone who didn't fit their idea of purity."
Ezra stepped off the raised bench and slowly walked toward the front of the courtroom.
"They built camps," Ezra continued. "At first they called them detention centers. Work camps. Places for enemies of the state." He gave a faint, humourless smile. "Governments can be very effective at renaming terrible things."
"What they did rivals even the Tarsian Purge," Ezra said, a faintly sad note in his voice. "At least with the Tarsians, they made sure those that were selected for death weren't made to suffer." He looked down at the wooden floor. "Still, that's cold comfort."
He nodded toward the figure of Marie-Claude.
"She was sent to a place called Auschwitz. One of the extermination camps."
"Humans did this to other Humans?" She didn't bother hiding the disgust nor the disbelief on her face. Detention centers, work camps... these were not abstract ideas for a Bajoran. She was just old enough to remember. And while the Cardassians claimed to be their saviors as they used them for labor, it was well-known that many in power enjoyed torturing and ridiculing her people simply because they could.
She'd been face to face with one recently as he was finally brought to his own trial. Sat in a room with him. Breathed the same air.
It was difficult for her to fathom that Humans of all races could act like Cardassians.
Like the old Cardassian regime, she corrected herself.
"How does something like that happen?" She asked, her tone now clinical, discerning - like a prosecutor.
Ezra's eyes swept the defendants' box.
"They certainly didn't wake up one morning and decide to build extermination camps," he said, stepping down another row. "From everything I've researched and read, it began smaller than that. Much smaller."
He now approached the side of the courtroom where a bank of pages and translators were frozen in time. He paused before a young woman wearing her medium-length brown hair in a fashionable sidesweep style.
"First came the language." He tapped a finger against the wooden barrier. "They began saying certain people were the cause of society's problems. That they were parasites. Criminal by nature. Dangerous to their nation." He shook his head slight in disgust. "It's always the same, Layal. You know how convenient tools words can be."
The word parasites struck a nerve for Layal as she listened.
"There was a Bajoran poet who warned of the power of words. A verse, loosely translated talks about how people can find a way to justify any action, no matter how evil," she told him. "The poet, Jarra Amyr, lived and wrote long before the Cardassian occupation. She was simply writing about how we need to be cautious of our own thoughts and justifications. I believe your people had philosophers who wrote similar cautionary tales."
Ezra nodded, taking in Layal's words.
"We do," he said quietly. "And we keep proving them right."
He stepped around the defendants' box and moving closer to Layal.
"When I was at the Academy, they taught us this kind of thing in pieces," he explained. "Law calls it normalization. Sociology calls it institutional drift. In behavioural science, we'd probably frame it as incremental desensitization. Stimulus, response, rinse and repeat until the response goes away. They all describe the exact same thing."
Ezra found his gaze drawn to Layal's figure. She was in form-fitting clothing and prepared for a workout and while his heart was still clearly drawn to hers, the ghost of his pain from ten years past still managed to surge up within him, almost washing away the love he still carried for her.
"This whole construct," he said, motioning to the entire holodeck, "is something I had to experience again--especially the last case with Vamcet."
"Were they found guilty then?" she asked. "There were global laws that far back that they could be charged with? Even though the government was sanctioning the killings? Or was that just because they lost?" She could see why Vamcet's trial would bring someone to an exhibit like this. Even the language they used seemed parallel.
Ezra nodded his head. "Yes, many of the perpetrators were found guilty. Some were executed and others were given prison terms." He ventured a long look to the frozen defendants' box the holograms remained with impassive expressions.
He turned back to Layal, seeing the red fabric of her workout suit against the backdrop of earthy tones of grey, brown, and green, worn by those in the courtroom.
"This--" Ezra said, motioning to their surroundings--"was the first time an international criminal tribunal had been established to try what they termed as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Most of the perpetrators were found guilty. Some were executed, some were given prison terms." He looked down at the floor again, adding, "There were some that were not brought to justice for many years. Just like Vamcet."
Before Layal could respond, Ezra stepped down and hurriedly crossed the open area before the justices' table, meeting her near the arch. "I know you have an exercise class but there is something I want to show you first."
"Computer, shift program to time index to iota-ninety-eight, 21 November 1945."
In seconds, the courtroom transitioned from Madame Vaillant-Couturier's testimony to several months previous at the beginning of the trial. A different prosecutor now stood at the podium, the shadows sharpened, and the air seemed to lose all softness. The courtroom stood in its austere symmetry with dark wood and high ceilings--as it had previously, but there was something else to it.
The judges and defendants remained the same, occupying their designated areas while Ezra and Layal stood at the far end of the courtroom.
At the prosecution's table, a man stood.
Robert H. Jackson was not an imposing figure in the same vein as soldiers or tyrants. He carried no visible weapon and he showed no outward sign of force. His strength--as Ezra knew well--lay elsewhere. It was Jackson's steely gaze and peculiar stillness that had drawn him to this four hundred year-old human lawyer.
His suit was dark and severe but without ornament. His hair, neatly parted, hinted at silver around the fringes. He didn't fidget and he never adjusted himself. When he stood before the microphone at the podium, he was commanded attention.
Jackson stepped forward and Ezra noticed--not for the first time--how he gently drew in a breath.
"May it please your honors: the privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason."
Ezra felt the words ripple through him like electricity. He had heard those words so many times before--read them on numerous occasions. But they still struck him the same way each time.
He glanced over to Layal to see her reaction, wondering if Jackson's opening statement might resonate with her.
"Everyone has been wondering why Bajor let Starfleet handle Vamcet. A lot of speculation, but it was smart really. It wouldn't matter what we did, there would always be scrutiny from someone in our interstellar community that it was vengeance and not justice." She walked toward the prosecutor as she made her comment. "He says that like it was some noble gesture on behalf of the nations. I do not blame him - I would have done the same thing, presented it the same way," she admitted.
"But, I doubt there was anything so romantic about it. It was smart politics. Hand over punishment to a neutral party, puts you in a more favorable position globally. Living on one planet together - especially one as volatile as Earth was in those years, no interstellar travel - it was really important to get along with your neighbors."
Ezra considered her words carefully before even thinking to answer. He always did that Layal. Even now. Especially now.
"You're right that Bajor was thinking politically," he said, squeezing the holographic wooden railing in front of him. "I don't think a government ever makes a decision like that in a vacuum. But I also don't think it was cowardice or optics on their own."
He glanced back toward the frozen figure of Jackson at the podium.
"Your world understands occupation better than almost any planet in the quadrant. It also means Bajor sees the danger of vengeance when it's parading around and pretending to be justice." He paused. "If Vamcet had been tried solely on Bajor, the verdict may still have been fair. I actually believe it would have been. Layal, you know as well as I do that fairness isn't always enough in cases like that. The process has to survive scrutiny from the people who already distrust the outcome."
"Well, yes. That was my point," Layal reiterated. "I trust Bajor's legal system. But in briefing, the ship's defense attorney has already called it a circus, so that tells you enough." Layal looked at Ezra briefly, then quickly away.
He nodded once, realizing he was talking too much.
"I've already monopolized enough of your time," he said. "I should probably let you get to your program."
"Right," Layal agreed, trying to not let the disappointment show in her voice. She'd found herself longing for his company a little more than she'd like to admit. But then, she wasn't the only one, and she couldn't blame him for wanting to cut his time short with her.
"I'll leave you to it then." Layal pressed her lips together in a serious expression as she turned back toward the arch. She left quickly, then skipped her way to a slow jog hoping she wouldn't be too late for the class. Distractions. Distractions usually worked.
Ezra watched her disappear through the doors and felt once again that he had hurt her feelings. He always seemed to be quite good at that when it came to Layal.
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Commander Corin Layal
Judge Advocate General, USS Artemis
Second Officer, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Lieutenant Ezra Van Wijnbergen
Victim Advocate Counselor, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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