NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This is based after the end of the fighting between Kahanistan and Xirnium, once prisoners are released. It involves the trial of the reckless commander of the Kahanistanian forces.

OOC2: When completed, this thread will have numerous controversial references. There will be no explicit descriptions of sexuality, but sexual references and occasional references to blood, gore, and the usual byproducts of modern warfare will be quite common. OOC comments and criticisms are welcomed.

Controversial officer to stand trial upon release from Xirnium, Ministry of Defense says

Najaster, Kahanistan (AP) - Colonel Rachel Levitt, the commander of the disastrous attempt to free 300,000 Xirniumite refugees, is to be tried on charges of manslaughter and reckless conduct before the enemy that initiated the Battle of Xigrat, in which more than 400 Kahanistanian and an unknown number of Xirniumite soldiers were killed, and many on both sides wounded.

Levitt, 38, faces a maximum of 10 years in military prison and reduction in rank to Captain for her actions if convicted, but military sources say she will most likely not receive the maximum sentence.

"It is an outrage. She is a courageous officer who has served behind me for many years," said Brigadier General Hamed al-Kareem bin Mohammed, her commanding officer. "But if the charges are true, then we may have little choice but to do without her services in the upcoming war."

Levitt herself had little more to say. She is free while awaiting trial, and has high hopes for her military career. "To me, it all seems so political. I mean, what was I supposed to do? I had to get past that border patrol unit somehow to get the refugees."

General Feodor S. Kalazanov, the delegate to Xirnium who commanded the overall operation, was furious with the President's decision to refer Levitt to a military tribunal. "President al-Za'if made far too many concessions. I will offer the services of my own military lawyer for this case."

More will be released on the trial as a trial date progresses. She is due to be tried in seven days. Because of the controversy, debate ensued over whether to hold the trial in secret, but it was ruled out.

OOC: Chick flick scene, beware!

The day before the trial

Al-Bahr, Kahanistan

Lieutenant Colonel Nadia Sklenova's apartment

Nadia Sklenova sat at her computer, surfing political sites. She was off duty, recovering from her wounds at Xigrat. She found a website that depicted controversial political and military figures literally screwing pooches. (OOC: "Screw the pooch" is an American slang term basically meaning to seriously blunder.)

She clicked the link. It featured a short, stocky woman in her late thirties bent over a pooch. She had chin-length reddish-brown hair and a somewhat pretty face. Nadia looked closely at the woman. It was Colonel Rachel Levitt, her comrade from Xigrat.

She picked up the cell. Rachel Levitt lived on the other side of town, near the Religious District. She was only fifteen miutes away. She dialed her number.

Rachel's voice. "Hello?"

"It's me, Nadia. You'll never believe what I just found on the net."

"If it's that damn picture of me and the pooch..."

"You saw it, too?"

"It's all over the freaking city, where've you been, Nadia? The media wants my head on a pike."

"Care to come over for a while? Maybe get away from the publicity for a while?"

"Sure," she said. "Maybe you can help me decide what to wear for the trial tomorrow."

"What about your uniform?"

"You're the fifth person to suggest that to me. Uniforms aren't me. I'll wear them on duty and that's frickin' IT. I only have a few dresses, so I can bring in my whole wardrobe for your inspection. Or you could come over to my apartment. Your car is faster than mine, mine's a piece of crap."

"OK," said Nadia. She hung up and climbed into her car, still dressed in her lounge wear. She arrived at Rachel's apartment in fifteen minutes.

When she arrived, she was greeted warmly. "Hey, Nadia! Nice to see you here. How's this for the trial?" Rachel was wearing a skin-tight green dress. Maybe it wasn't intended to be skin-tight, but she was 160 cm and 59kg, or in old form, 5'3" and 130 lbs. By no means fat, but she had bulked up somewhat in the last few months in the gym. The dress was about six inches above her knee and barely held her.

"You can't wear that to a trial, Rachel! They won't let you past the bailiff. Try this," said Nadia, holding up a long bulky blue dress. "It's nice and pretty."

"Yeah, but it doesn't match my hair. I tried that when I was a blonde." Nadia looked at a strand of her own shoulder-length blonde hair. Rachel continued. "You can wear it to the trial if you'd like." She was ignoring the fact that the two women were far from the same size. She was short and stocky with 36D's. Nadia was medium height and slender with 32B's.

"Maybe with pads..." She popped some in. "Hey, this is actualy pretty nice," she said, looking in a mirror.

"There's an even bigger mirror in my room," said Rachel. They took the dresses and carried them up to her bedroom. Nadia looked in horror at the awful mess. Empty beer bottles, Playgirl magazines, and even several old paper plates with pork bones in them. "Aren't you Jewish?" Nadia asked.

Rachel nodded. "Not practicing, though. I haven't even been to synagogue since I was 16. Religion just doesn't cut it for me. But if you want me to translate a Hebrew text, call me up."

Nadia smiled, and grimaced at the stench of the pigsty. It was hard to believe a woman lived in this squalid pit. She was surprised there were no rats until she noticed a large brown cat eating a dead rat. "Gross!" she squealed. Rachel turned around and said calmly, "That's Mouser. He's the organic pest control around here. Rats, mice, bugs... He kills them all."

She entered her closet and emerged wearing some funky rocker's gear. Nadia looked at her and said, "At least that'll get you allowed in the building."

Rachel frowned. "I'm sick of trying on stuff. I'll decide tomorrow. Care to order pizza?"

They called up some weird Arabic-sounding pizza shop. Nadia placed her order in Arabic, which she was barely learning. She had the grammar and pronunciation, but her vocabulary left a lot to be desired.

Twenty minutes later, the most disgusting concoction arrived. It had what looked like a large fish skeleton crammed with sheep eyeballs. Neither of them knew what it was. Nadia thought she had ordered lamb meatballs and anchovies. Not wanting to go hungry, Rachel brought out a twenty-pack of 40 ounce bottles of beer. The two women drank heavily and ate the horrid pizza and drank some more. They had drunk themselves into a stupor by nightfall.

OOC: Whatever happened to your interest in training the Police of the Holy Empire of Saint Fedski?

OOC: TG me with that, OK?

OOC2: This post depicts a lot of raucous beavior that I *DO NOT* recommend being imitated in a courtroom. There is some PG-13 rated sexuality, but nothing you'd find in an higher rated movie. I'm trying to bump but not cross the line between acceptable sexuality and Canadian smut.

The day of the trial

7:00 AM, Colonel Levitt's apartment

Colonel Levitt woke up, groggy and still somewhat intoxicated, barely remembering that she had to go to court. She pulled a jacket on over her dress and headed out to the nearest mall to get some more clothes. She left Colonel Sklenova at her apartment, still wasted.

When Colonel Sklenova woke up later, at 10 AM, she didn't remember where she was. All she saw was a vaguely familiar apartment that wasn't hers, several large beer bottles strewn carelessly around the living room, and an empty pizza box with some horrid mess in it. Who ordered this crap? And who the hell ate it? she thought.

Slowly, gradually, her memory came back to her as the alcohol wore off. She was at her friend's apartment. She had to stop her before she did something crazy at the trial and got herself sent up for ten years. But she had no clue where Levitt was, she had disappeared far earlier than the court time... Lacking anything else to do, she headed for the courthouse, figuring that she could raise Levitt on her cell before the trial if things turned hairy.

Courthouse, at noon

At noon, Colonel Sklenova sat in the waiting room, talking to one of the security officers. He said that he hadn't seen Levitt, of course he knew what she looked like, she was the girl in the pooch billboards all over the place. He said grimly that she was probably at the bars or something. Sklenova turned and walked to another part of the waiting room, angered.

At 1:00, the security guard said in a loud voice, "Will the defendant, Colonel Rachel Charlene Levitt, enter the courtroom." She wasn't there. Sklenova called her on the cell. "It's that late? I'll be there right away."

"You'd better hurry," said Sklenova. The courts, especially military courts, in Kahanistan were not friendly to late arrivals. "The bailiff's a pretty mean guy." The bailiff glared at her. She continued. "Gotta go, Rachel. Good luck." She hung up.

The defense lawyer, Col. Gregor Khalrov, frowned. If his client were late, she could find herself facing additional charges. She could even be jailed pending a rescheduling of the trial date. The prosecutor, Brig. Gen. Jamal bin Ahmed Abd al-Malik, gloated. He had a no-nonsense judge on his side, and the defendant's own irresponsibility seemed to be winning his case for him. He could sleep through the whole trial and still expect to win.

At 1:15, Colonel Levitt arrived. She was in what appeared to be a short dress under a jacket. She looked to have had a few more beers, and smelled of what the other officers dared not guess. She sat down between Khalrov and Sklenova and smiled. "So, how are things going?"

Khalrov scowled at her. "You showed up late, and we drew this butch lesbo judge, similar to the Judge Judy movies, if you know the type. She wants your ass to fry. And she won't be much happier about your outfit." (OOC: No hot lesbo scene, sorry. That would put me in the Canadian Smut category and get me deleted. The 750 million or so people of Kahanistan wouldn't appreciate that. :D )

Levitt groaned. She walked into the courtroom, sat down in the defendant's chair, and waved at the media. There were reporters from every media outlet in Kahanistan and quite a few foreign ones. She smiled at Major General Judge Maria Dasakova and waved to the media.

Dasakova glared at her. "You showed up fifteen minutes late, dressing like some tramp, and drunk off your ass. The media will CRUCIFY you, if there's anything left of your sorry ass after I'm finished. Bailiff, read the charges against this scumbagette."

The bailiff read the charges. "Count 1, manslaughter, dismissed by prosecutor for lack of evidence. Count 2, reckless conduct precipitating an engagement, will be argued by General Abd al-Malik, military prosecutor."

The prosecutor rose. "We intend to prove that Colonel Rachel Levitt recklessly engaged a superior enemy force, resulting in the deaths of over 400 marines, and was saved with the other survivors only by her belated decision to surrender her troops to enemy forces and convert to the evil religion of the Xirnium ruler."

The defense counsel, Colonel Khalrov, rose. "First, I must explain why we're late--"

"You were late because your client skived off the court's time to get drunk. Get to the point," Dasakova snapped.

"Colonel Levitt was not reckless at all. In fact, she acted under intense pressure to form a barricade against enemy forces that held off several waves of enemy attacks--"

"Attacks which if she had been wise enough to withdraw would never have happened!" boomed Abd al-Malik.

Khalrov grew red. "Attacks she had every reason to believe would happen even if she did retreat, believing the fanatics would pursue her. It is a lot harder to defend your forces when they're not tired from running all day."

After twenty minutes or so of arguing, Levitt turned to Sklenova with an expression that said, "Just play cool when this happens." She slipped off her jacket, revealing a cleavage-baring mini-dress. Dasakova glared at her. Abd-al-Malik lost his composure and rapidly got steamrollered in procedural arguments.

Sklenova turned to Levitt and smiled. "A bit daring. I wouldn't have tried it."

"I know you wouldn't." Levitt grinned.

"I didn't tell them anything. How do you think they knew about the events precipitating the battle?"

"Damned if I know. They probably bribed some private whose view of me is none too rosy to give evidence against me."

"WHAT ARE YOU WHISPERING ABOUT?" bellowed Judge Dasakova.

"Just some shit," Levitt said coldly. "It can probably wait till later."

"Watch your language in my courtroom!"

"Please, do calm down. It's awfully bad for your blood pressure." Levitt grinned at the media and leaned back in her chair and gapped her legs. The media all took photographs.

Now, she might have been able to get away with the mini-dress. She may even have been able to get away with the cleavage. But flashing her knickers before the media and the jury and the whole courtroom was too much.

"Grab this..." Dasakova fumbled for words, "harlot and take her to a holding cell!" Two burly bailiffs grabbed Colonel Levitt and walked her by each arm outside the courtroom.

She sat in the holding cell for two hours before Sklenova showed up. "Rachel, that was crazy. The jury loves you, though. They're leaning toward an acquittal. Dasakova's furious, she wants to lock you up for a month for contempt."

"Let her. I have nothing but contempt for the whole proceeding. This was just some political ploy of some sort. Screw the bitch. Hell, sounds a good idea, she gets me locked up, she wins, I get acquitted, I don't lose my career."

General Kalazanov arrived. "Colonel Levitt, I once said that if you did something so crazy again after Xigrat that I'd either court-martial you or promote you. It's been three, four years since your last promotion?"

Levitt smiled. "Six years."

Kalazanov gave Levitt a gold star. "Pin this on your uniform when you get out."

"What is it?" Sklenova asked.

"The rank insignia of a Brigadier General, one star," replied General Kalazanov.
He turned to Levitt again. "I'll enter this in the database immediately, the military courts do view the trust of a commanding officer favorably. You will not go to prison, I swear it."

Levitt nodded. "I hope not. God, I hope not."

OOC: The trial's still going on, so if you want to RP that you have a news representative at the trial, go ahead. Lt. Colonel Sklenova or General Kalazanov will field most of the questions your media have. :)

IC: Kalazanov and Sklenova returned to the trial. The defense and prosecution were still in their usual heated discussion, and Judge Dasakova was constantly threatening to hold Colonel Khalrov, the defense counsel, in contempt. Kalazanov and Sklenova sat in the spectator's box.

Levitt's antics won't get her sent up now, thought Kalazanov. She's stewing in her cell for a few days... Hopefully the jury wasn't too badly impacted against her.

OOC: The media's still out, covering the trial and its aftermath, you can still RP a news rep...

IC:

After several hours on the fifth day, the jury broke to deliberate. Sklenova sighed and faced one of the media representatives. "She's not going to go to prison, is she?" she asked.

The media representative didn't know what to say. "I... I don't think she will. I think that stunt actually impressed some of the young men on that jury. Half of them are in the 18-25 age group, which is funny because I was expecting more women in the 25-40 and 40-50 group given the defendant. But there are only four women there... This jury is awfully defendant-friendly."

"So," he continued, maintaining eye contact with the female officer, "your friend's probably going to walk."

The morning of the sixth day, in the courtroom

Brigadier General Levitt was brought into the courtroom. She was dressed in a standard prison jumpsuit with handcuffs on. She was not going to be showing her cleavage or knickers anymore in this trial. She was roughly shoved into a seat by the two guards. Dasakova glared at her. "You disrupt my courthouse proceedings behaving like a Western slut, you show up drunk fifteen minutes late to the trial, and you get a promotion?!"

Levitt grinned. "Shows that being a by-the-book soldier isn't always the way to advance." She cast a slightly apologetic glance at Colonel Sklenova. She was more adherent to regulations, and would never have pulled a stunt in court like that. Dasakova continued her tirade. "You're going to be sitting in jail as long as I can keep you there, even if the jury lets you walk! I'll have you scrubbing prison toilets, we don't treat contempt lightly here! You're going to have to start acting like a lady if you want to have any hope of a career!"

Levitt tuned her out. Dasakova was making an assumption about General Levitt that nobody who knew her would ever make, namely, that she was a lady. She most certainly was not. She could certainly act the part, at a General's Ball, on the arm of some distillery-smelling stoner twice her age, twice her weight, and at her 5'3", in many cases close to twice her height, too. But that was all it was, an act. In her normal life, and pretty much at any non-formal situation, she exuded the most frightful beer burps, just like a man. She cussed and swore like a man. The only difference between her and most men was the placement of her organs and the fact that she was shorter then most men.

When Dasakova finished her long-winded rant, she called in the jury. "How do you find the defendant, Rachel Charlene Levitt?"

A male juror, about 20, smiled at Levitt and grinned at Dasakova. "I find her very attractive, thank you very much." The jury laughed. Levitt laughed. Kalazanov laughed. Several media representatives laughed. Sklenova looked at the juror with concern. Dasakova glared at Levitt. "What is your opinion of her guilt or innocence?" she roared at the jury.

The smartassed young man grinned. "We, the jury, in the above entitled case, find the defendant, Rachel Charlene Levitt, not guilty of reckless conduct before the enemy."

An uproar. She was free. She would rejoin her comrades for a wild party in Najaster. No. She had been found not guilty, but there was still the contempt charge...

"General Levitt," said Dasakova, as if the word "General" left a bad taste in her mouth, "your case is closed, but for the contempt I will have you confined to the notorious military prison, Ward 58, for ten days."

Sklenova gasped. Ward 58 was the most brutal prison in Kahanistan. While guards were not allowed to abuse prisoners, most of the inmates of Ward 58 were war criminals of the lowest order. These were mostly soldiers who had committed the most heinous atrocities and tortures against enemy civilians or POW's, and were equally brutal to each other.

What Dasakova said next was even more shocking.

"Your cellmate will be the 350 pound butch and female rapist, Colonel Abia bint Abdul-Rahim al-Qaswa."

Colonel al-Qaswa was Levitt's predecessor as commander of her battalion. During an engagement with a foreign capitalist movement four years ago that was trying to raid Kahanistan's resources, al-Qaswa captured several dozen soldiers, including the leader of the capitalists. She had then ordered the leader to be head-shot and wrapped in a Soviet flag, then adopted by Kahanistan as its own, then thrown into the sewers to force the other prisoners to talk. When this failed, she had resorted to increasingly brutal tortures, slowly dissolving several in tanks of nitric acid, feeding others to alligators, and even oiling a tank engine in the blood of one, saying, "The machinery of capitalism is oiled in the blood of the people. So shall the machinery of socialism be oiled in the blood of capitalist filth."

The government was not very happy with her. Kalazanov had wanted her to be sent to Ward 58 for life, but the judges only gave her 30 years.

If Levitt was to spend ten days with this lunatic, there was a good chance she would not be the same woman when she left.

Levitt showed no emotion as the sentence was read. Sklenova burst into tears and left the room crying. Her friend and comrade was going to be made into mincemeat. Kalazanov grimaced. This is not good. Not good at all.

OOC: Was hoping for more people RP'ing news reps, but what the hell, there'll be another opportunity later.

IC:

Ward 58, the deserts of Kahanistan

Cellblock J

General Rachel Levitt walked down the corridor, flanked by two black-shirted guards. They threw her roughly into a cell with an extremely overweight woman in her mid-forties, with long, unkempt dark hair and Arab features.

"Colonel al-Qaswa?" asked General Levitt.

The woman nodded, clearly signaling that she didn't feel like having a cellmate, but on the other hand, she seemed depressed. Maybe she was lonely? Levitt spoke again.

"I'm General Rachel Levitt. I was in your battalion. Do you remember me?"

Al-Qaswa nodded. "Levitt? General? Now I remember you. The last time I saw you, you had just been promoted to colonel a couple years earlier. So you're a general now... How did you end up in here?"

She didn't know how to answer her former commander. "Remember when you and me and a few other women from the battalion went clubbing and that guy groped me and I slugged him and knocked his teeth down his throat?"

"Yes... I seem to have said that your temper would come back on you later."

"Well... it did. Seems that some military forces call both male and female officers 'sir.' Well, I wasn't reading up too heavily on foreign forces..."

"You slugged an allied soldier?"

"No... It was a border patrol officer out in the sticks, I was trying to get some supplies in past the border guard and they were really important to about 300,000 people, and he held me up, said 'Sir, they'll have to wait' or something like that, and I'm like, 'Sir?' and I blew his head off. 300,000 people were at stake."

"I see."

"But I was found not guilty, no evidence. I'm here for contempt. Ten days."

"Oh, I was looking forward to talking more with you... But I didn't want you to have to stay here forever. Ah... So, contempt. Which judge did you get?"

"Dasakova."

"Same as me... She was biased against me from the get-go."

"Same here..." said Levitt. She didn't feel like saying, "Some people don't like torturers." Instead, she continued, "She was biased against me too. Some people can't appreciate a good show."

"You put on a show with Dasakova? Are you crazy? Well, you're obviously crazy or you wouldn't be here. So... What did you do? Go in wearing jeans?"

"Worse than that."

"Jewelry?"

"Worse."

"Green hair?"

"Worse. Think showing up fifteen minutes later, drunk, in a cleavage-baring mini-dress and giving the media an eyeful."

"Levitt, you're insane. I don't know why they made you a general, but I'll give you some advice. Don't go flouting authority like that. You can bend the rules somewhat, just don't be so... overt about it. I mean, I've liked your flamboyance, the way you do what's natural for you... but you want to keep your military career intact. So... Why are you a general now?"

"I was promoted for my conduct in battle. General Kalazanov said if I did anything so crazy again he would court-martial me or promote me. And I'd gone six years without a promotion and was already on trial. I think he was joking, though. He'd probably always meant to promote me, it had been six years since I was last promoted."

"Oh, I see."

A burly blackshirt rapped on the cell door. "Lights out, no talking, lardass."

Levitt looked down at herself. She was stocky, but certainly not overweight. Before she could process the insult, however, al-Qaswa grabbed the guard by the neck and pulled his head in through the bars, emitting an enraged, animalistic scream. The guard bellowed as his neck was caught between the bars. Two other blackshirts used the Jaws of Life on him to remove him.

"Newbie. What did I tell you about teasing the hippo?" one guard said to his comrade. Al-Qaswa let out another feral scream.

Levitt looked at al-Qaswa. "And you were talking about my temper..."

"Well, they've been treating me like crap, calling me hippo and elephant and lardass... I hate this place. I want to rip someone to pieces now..." al-Qaswa snapped.

Levitt looked scared, but not seriously so. Al-Qaswa couldn't mean her? "So... what happened to you in here, anyway? You were close to my weight when I last saw you..."

"The prison commissary. They have fat-laden candy bars and potato chips and sour cream and mustard tomato sandwiches with extra mayo... and I've been eating a lot the last year or two, since my father died and I wasn't allowed to attend his funeral..." She broke down and cried. The two women embraced tightly. "Nobody here's treated me with any respect... until you came here..."

As the two guards returned from taking their comrade to the infirmary, they hollered at al-Qaswa, "OK, you're going to solitary for three days. And you'd better hope Peters's jaw works when he gets out, or you can look at another five years." They dragged her out of the cell.

A week later

Lieutenant Colonel Nadia Sklenova visited General Levitt in her cell. "You're OK. Dasakova said your cellmate was a rapist and a butch and all sorts of things..."

"She's actually really nice. Dasakova would be furious if she knew that, though. All she saw was the woman who dissolved live prisoners in acid and oiled tanks with their blood. But as long as you're not a capitalist terrorist, she's quite friendly. Don't want to piss her off, though, she pulled a guard's head through the bars who called her fat."

Sklenova knew not to say the large woman seated in the corner reading the latest Harlequin Romance novel WAS fat. "Yeah, those guards are dicks. They cavity searched me for over an hour, they're horrible. Half the time I wasn't sure I wasn't going to be handcuffed."

Al-Qaswa looked up from her book. "You're Nadia Sklenova, right? Rachel told me about you. I am Colonel Abia bint Abdul-Rahim al-Qaswa." She smiled, stood up and extended her hand. Sklenova shook it and smiled. "Yes..." She sized up the colonel. "Judge Dasakova said you were so evil... I broke down when I thought of my friend being tortured or beaten or whatever in here..."

Al-Qaswa clasped Sklenova's shoulder. "She had it in for me too. I had her at trial four years ago."

"Yeah, but I bet you didn't give the media a glimpse of your knickers or anything crazy like that." She laughed, imagining a 350 pound woman in a short dress flashing the media.

"No... but what you heard about me torturing prisoners is true. Not the ones here so much," she observed Sklenova's horrified reaction, "but some of the stubborn enemy POW's got on my nerves. I really am here for 30, for torture."

Sklenova looked shocked. This woman was admitting calmly she had tortured and murdered enemy POW's. She seemed so cold, detached from the enormity of her brutality... but she seemed to have a self-image as a kind and caring woman. She was certainly nice enough to her, and to her cellmate, so she wasn't strictly a sociopath... she had empathy for others... but possibly a sadistic or unstable personality. What Dasakova said about her being a butch rapist was probably slander intended to terrify Levitt.

The Release

General Levitt and Colonel al-Qaswa shook hands. "I trust we'll keep in touch," said Levitt. They hugged tightly, and al-Qaswa smiled sadly. "Yes... You'll have to write me until at least five years when I get my computer privileges back. The guards here don't take kindly to having their comrades' heads pulled through cell bars, and I don't exactly have a clean record here."

The women parted company finally. At the prison gate, more media, this time accompanied by paparazzi, wanted to speak to General Levitt, ask her questions, or even get her autograph. (OOC: You can still RP a news rep / paparazzo.) But right now, she really needed to party before she went back into battle.

Through the waves of the reporters, two people made way. Neither of them knew of each other, however.

One was George Swilferbleen, a reporter for Allanea Times. He extended a hand armed with a tape recorder through the first two rows of reporters, and shouted:

General Levitt! Are you aware of the fact that in many more civilised countries, like Allanea, you would be awarded for what you did, not imprisoned? Is it likely that this is politicised trial, General?

The other man was not a reporter. He was wearing a full jeans outfit – denim pants, denim shirt, even denim-covered shoes. Black wraparound sunglasses concealed his eyes as he raised a camera and took several pictures of Levitt – for the benefit of the Confederate Intelligence Agency.

OOC: While in another thread she's gone back to the battle, this thread takes place before the return to battle, thanks to the 'Fluid Time' concept in NS.

IC:

"Yes," said General Levitt rather crossly. "Normally in Kahanistan we don't resort to violence unless necessary, but dammit, it was necessary. They did this because the President, may God have mercy on him, wanted to make peace with the Xirnium. But by the time the trial started we were already allies, I think he just wanted more votes. Well, he's lost mine, and probably the votes of half of my battalion. General Kalazanov has something other than a brick between his ears, so he promoted me." She grinned at the reporter. "Now, I've got to get down to Al-Bahr in northwest Kahanistan and party until they ship me back, I'll be running convoys again." She looked at the guy snapping photos and smiled. "Are those going where I think they're going?" she asked, referring to the pictures.