227: Chapter 227 The End of the Nemesis: Judgment and Repentance?
The moment James Craig was escorted to the Ark, the entire GDA news network was shaken.
Three days later, a publicly broadcast trial was held in the largest assembly hall of the Ark. This hall, which had hosted countless meetings that determined the fate of humanity, was packed to capacity. Representatives from major global coalition zones, journalists, representatives of the families of fallen soldiers, and billions of virtual viewers connected via the Kunlun-Education world all watched as the alloy doors slowly opened.
James Craig, escorted by two fully armed soldiers, walked into the assembly hall.
He wore a drab prison uniform, his head was shaved clean, and the swelling and bruises on his face had not yet fully faded. The former CIA director, once sharp-eyed and impeccably suited, pulling the strings of countless conspiracies from the shadows, was now like a weed withered by frost—hunched over and stumbling in his gait.
But his eyes still burned with that unsettling light. It was no longer madness, nor hatred, but a deeper void—a sense of emptiness, as if he had seen through everything and cared for nothing.
The guards brought him to the defendant's dock. It was a square area enclosed by a special transparent energy barrier, designed to ensure security while allowing everyone to clearly see his face.
The presiding judge was a highly respected female justice from the Europa coalition zone, her hair silver and her expression stern. She struck the gavel, and her voice traveled across the globe through countless channels:
"Defendant, James Craig, please confirm your identity."
James Craig stood there, silent. He simply tilted his head slightly, gazing at the massive holographic star map on the dome of the assembly hall—on the map, the dim light of the fourth Scavenger still hovered quietly at the edge.
"Defendant, please confirm your identity," the judge repeated.
James Craig finally reacted. He lowered his head to look at the judge, his lips curling slightly into a smile that was hard to tell whether it was mocking or bitter:
"Identity? Craig, James Craig, former CIA Asia Bureau Chief, former head of the pluto project, former spiritual leader of the Free Human Front... do you need anything more?"
His voice was hoarse, yet every word was clearly audible in the silent assembly hall.
The judge frowned slightly but ignored his mockery and began to read the indictment. It was a voluminous dossier recording all of Craig's crimes over the decades: from his early days orchestrating technological blockades and espionage against the Dragon Country, to leading the rebellion on the "Underworld" platform, to being the mastermind behind the Freedom Day proclamation, and finally, the final phase of the pluto project that nearly destroyed the Ark...
Each charge was accompanied by countless pieces of evidence, witnesses, and video footage. When the families of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives on the soaring heavens saw the final images of their loved ones, they couldn't help but sob softly. When the engineers injured at the Guanghan Palace base saw the horrific state of the contaminated refinery, they clenched their fists.
The indictment took a full three hours to read.
When the judge finally finished reading the last page and asked, "Defendant, do you plead guilty?" all eyes were focused on Craig.
Craig remained silent for a long time. His gaze swept over the faces filled with anger, sorrow, and hatred in the assembly hall, and over the countless virtual figures connected via holographic projection from across the globe. Finally, his eyes landed on Lin Mo, who was sitting in the front row.
Lin Mo sat there quietly, his face devoid of expression. He simply watched Craig, like one watching a once-terrible opponent who had finally reached the end of the road.
Craig suddenly smiled. In that smile, there was no madness, no mockery, only a profound peace that came after despair.
"Plead guilty?" he repeated, muttering, then spoke slowly, his voice hoarse yet clear, "What do you want to hear from me? Do you want to hear me repent? Do you want to hear me say 'I'm sorry'?"
He shook his head: "It's useless. Those I caused to die won't come back to life because of an 'I'm sorry.' The families broken because of me won't be made whole because of my repentance. What you want is not for me to plead guilty, not for me to repent—what you want is to see a sinner finally bow his head, to give yourselves closure, to give history an answer."
His voice grew louder, echoing through the assembly hall: "But I cannot give you that answer. Because my sins cannot be settled by a few pleas or a few confessions. My sins are the names carved on countless tombstones, the wreckage drifting in the starry sky, the final tear of those soldiers who could never return to their families!"
He suddenly raised his shackled hands, pointing at the star map on the dome, pointing toward the direction of the fourth Scavenger: "You think that by judging me, it's over? No! The real trial is still out there! Before that cold, unresponsive 'gardener'! Before that 'test' whose outcome none of us know! I and all of you are being judged! It's just that my trial came first!"
A deathly silence filled the assembly hall.
The judge struck the gavel, wanting to stop his speech, but Craig no longer cared. His voice gradually lowered, lower and lower, eventually turning into a mutter:
"Repentance? I have no repentance. Because I never regret anything I have done. In that position, in that era, I could only do that. A hundred times over, I would still do the same. This is fate, not a choice..."
His eyes began to lose focus, and his body swayed slightly. The escorting soldiers instinctively moved closer.
"But..." Craig suddenly raised his head again, and in those hollow eyes, a flicker of extremely faint light flashed, "If... if there is truly anything worth regretting..."
His lips moved, as if wanting to say something. But the light vanished in an instant, and his face was once again covered by that hollow peace.
"Forget it, there's no point in saying these things." He lowered his head, "I plead guilty. All the crimes, I admit them. No need to ask anymore."
The judge was stunned. She had expected a long, confrontational trial, but Craig just… pleaded guilty?
"Defendant, do you require a defense attorney to speak? Or do you have any mitigating circumstances to state?" the judge asked.
Craig shook his head and said no more.
The trial entered the sentencing phase. The prosecutor listed every one of Craig's crimes, each sufficient for a death sentence. Yet Craig just stood there quietly, as if none of this had anything to do with him.
Finally, the judge struck the gavel:
"Defendant James Craig, you are found guilty of thirty-seven major crimes, including crimes against humanity, war crimes, treason, and murder. By unanimous decision of the GDA Supreme Court, you are sentenced to—death, to be carried out immediately. Method of execution: Space Exile."
Space Exile was a capital punishment newly established after the formation of the GDA. It involved placing the criminal in a special single-person pod and launching it into deep space at the edge of the Solar System, leaving them to await the natural end of their life in endless darkness and solitude. No pain, no fear, only eternal loneliness.
This was considered the most merciful, yet also the most cruel, way to treat the most heinous of criminals.
Upon hearing the verdict, Craig's face remained devoid of expression. He simply looked up, gazing for one last time at the star map on the dome, toward the direction of the fourth Scavenger.
"Exile..." he muttered, "Not bad. At least it's much cleaner than the things I intended to do before."
He was escorted out of the hall, toward the single-person pod that would carry him into eternal darkness. As he passed Lin Mo, his footsteps paused slightly.
Lin Mo looked up at him.
Their eyes met.
Craig's lips moved, as if wanting to say something. But in the end, he said nothing, just gave a slight nod and continued walking forward.
In that nod, there was admission of defeat, relief, and perhaps a trace of... respect for his opponent that even he was unwilling to admit?
No one knew.
Five hours later, a single-person pod was ejected from the launch silo of the Ark, and propelled by its thrusters, it accelerated away toward the edge of the Solar System.
Inside the pod, Craig looked through the small porthole at the increasingly distant, azure planet. A tear finally rolled down his face.
No one saw that tear.
And no one knew whether that tear was shed for himself, or for that home belonging to all of humanity, which he had once tried to destroy and could now only gaze at from afar.
"Perhaps... there really was a better path..." his lips moved silently, speaking the last words of his life.
He closed his eyes, letting the lonely pod carry him, bearing all his sins and transgressions, along with that faint, unspoken regret, flying toward the eternal, dark, and boundless starry sky.
Three days later, the pod's signal vanished into the interference at the edge of the Kuiper Belt.
James Craig, the nemesis who had brought human civilization to the brink of collapse several times, finally ended his life, full of controversy and sin, in endless darkness and solitude.
There was no grand funeral, no mourning crowd, only a cold record plaque engraved with his name and dates of birth and death, kept in the "Register of Sinners" in the GDA Historical Archives.
And at the edge of the distant starry sky, the fourth Scavenger still hovered quietly. Its dim core seemed to flicker slightly in the direction where Craig's pod had disappeared.
In that flicker, was it an evaluation, a record, or...