Burned
I blinked and tried to keep my poise, but it was next to impossible in the face of how I was being torn apart by Chantry. I'd never seen him so irate. Irate at me of all people!
I didn't deserve any of the condescending rhetoric that he was heaping upon me, but I remained silent. I withdrew protectively within myself trying to limit the impact of Chantry's words upon me.
I wasn't the only one within the room. The entire board was in attendance. Chantry's harsh and unfounded accusations were hard enough to take without the embarrassment of being dressed down before my peers. I had never wanted to do anything but please the people within this room. Small chance of that now.
"Are you even listening to me Utah?" Chantry called out in question.
"Every word sir." I responded with in a measured tone.
For a brief moment I saw an emotion of some kind flick across Chantry's eyes, but then he continued on harshly, "This panel, after taking more than a year to deliberate what happened at the Code tower, has found you unforgivably at fault for the massacre that took place there that night. Over 30 of our own highly trained and experienced agents and 200 some commandos, the finest soldiers the world could offer, all dead, because Company G failed in its objective to halt the flow of reinforcements into the city. The depth of your betrayal extends even farther on a personal level for me. By your own words you acknowledge that you left my oldest and closest friend, Shalako, to die while you carried back a dead commando to make yourself look good!"
"He wasn't dead when I left Shalako and it wasn't to make myself look good!" I bit out in retort unable to hold back against the injustice of what had been said in this impromptu courtroom.
Chantry didn't relent in his attack, "And I suppose we have to take your word on that don't we, because as the only surviving member of Company G there is no one else to collaborate your story, which in your case is fortunate, even as it is unfortunate that justice cannot be given this day for the honorable dead that you are so squarely at fault for! I would have you exiled to a remote island for the rest of your life, if there was but one hint of collaborating evidence to prove your story wrong, but cruelly there is not. Agent Utah Blaine, as this court of your peers has been unable to mount the case by which to see justice done it is my task to inform you that you are no longer an operative of this agency. You are henceforth cast out to make your own way. If you attempt to contact any member of this agency for reassignment your life will be forfeit. If you divulge any sensitive knowledge, as to the interest of this agency to a third-party your life will also be forfeit. Do you have any questions?"