Callie clucked her tongue. “Demonstrably untrue. You forcibly boarded another ship, without any authority to do so. That’s piracy. We can put that charge aside, though. I doubt we’ll even get to it; no reason to charge you for littering when you’re already being executed for murder, after all. Prosecution, make your case.”

“We have recorded evidence of the destruction of Meditreme Station,” the ship said. “We have recordings of the spokesperson from your ship confessing to causing that destruction. We have simulations that indicate the attack could have only come from your ship, as there were no other vessels in the vicinity.”

“Defense?” Callie said. “Do you have anything to refute that evidence or call any of those assertions into question?”

“Certainly,” the ship said.

“Wait!” Lantern stirred restlessly. “How can the ship be the prosecution and the defense?”

“Computers are very smart, and good at compartmentalizing,” Callie said. “Now shut up.”

“The confession is inadmissible,” the ship said. “Liar testimony is never considered credible, and is automatically dismissed. The existence of technology like the bridge generator on this very vessel means that another ship could have destroyed Meditreme Station and then escaped through a bridge, undetected, before we arrived, perhaps even to intentionally frame the Liars. We also have no direct evidence that this Liar came from the same ship that attacked us: she could have been hiding on board since Meditreme Station, or earlier, despite the presence of this purported ‘boarding pod.’ The case against the defendant is purely circumstantial.”

Callie nodded. “I’ll take that under consideration. Lantern the Liar, do you have anything to say in your own defense? Not that it matters, since Liar testimony is assumed to be false by definition, but giving you the opportunity to speak is a necessary formality before I pass judgment and sentence you.”

“I am not Lantern the Liar,” the Liar said. “I am Lantern the Truth-Teller. I am Lantern-Who-Remembers. I do not lie.”

“All Liars lie.”

“We have our reasons,” Lantern said. “The clouds of falsehoods that surround us are a great comfort, because they distract us from a truth too painful to contemplate. But some of my people are tasked with upholding the truth, remembering our past, and safeguarding our future against the very threats the rest of us are desperate to forget. I am a member of the truth-telling tribe, as were the others on the ship your Axiom artifact destroyed.” She shifted in the restraints. “Surely you can admit that my people do not lie about everything. Otherwise we would be useless to you as technicians and engineers, and impossible as trading partners. In most everyday interactions, we do not lie about anything that impacts our ability to negotiate and work with and live alongside humans. Can we stipulate to that?”

Callie frowned. Liars never admitted they told lies. It was always a misunderstanding or a translation error or someone else telling a lie. This was getting strange. “So stipulated.”