322. Bir-Brakt (Sea of Stars), a member world of the Linobir Disarchy, holds the unique distinction in the legal history of the Worlds of being the sole planet to sentence a criminal to death by elocution.
This was, of course, a mistake. The judge presiding in the case of the serial killer¹ Moln, of clan Brakt - to wit, Supreme Lord High Unanswerable Planetary Justice Renk - was old for a linobir, and while aging had not robbed him of his wits, it had robbed him of his eyesight and ability to spell. It had also sharpened his already considerable temper, and when the clerk to whom he passed his judgment dared to comment on the word in question, Renk demanded that his writ be carried out exactly as he had set it down.
Which was correct. He hadn't titled himself "Unanswerable" to be asked damnfool questions by selffucking larvae, after all.
Easy enough to correct, one might think, in most legal systems?
However, no-one from the Accuser's Second (the Accuser himself having already been... removed from the case) cared to challenge Supreme Lord High Unanswerable Planetary Justice Renk on this point, insofar as his judicial rules allowing him to personally shoot those he held in contempt of court² were both well known and recently demonstrated, and Supreme Lord High Unanswerable Planetary Justice Renk being a good example of a ssemdach, a linobir term approximately translatable as "senile, but still heavily armed".
As such, a teacher of elocution was swiftly procured from the League by the offer of a generous salary³ to satisfy the terms of the writ, and was provided by the executing bailiff with both a fulgurator and the remote to Moln's shock implant in the hope that she'd take the hint and do accidentally what the court was supposed to do in the first place. Needless to say, this did not happen.
Instead, Moln survived another dozen local years until Supreme Lord High Unanswerable Planetary Justice Renk passed away in his bathtub and was replaced by Ever-Watchful and Inexorable Hammer of Planetary Justice Pelkat, who chose to review Moln's case during an impromptu review of long-serving prisoners, and resentenced him to execution, not by electrocution, but by a single blow from his 62 lb. judicial gavel⁵.
The elecutionary was paid a generous bonus and returned to the League with one hell of a story to tell, and Moln of clan Brakt entered galactic history not for his murders, but rather for, and I quote, "Being the most well-spoken, eloquent, and courteous selffucker ever to grace a Disarchy execution block, offworlders included."
A Treasury of 1,729 Legal Gems, Nodematrix Press
- In linobir parlance, basically, "cheater".
- Or annoyance of court, or wasting his time in court, or not showing sufficient deference to the court, or not paying the traditional lubrication to the court.
- Also a bodyguard, a shotgun, and a writ of legal immunity⁴.
- "Touch this one and it's your ass. - Renk."
- Hence, the title.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://eldraeverse.com/2026/09/15/legal-courtesies/