Three Years in Trash Paradise

“Your Honor, I do not have all day,” Vera said, her voice cutting through the courtroom before the lawyers could start another round of barking at each other. She kept one hand under her belly and the other pressed against the side of her cage, not because she needed support from fear, but because her back was killing her and she was tired of pretending this circus deserved her full strength. “Everyone is tired here. Maybe none of you understand what it means to be pregnant because I am the first woman in three hundred years to actually carry children, but maybe I need to spell this out for you. I am five months pregnant with three babies inside me. My back hurts. I am hungry. I have no powers, no lawyer, and no patience left to listen to this trial over and over again. The lawyers made their case. Their clients want nothing to do with the children. Am I right?”

The courtroom went quiet again, but this time the silence had teeth. The judge looked down at the files in front of him, then at the three lawyers who suddenly seemed far less eager to speak. They had spent hours demanding punishment, dragging Vera’s name through every official record and public broadcast they could touch, and now she had placed the cleanest version of their demand directly in front of them. 

“Correct,” the judge said, his voice slower now.

“I agree,” Vera answered immediately. “I will not fight it. Second, since their clients are not demanding compensation from me, I also agree to that. I will post a public apology and admit guilt. I will ensure I protect the honor of the plaintiffs fully, since apparently their honor is the most fragile thing in this galaxy. So please proceed with the guilty verdict and send me wherever you feel is suitable.”

The lawyers froze. The judge did not know how to react either. Everyone in that courtroom had done their research, and for the past five months, Vera Ross had done everything possible to force the prince, the lord, and the general to acknowledge her and the unborn children. She had sent messages, filed petitions, caused public scandals, cried outside private gates, and clung to any possible legal thread that could tie those men to her future. That was the woman they expected. That was the woman they built this trial around. But the woman sitting in the cage now looked at them like they were wasting her afternoon, and that change made the entire case feel unstable.

Still, her words were on record now. Everything she said before could prove she was not guilty, or at least force the court into more hearings, more evidence reviews, and more public appearances none of the noble houses wanted. But instead of fighting, she had decided to step aside and let them hang themselves with their own demands. The lawyers understood it at the same time. The loophole they had planned to use was closing right in front of their faces. If the judge signed the order the way Vera framed it, the children would be legally hers, and their clients would lose the easiest way to reach them later. The only way to keep any contact now would be to offer money, support, or some form of responsibility, because parental rights did not survive public rejection without a cost.

Before any of them could move fast enough to fix the mistake, Vera spoke again.

“Oh, and Your Honor,” she said, her voice calm enough to make the first lawyer’s face turn pale, “no rights to the children means no compensation. Please add that to the record. Since the fathers made it clear they will not accept those children because they were not born in a proper marriage and because I took their dignity away, there is no need for their money either. Additionally, they all wanted me to abort the babies before. I have messages here to prove it. So let us all agree those children were made without their involvement, since that is what they want the galaxy to believe.”

Vera finished and gave the lawyers a knowing smile. It was small, almost polite, but it landed like a blade laid flat against the throat. She was not stupid, and worse for them, she knew too much. The men themselves were not as bad as this trial made them look. Vera understood that from the memories and from what she knew of the book. If they had stepped forward properly, she might have allowed some kind of controlled agreement, something clean, distant, and useful. But rights to the children were not something she was willing to gamble with. Not with the plot she remembered. Not with the brides who would enter the story later. Not with children who, in the original timeline, would not even reach three years old before dying under the hands of women smiling beside their fathers.

She was not bonded with the babies like a real mother was supposed to be, at least not in the soft, glowing way people in this world loved to describe motherhood. Pregnancy was uncomfortable, annoying, painful, and badly timed. The children inside her had dragged her into a legal war before she even understood the names of the men involved. But they were hers now. She had lived through betrayal, and she would not be Vera if she simply abandoned three lives because protecting them was inconvenient. If the fathers wanted to throw those children away in public, she would make sure the law helped her carry them far enough that no bride, noble family, or delayed paternal instinct could easily reach them.

The judge watched her for a long moment. His expression was controlled, but his fingers tapped once against the file before he stopped himself. He felt bad for the girl, and that irritated him because pity had no place in a sentencing chamber. Still, anyone in the galaxy should have been fighting for a woman who had become pregnant naturally after three hundred years of empty wombs, artificial heirs, failed fertility chambers, and dying bloodlines. The three idiots involved should have been on their knees thanking whatever old power still existed. Instead, they had dismissed her, humiliated her, and allowed their lawyers to turn the first natural pregnancy in centuries into a reputation case.

“Prisoner 0001, please stand,” the judge finally said.

Vera pushed herself up carefully. The movement was slower than she wanted, and she hated that every eye in the room watched the effort it took. Her back pulled sharply, her stomach tightened, and the babies shifted like they were also tired of the room. She stood anyway, her chin lifted, her expression steady, her fingers resting over her belly with a quiet possessiveness that had nothing soft in it.

“For the crime you committed,” the judge said, reading from the order as his secretary began preparing the official document, “you are sentenced to three years of exile in the garbage sector. You will be allowed to enter galaxy lands for medical checks and for your babies’ registration paperwork. Additionally, once a week, you may enter approved trade zones to buy food and basic supplies. The parental rights of the three named plaintiffs are removed by request and by the defendant’s agreement. The public apology must be posted within five days, covering all stated facts and clearing the names of the plaintiffs. No monetary compensation is granted to you or to your children. Do you agree?”

The courtroom seemed to hold its breath. The sentence sounded harsh to everyone else. Exile to the garbage sector was supposed to be humiliating, dangerous, and nearly impossible for someone without powers. It was where broken ships, failed colonies, toxic scrap, illegal dumps, and forgotten workers were sent to rot. For a pregnant human woman, it should have sounded like a death sentence with paperwork attached.

Vera’s eyes shined when she heard it, and then she smiled.

“No objections, Your Honor,” she said, and finally sat back down.