“She tried, at least,” Roslyn conceded. “And I managed not to throw her into a wall, which I consider a small personal triumph.” She sighed. “I promised I’d tell you she was cooperative and helpful and that should be considered in future assessments of her sentence.”
“I’ll pass it along,” he agreed. “Will we need her again or should I have her sent back to her cell?”
“We’re done with her,” Roslyn said after a moment’s thought. Either the locations and account numbers would help, or they wouldn’t. There was no way that they were getting anything else useful from Jackson—the presence of ad Aaron confirmed they were looking for the right people.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Mage-Commander,” Bolivar noted. “Is there…anything we should be looking at?”
“Yeah.” She gestured to Killough. “Ensign, give Captain Bolivar the account numbers that Ms. Jackson provided us. The Guardia is going to be better able to trace the money than we are—and following the transactions might help them roll up more of her former organization, as well.”
Killough quickly loaded a datachip and passed it over to Bolivar.
“What happens now, Commander?” Bolivar asked.
“I take the data Ms. Jackson provided and compare it against everything we’ve already pulled together on these people,” Roslyn told him. “Then, if we’re only moderately lucky, I go kick down another set of secret doors that actually has a bioweapon lab behind them.”
Bolivar grimaced.
“The last set of doors is giving me a headache,” he admitted. “The lawyers aren’t going to succeed in arguing against probable cause on your part, but they’re already set up to try and have filed an injunction to have the prisoners released on the grounds of violation of their habeas corpus rights.”
“No offense, Captain, but the local mob isn’t my problem,” Roslyn said. “By no means do I mind that we accidentally ripped apart a major smuggling operation with links to human trafficking, but my focus is on the source of this damn weapon.”
“I hear you,” he conceded. “I will need statements from you and your Marines on the warehouse eventually, though.”
“I’ll have Captain Daalman forward appropriately redacted versions of our reports,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t offer better right now. That said, I don’t expect Huntress to leave Sorprendidas soon unless something goes very wrong.
“We’ll be available when you actually end up in court…assuming my main mission is resolved.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be Song of the Huntress’s tactical officer?” Bolivar asked.
“Any officer of Her Majesty’s Navy must be prepared to handle ancillary duties as required,” Roslyn replied virtuously. “I cannot really say more than that.”
“Fair.” He sighed. “My superiors have asked me to pass on the request to tell us before you launch an aerial assault in the city next time.” He chuckled. “I recognize the value of surprise and the complexity of the situation, but it does help us provide backup if needed.”
“Captain Bolivar, if I find the people I’m after, calling the Guardia in for backup is only going to result in more dead Guardia,” Roslyn said quietly. “The only people I’m going after these bastards with are Marines.
“I may not have found my enemy yet, Captain, but I know who they are, and I will not underestimate them.”
Connor ad Aaron was a name to conjure with in her head, after all. The man had successfully hacked every record needed to infiltrate his team of Augments as Mage-Admiral Alexander’s security detail from the Protectorate Royal Guard. He’d kidnapped Jane Alexander and Roslyn Chambers from the middle of a Protectorate battle fleet, leaving everyone believing them dead.
Part of her was grimly certain that if he’d remained responsible for their security at Styx, the Republic’s continuity-of-government station in Chrysanthemum, she never would have escaped.
Instead, it seemed, he’d ended up here. Roslyn wasn’t sure what to do about that…but she was sure she couldn’t underestimate him again.
Back in the shuttle, Roslyn leaned against her chair and took a moment to close her eyes and attempt to decompress. Instead, a slew of memories of meeting with the big Mage who’d held her captive for weeks of transit flickered across her mind, and she exhaled a long sigh.
“I’m guessing ad Aaron is a name that means something to someone,” Killough said in the silence.
“Run Jackson’s locations against the map from Triple Q,” Roslyn ordered, ignoring the question. “Mooren, is the squad ready?”
“Give us five to lock into exosuits, and we’re ready to drop and rock at your order, Commander,” the Marine replied. “Do we have a target?”
“It’ll take us more than five minutes to answer that question,” Roslyn replied. “I need to record a message back to Huntress to send on the Link. Ad Aaron was presumed dead in the destruction of Styx Station.”
“RID?” Killough asked quietly.
“Yeah. He was the son of an ass who kidnapped Mage-Admiral Alexander,” Roslyn said. “And me. I remember him and none of it’s pleasant.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but the fact that she’d crushed on the attractive Royal Guardsman Mage before finding out what he really was contributed to the sense of betrayal. And now, he’d been involved in this kind of monstrosity?
“If people have been going into that facility, they have to have been coming out, right?” she continued, her eyes still closed as she struggled with her memories and her traumas. “Mooren, did we see an increase in…I don’t know, John Doe bodies?”
“I’m not as good at this as you are, but I’ll take a look,” the Marine replied. “Looping Knight in.”
“I ran the analysis already,” Killough admitted. “Plus…well, Jackson’s numbers still don’t cover the full excess-missing-persons number, even if all of her kidnapping was here in Nueva Portugal.”
“Which it wouldn’t be,” Roslyn sighed. “How many people are we looking at here, Killough?”
The shuttle headrest made for a solid physical focus as she tried very hard to keep her mind on the moment and the task in front of them, but past and present horrors were rushing together far too quickly.
“Over the last four years, at least a
