A weight sank into Roslyn’s stomach. Thirty thousand dead. Intellectually, she understood what everyone was saying about it not being her fault, but that hurt.
“Speaking of identification, I need you to see if you can find someone,” she said. “His name is Angus Killough. I’m forwarding you what I can of his file, but he was instrumental in us getting as far as we did.”
“Who is he?” Bolivar asked.
“Even at this point, some stuff is still classified, Victoriano,” she said with a small smile. “I don’t know what happened to him, and I’m hoping your wellness checks will help find him.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Quietly,” he promised. “The city is…no longer a thing of chaos, but it will be time before we fully have a grasp on what happened. Our people are going to have a mental block on this mess for a long time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Wasn’t your fault,” Bolivar repeated. “And, as I understand it, you arranged the next best thing to justice we’re going to get.”
“Yeah,” Roslyn admitted. “Lafrenz is not going to stand trial. She’s dead.”
“And God will judge her,” the Sorprendidan man told her. “I’ll make sure my people keep you in the loop, Mage-Commander. We will almost certainly talk again, but if we don’t…thank you, Roslyn.
“It was an honor to work with you. You did all we could have asked and more. Thank you,” he repeated.
“I did my job, Captain. Just like you.”
“And sometimes, that’s more than anyone could possibly ask,” Bolivar said. “You saved us.”
“A lot of people working together saved Nueva Portugal,” Roslyn told him. “I’m just glad we managed it at all!”
“Sir?”
Roslyn looked up from her desk after ending the call with Bolivar. A junior petty officer stood in the doorway. He was probably roughly her own age, but he looked nervous, being in her office.
“Yes, Petty Officer…?”
“Petty Officer Second Class Giraldo Coumans, sir,” he said with a crisp salute. “We have a Link communication request for you from Mars. You’re to report to the secure communications center.”
Coumans looked nervous, clearly concerned about passing on orders to a superior officer. He was just the messenger, though—and Roslyn could guess who the order actually came from.
“Understood, Petty Officer Coumans. Thank you. Do you know who the request is from?”
“The Prince-Regent, sir,” the noncom managed to squeak out.
As Roslyn had expected. Time to face the music for the use of the Warrant.
50
The secure communications chamber was set up as a standard conference room, with a Navy-issue standard table connected to a full wallscreen connected to the Link FTL communicator. Cut off from every other part of the ship, it was theoretically immune to eavesdropping of any kind.
Roslyn took her seat gingerly and tapped a command to close the room and accept the call. The wallscreen lit up, fading from metal into the crowned-mountain seal of the Protectorate—and then a moment later into the image of a slim middle-aged woman.
“Ah, Mage-Lieutenant Commander Roslyn Chambers?” she asked. “I’m Moxi Waller, the Prince-Regent’s secretary and personal assistant. Please hold on while I connect the Prince-Regent and the Mage-Queen.”
The screen dissolved back into the crowned mountain before Roslyn could even question the involvement of the Mage-Queen. She stared blankly at the seal for several seconds before it faded into a split-screen view.
Damien Montgomery was on the right side of the screen, his gloved hands resting on the big wooden desk in his office, the room she’d last seen him in. There were no babies or kittens in the room this time, but the Prince-Regent looked pleased with himself.
Her Majesty, Kiera Alexander, Mage-Queen of Mars, occupied the left half of the screen. The petite redheaded monarch was wearing the last thing Roslyn had ever expected to see her Queen in: a dress. It was a slim-fitting white sheath dress that stretched well below the camera view, and the young Mage-Queen also wore a relieved expression.
“Thank you,” Alexander stage-whispered. “I’m afraid I’ve been pulled away from the reception for the arrival of the new Legatan Senator. What a shame.”
“Eva Abatangelo will be an important part of the new Senate,” Montgomery said gently. “The election should have been a year ago, but…better late than never.”
“I like Eva,” Alexander countered. “I don’t like her head of staff, and the party was being barely tolerable. Besides, this is actually important.”
“It is. Chambers, are you all right?” Montgomery asked Roslyn. “The last report we had from Mage-Captain Daalman said you were injured?”
“Unconscious, not injured, I hope,” Roslyn corrected. “I took a dose of Exalt to protect the safe zone we’d established. I crashed afterward, exactly as expected.” She grimaced. “I don’t plan on repeating the experience.”
“I’ve never taken it,” Montgomery admitted. “But I’m told it’s not a pleasant experience.”
“Given the feeling of power from using the stuff, I imagine that’s intentional,” Roslyn admitted. Though it could also link to the fact that the medication was extremely dangerous—potentially lethal—for non-Mages.
“Captain Daalman told us the situation was mostly resolved thanks to you,” Alexander noted. “I want your observations and assessment of the situation. Both as it unfolded and the final result.
“You did, after all, bear my Voice through all of this,” the young Queen said calmly and firmly.
“I had hoped not to use it,” Roslyn said quietly. “But the situation rapidly fell out of my control. I’ve never encountered anything like the Orpheus weapon before.”
“No one in the Protectorate ever has,” Montgomery reminded her. “It represents a fusion of magic and technology that worries me. I had hoped that we could use the developments in magitech that Finley worked on to benefit humanity, not create new ways to violate and hurt people.”
“Finley appears to have sourced some monsters for his service,” Roslyn agreed. She took a deep breath and considered the situation.
“I think it’s best to start at the beginning and go through as much as I can,” she told them. “Our operation began when we
