The entire debrief took over an hour, and Roslyn felt completely wrung out when she finished.
“The sequenced EMPs worked,” she told them. “We believe we have neutralized all active quantities of the Orpheus weapon on the surface of Sorprendidas. There are likely samples still stored in the lab that we will locate once the cyberwarfare team cracks open their security.”
“Then you will give your final order as Voice to those teams,” Alexander said quietly. “Any samples of the Orpheus weapon are to be held safely until we have confirmed we can treat this post-Orpheus syndrome, and then completely destroyed.
“I want nothing left of this monstrosity Ulla Lafrenz created,” the Mage-Queen told them. “We have no need of such a weapon, and I have no desire to see it in the hands of anyone who would threaten the Protectorate.”
“We don’t have many enemies left,” Montgomery noted, “but the capacity to manufacture the Orpheus weapon would turn a small terrorist movement into a planetary-scale threat.”
“I will make certain it is all destroyed,” Roslyn promised.
“Good. There are more resources on their way to Sorprendidas as we speak,” the Prince-Regent told her. “Not just the warships Mage-Captain Daalman already summoned but humanitarian aid and industrial-support ships.
“It will take time to rebuild Nueva Portugal. Sorprendidas could do it alone, but—”
“No planet in my Protectorate is alone,” Alexander finished for her Regent. “The tone of the Cardinal-Governor’s request for assistance was such that I do not know if he truly believed he would get it.
“He will. And more. Nueva Portugal will be rebuilt at the expense of the Protectorate,” the Queen concluded. “That will be made formal in the next few days, but you are welcome to share that with Governor Guerra as my representative.
“As for yourself, Mage-Lieutenant Commander Chambers, you have been our Voice well and faithfully. Your mission appears done, and so your Warrant ends,” Alexander said formally. “I am beyond grateful for your service. Thousands live who might have died if I had sent another—or not sent a Voice at all.
“What reward would a faithful servant ask of the Mountain?”
Roslyn stared at the wallscreen in utter surprise.
“My Queen, I…” She swallowed. “I did nothing for a reward. This was my duty as an officer of the Royal Martian Navy, as a bearer of the Warrant you gave me…as a Mage and as a human being. I did nothing I would not expect of another.”
“Your expectations of your fellow officers and Mages, Lieutenant Commander, may be rather high,” Montgomery said drily. “Though they do align with mine.”
“If you do not wish it, I won’t force adulation and award upon you,” Alexander told Roslyn—but there was a mischievous smile on the young monarch’s face.
“I did my duty, nothing more,” Roslyn said.
“You know the reward for a job well done is another job, yes?” Montgomery asked. “Your Warrant will expire once you have given the orders for the disposition of the Orpheus weapon, but your service will not be forgotten.”
“I have a very short list of officers I know and trust, Lieutenant Commander,” the Mage-Queen of Mars said calmly. “It grows by the day, but you are on it, and believe me when I say you will likely regret that one day.”
Alexander smiled.
“For now, I believe we have exhausted you enough. Thank you, Roslyn Chambers, for honoring my Protectorate as I could expect far too few to do.”
51
The naval component of the cyberwarfare team working away in the Orpheus lab reported to Roslyn, which meant she was the one interrupted when Chief Trevis called up to the ship.
Of course, what Trevis interrupted was Roslyn operating as air traffic controller, supporting the Sorprendidans’ efforts in Nueva Portugal. The destroyer’s sensors were notably better than those available to Sorprendidas’s people, so they were providing data and backup hands to the locals.
It was the work of moments to pass her current workload over to Mage-Lieutenant Samuels, the officer of the watch.
“Chief,” she greeted Trevis as she opened the video call. “I’ve been watching for your call. Any updates?”
“Yes, sir,” the noncom said crisply. “We’ve found the medical files on post-Orpheus syndrome. With your permission, I’ll forward them to the locals immediately.”
“Granted. Get those files over right now,” she ordered. “Hell, hang up on me if you need to.”
Trevis chuckled.
“I’d already passed them to the local cyber team for packaging and distribution,” he admitted. “They did a lot of the grunt work, but it was our people at the point. The software, the gear, everything here was the Republic’s best.
“Better, even. I did some training sessions on what was supposed to be the Intelligence Directorate’s last generation of hardware and software,” he noted. “This stuff was better.”
“And you’re through?” she asked.
“Yeah, but…”
He trailed off, shrugging helplessly.
“That doesn’t sound positive, Chief,” Roslyn said quietly.
“We had a crack in the armor from the access logins you got from the security guard,” Trevis told her. “It still took us a while to get control of the system, and even then, there were high-security sections we didn’t have control of.
“Once inside those sections, we were expecting to collide with more security and more encrypted files,” the noncom concluded. “Except…we didn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” Roslyn said.
“The files on post-Orpheus syndrome were right there, with the equivalent of a giant flashing neon sign pointing to them,” Trevis told her. “Someone had decrypted them and put them behind the security barriers in the first place we’d look.
“Everything else is gone.”
She blinked, taking a moment to be sure she understood what the Chief was saying.
“The files were deleted?” she asked.
“Copied, deleted, hashed and destroyed,” Trevis confirmed. “We have the post-Orpheus syndrome treatment records and experiments and the general records on the prisoners. Our less-secured files gave us a lot of logistical detail on the laboratory, but everything on the Orpheus weapon and the Orpheus Project itself were behind the high-security barriers.
“All of that is gone.”
Roslyn sighed grimly. They’d known someone had accessed Lafrenz’s computers, but they
