“We’re going to have an ugly few years,” Kristofferson agreed. “But, as you told the Governor, Her Majesty will not leave those meshuggener be. We will hunt them down and we will make our people safe.”
“From your lips to whoever’s listening,” Roslyn murmured. She wasn’t very religious, though the exposure to the Sorprendidans’ faith had been interesting.
“Indeed. But speaking of Her Majesty,” Daalman said, “I have one more duty from her to discharge before we finish up this meeting. Chambers?”
“Sir?” Roslyn said, straightening her back and facing her commanding officer.
“Everything you did here was technically under your orders from Her Majesty as a Voice,” the Mage-Captain pointed out. “While you unquestionably rose above and beyond your duties as tactical officer of this ship, you operated entirely inside orders you had received.”
“I did my duty, sir. Nothing more,” Roslyn agreed, as calmly as she could.
“So I’m advised you told the Mage-Queen,” Daalman said with a chuckle. “Fortunately, neither she nor I nor the emergency promotion board she ordered convened agrees with you there.”
The Mage-Captain slid a velvet jeweler’s box across the table.
“This was a sufficient nightmare that I don’t know if there are going to be awards or medals out of it,” she told the younger woman. “But Her Majesty had some clear opinion that some recognition was due—and my own reports agreed with her.
“Open it,” Daalman ordered.
Roslyn obeyed. The golden pin inside wasn’t significantly different from the one she already wore at her collar. Many civilians might not even notice that the middle bar was thicker—but any Navy officer or spacer would.
It wasn’t the insignia of a Royal Martian Navy Lieutenant Commander. It was the insignia of a full Commander.
“Sir, I…”
“Will not be even in the youngest ten officers ever promoted to Commander,” Daalman told her bluntly. “Somewhere around number seventeen, in fact—there were a lot of battlefield promotions going around at the start of the war.”
Roslyn had received a battlefield commission at the same time, so that made sense. A lot of ships had fled from the overwhelming Republic surprise attack under the command of junior officers.
“It is the considered and weighted opinion of a board of eight senior officers that your actions on Sorprendidas were in the highest and best standards of the Protectorate of Mars and the Royal Martian Navy.”
Daalman snorted.
“Five out of eight officers on that board admitted that they would probably have given up and used lethal force on a massive scale to secure the city. I think that they may be doing themselves an injustice, but that you chose another course remains to your credit.
“A quarter-million people are alive today because of you. They are receiving medical treatment that will allow them to return to their lives at least physically restored. While they will all require immense mental-health assistance over the years to come, it is thanks to your determination that they were as innocent as everyone else that they are alive to receive that help.”
Daalman smiled thinly and delicately pushed the box a few centimeters closer to Roslyn.
“Take the damn insignia, Commander Chambers. You’re still going to be my tactical officer, and we have work to do.”
52
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
Roslyn couldn’t keep herself from touching the new insignia on her collar as Bolivar spoke, then shook her head at the Guardia officer.
“I think it’s more on the order of the ‘the reward for a job well done is another job,’” she told him. “I hear they’re considering you for Commissioner.”
“Maybe,” Bolivar said. “There are half a dozen Captains who distinguished themselves after Commissioner Petrovich died.” He paused. “Most of us didn’t even know he was dead. Communication in the Guardia was pretty rough there, even before you EMPed the city into the Stone Age.”
“Everything’s up and running now, though?” she asked.
“Full networks, full databases, the Guardia is back online and running,” he agreed. “That’s part of why I made contact.”
“How’s the treatment going?” Roslyn said.
“Better than expected,” Bolivar told her. “We’ve got the first ten thousand out of the hospitals already. They’re still going to need to be monitored for weeks at least, but they’re walking and talking and remember who they are.
“Can’t ask for more after everything that happened.”
“Thank god,” she said. “I can’t imagine the nightmare they’ve been through, though. It was bad enough from our side.”
“The doctors are setting up long-term psych treatment plans for, well, the entire city,” Bolivar told her. “We’re in control, but it’s still a mess. Power is expected to be back up everywhere tomorrow, but we’re not even entirely sure we’ve found all the bodies yet.”
She grimaced.
“Forgive me, but I’m glad I’m up here running air control instead of doing that,” she admitted.
“That’s fair,” he said. He shook his head. “I’ve got a few requests on that front, but first…I did manage to find the guy you were looking for. Sort of.”
“You found Killough?” Roslyn asked. “Thank God.”
She’d thought he’d been taken by whatever ninja/Mage/hacker had stolen the Orpheus files.
“Like I said, sort of,” Bolivar replied. “I guess…his family is almost lucky this mess happened. We normally only keep John Doe bodies on ice for about four weeks before they go in a pauper’s grave.”
Roslyn’s train of thought derailed.
“He’s dead?” she asked slowly. Angus Killough was dead. That…hurt, even against the scale of the crisis in Nueva Portugal. She hadn’t had the people to go after him. He’d clearly been of some value to his kidnapper…
Then the timeline caught up with her.
“What do you mean, he’s been dead for four weeks?” she demanded.
“I was wondering about that myself, since you weren’t here then,” Bolivar admitted. A file photo appeared on the screen next to the attractive Guardia officer. “John Doe One-Three-Five-Six,” he reeled off. “Pulled from the beach thirty-seven days, a bit over five weeks, ago.
“No evidence of trauma; autopsy suggested death by drowning. It looked like he’d been thrown off a boat with some
