“I still don’t uand why you wanted me to send those two to the Family,” I moaned as Hel and I made our way back to the Marsupial. “I could have had the beavers throw something together by the time we got back.”Hel sighed. “You ’t keep people in a cage thrown together out of rebar and barbed wire. There’s a certain minimum level of care you o provide prisoners. Otherwise people will cim they were treated unjustly at the trial.”

  “They tried to drop a pte on people; they deserve it,” I grumbled. “At least guarantee me that they aren’t going to get any special treatment while they’re detained.”

  “Stuffed in isotion cells and provided with only the basics,” Hel promised.

  “Fine, I’ll send them to the Family headquarters,” I finally grumbled. “It’ll save me the trouble of pulling the Beavers off their existing projects.”

  “You’re such a benevolent person,” Hel snorted.

  As soon as our Kodiak docked with the Marsupial I made my way back up to the bridge. The ship had dropped low enough to lower the cables and start retrieving the pods, so it wouldn’t be too long until the Marsupial was ready for a sed assault.

  Colpsing into one of the bridge chairs, I quickly checked over the various monitors. Everything looked fiil I got to the final dispy. “Nyx, why is this monitor broken?”

  “All of the bridge monitors are fully funal,” my AI reported, using Dusty.

  “Now I know that’s a lie, because if that was the truth, this monitor would be showihe position of the other cil members,” I growled, “But right now it’s pletely bnk. Expin that!”

  Stepping up behind me, Bandit cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, boss, it’s my fault. I was supposed to be keeping track of them while I was inside, but sometime during the assault someone hacked the squirrels and slipped the board members out from under my nose.”

  “FFFug why?” I moaned. “This was supposed to be quid easy. Secure the trol system, gather up the cil, go home, and pretend that was the end of the problem.”

  “It’s not the end of our problems, though. We would still need someoo take over from the cil,” Hel reminded me,

  “That’s why I said pretend,” I groaned. Pushing myself to my feet, I trudged over to one of the side soles, which I had taken to using as a unication area. “We should call the others and give them an update.”

  eg my augs to the panel, I made a quick call to Sharron and the others and waited for it to ect.

  “Evelyn? What’s going on up there?” Sharron asked through the speakers, the instant the call ected.

  “Nothing now. Hel and I took trol of the cil building, secured the and sole, and ran into a couple cil members at the same time. I left a small ti of bears to keep the area secure ahe cil members to the Family HQ. Now we’re heading back. Why?” I asked tiredly.

  “The news feeds have been blowing up for the st half hour, broadcasting the fact that samurai stormed the cil building. Of course not a single one of them has tried to find out the facts. They’re just regurgitating the theories over and ain,” Angeline expined. “They’re saying everything from house ing to samurai insurre.”

  “Well, they’re kind ht on both ats, what’s your point?”

  “It looks like someone is trying to use the major news outlets to distract people from the fact that the cil attempted to drop a pte on the uy and make you look like a bad guy,” Stalking expined. “It’s corporate damage trol 101.”

  “Yeah, the problem with that is I don’t give a shit about some corpo’s opinion of me. If they have a problem with that, they take it up with Bob,” I grumbled.

  “We have another problem though,” Hel said as she stepped up o me, “While we were seg the cil building, someone came in and grabbed the other cil members. We don’t have a clue where they are.”

  “They just vanished? What happeo the surveilnce squirrels?” Nora asked.

  “Acc to Nyx and Bandit, they were hacked,” I expined. “Don’t ask me how someone mao fug do that, but they did.”

  “Static defenses are ohing, but hag into a samurai’s system? That’s ahiirely,” Angeline said. “The only ohat could pull something like that would be another samurai.”

  My eyes slowly narrowed. “Another samurai?”

  “Teddy, darling, we all know what you’re thinking, don’t jump to clusions,” Stalking suggested. “It could be that the Denver forces asked for help bringing this flict to a swift end.”

  “I might have believed that if the head of Denver’s military forces hadn’t tried to force his way into the cil building not ten minutes ago,” I growled.

  “Oh, that’s not good,” Nora whispered softly. She probably wasn’t even aware that the microphone picked it up.

  “Any more reasonable expnations? Or should I go have a talk with Mirage now?” I asked as calmly as I could. It wasn’t that calm.

  “Teddy. I know you have no reason to trust me, but please give me half an hour before you burn dowy looking for him. He may not be behind this, and if he is, he might have acted without all the information. Please?” Stalking pleaded.

  My eye twitched slightly. Every fiber in my being told me to hunt that prick down and have Bob have a one-on-one discussion with him, but somehow I resisted.

  Taking a couple deep breaths to calm down, I stared at the bridge sole. “Thirty minutes. After that, I’ll go ‘discuss’ the situation with him myself.”

  “Thank you. I’ll call you all back as soon as I have news.” Stalking whispered. A sed ter there was a nearly inaudible click as she disected.

  Someo out a long, low breath. “Alright, now what?” Sharron asked.

  “You guys keep w on finding a rept gover. Just because those assholes are still free doesn’t mean we ’t repce them,” I suggested softly.

  “And what are you going to do?” Angeline asked.

  “Me? Not much. I’m going to do some research, find out where Mirage lives and works, and then I’m going to prepare to destroy him!” To my credit, I mao get almost all the way through my statement before exploding.

  “You promised you’d give Stalking half an hour!” Nora reminded me.

  “And I will. Thirty minutes. Starting now. Half an hour should be long enough for me to put everything io level everything he owns and loves,” I screamed.

  “Evelyn, please listen to yourself. The whole reason you started this crusade is because the cil was willing to hurt civilians, and now you’re threatening the same thing. Be reasonable,” Sharron yelled.

  “Mirage has never been reasonable, why should I be?” I yelled. A sed ter I felt a slight pin my neck, and a sudden ess swept over me. Turning, in fusion, I stared at Hel. Auto-ior in hand.

  “Did you just drug me?” I asked. “I hate drugs! I ’t believe you did that.”

  “I o; you were being pletely unreasonable,” Hel expined. “I knew you and Mirage didn’t get along, but fuck, that was something else.”

  “He’s an asshole,” I moaned.

  “Yes, I got the fact that you didn’t like him by the tirade earlier,” Hel said as she slipped the ior into her jacket. “Now isn’t the time to go off the deep end. If Mirage is behind this, we need you to be rational. Both of you are strong samurai, and if you ever got into a fight, you’d cause unbelievable amounts of colteral damage.”

  “Is everything good over there? Evelyn suddenly got quiet,” Angeline asked.

  “I’m fine. Hel just ied me with something to calm me down. Everything’s fine now, I guess.”

  “That’s good. I sounded like you were about to do something you were going tret,” Sharron said quietly.

  “I’m not going to lie, I might still do that,” I admitted. “But at least I’ll make that decision rationally and ionally.”

  Sharron sighed, “Evelyn…”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep her from doing anything too stupid. Angeline, you please pivot off the gover issue and do your best to find those cil members? That might be our best way to avoid a full-blown flict here,” Hel suggested.

  “On it!” the woman instantly replied.

  “As for you, Sharron and Nora, you please reach out to all your samurai tacts and try to keep the situation as calm as possible? The st thing we need right now is for the situation to spiral out of trol.”

  “Please,” I scoffed. “Like that would ever happen.”“Teddy,” Nora sighed. “Please stop tempting fate like that.”