'Interesting…' I said. 'We should check her details against the planetary census and-'
'I believe you pay me to be thorough, Gregor/ said Aemos, churlishly. 'I've already done that. There is no record of her here. In fact, there is no one on Gudrun with the surname Tarray or Tari. The surname does, however, occur on other worlds. Too many, in fact, to be of any help/
'So, savant/ said Crezia, 'what's really, troubling you?'
Aemos took another glug of wine and pushed a slate into the centre of the table. 'I was running out of options with the names, so I turned to something else. I inspected the news registers from across the sub-sector, hunting for key words. You won't like it/
I read down the slate, my heart turning to cold stone. It showed me bulletin reports of incidents from several planets in the sub. Just little items, most of which wouldn't even have made column space beyond the regional news wires. Certainly, the events reported wouldn't have been planetary news, and definitely not interplanetary. Aemos had only found them because he had been specifically looking, and trawling the Imperium's news wire data compendium.
The first report was of the explosion on Messina. Messina Prime, the main hive, spire eleven. The blast had occurred at ten fifty, local. That was chilling. By my estimation, the raid on Spaeton had commenced at precisely the same time, given sidereal adjustments. The explosion had incinerated the uppermost ten levels of the spire. The death toll was put at eleven thousand six hundred. The Lord Governor had declared a state of emergency.
There was a long appended list of properties and business destroyed. Amongst them halfway down the second page, was the Thorn Institute, the name by which the Distaff had been publically known.
No survivors. I supposed it could have been a coincidence, but I didn't believe in them. Which meant that my foe, this Khanjar the Sharp, had not hesitated to exterminate thousands of civilians just to take out the Distaff.
The news file stated that a proscribed movement calling itself the Scions of Messina had claimed responsibility. That group, it said, struck for Messina's independence from the Imperium.
Which was frankly rubbish. Messina was as Imperial as a planet-culture got.
The second report listed on the slate was filed from Cartol. A family touring Kona Province on vacation had been found murdered by unknown gunmen. Two men and three women. Identities were to follow as soon as they had been established. Authorities on Cartol estimated the time of death at between ten and midnight, two days back.