The lowest level of the frontline fortress was dark and cramped.
Blood dripped endlessly down the interrogation rack.
Romana's nerves were long past numb; she couldn't feel the pain. All the sounds of the outside world seemed to have sunk underwater—muffled and indistinct.
Her thoughts drifted back two years.
Back then, she had been a well-regarded Clerk in the Civil Affairs Department, a Master of Internal Affairs, who had arrived on Rebino World for the routine collection of the Tithing.
But the war changed everything.
Rebino World's planetary orbit was seized, evacuation routes were cut off, and the local Administrative District Legion suffered one defeat after another.
That was, until a panicked, gravely wounded man on the verge of death handed her an old codebook. He told her that no matter what, she had to deliver it to the Lord Governor in person.
The information absolutely could not be transmitted using a Radiant Beacon.
