It took almost two weeks to get to the first training camp on our itinerary and the infiltration of it went much smoother and quicker than the first one had. Simone had a remote set with a loop footage command and we entered the camp and disabled the guards. I stored them as we went along and we cleared the place completely.

We left the main building for last, since that had the leader inside on loan from The Order and we had to approach him cautiously. We also had to assume that he would have people inside that might not have the suicide charge in their heads, and acted appropriately. Their necks were broken and stored as well, and we made our way to the top office.

“Come in.” A voice said when we approached the office. “I'm not armed, so there's no need to worry.”

I held in my sigh and opened the door.

“If you're wondering how I 'saw' you, it's your specific lack of Presence.” The man behind the desk said as I stepped into the room. “All things have Presence and for you to have exactly none, means you're either dead or hiding it.” He smiled. “Which one are you now and which one will you be later?”

“Does this mean you're not going to fight me on this, Jared?” I asked. “This organization tried to kill me and the people I...”

“The reasons are inconsequential.” Jared cut me off and stood. “Can you fight in close quarters?” He asked and activated his Light sword. “Or should we move outside to get this over with?”

“I want to keep the damage to a minimum, so outside would be best.” I said.

“You can drop the Stealth technique.” Jared said and walked over to me. “I can see your absence anyway.”

“Yes, but you still don't know what I look like.” I said and he chuckled.

“That is a good point.” Jared said as I stepped back and out of the way. Just as he crossed the threshold of the doorway, he let out a gurgle and grabbed his throat to stem the flow of blood.

“There was no way I was going to fight you head on when I can't use Presence openly.” I said and dismissed the Stealth technique I had on myself and Simone.

Simone wiped the blood off of her razor sharp knife and tucked it away and I grabbed the Light sword and turned it off.

“Are you having a hard time healing yourself?” I asked him and touched his shoulder. “Ah, I see. You didn't learn the technique.”

“That makes this job a lot easier.” Simone said with a chuckle. “I wonder if they'll send someone out to look for him when he disappears?”

“More than likely, assuming the loan wasn't for more than a year.” I said and saw Jared's eyes flash in annoyance. “Ha.” I said and grabbed his head, turned it around to face backwards, then stored his dead body. “It's a two year post.”

“You know what that means.” Simone laughed. “How much do you want to bet that the control room isn't even locked?”

I laughed and took her into a hug. “I'll bet you one distraction and two teases that it's open.”

“Hey, that was my bet!” Simone exclaimed and I gave her a kiss to distract her.

We went to the control room and not only was it unlocked, it was completely open. We took out our 'guns' and shot the workers and the guards, then looked at the sole prisoner as she stood there with a shocked look on her face at all of the people that had just died in front of her.

“Did your wish come true?” Simone whispered to her and she didn't jump from the scare.

“By the goddess of darkness, yes.” The woman whispered.

“You worship Black Laura?” I asked her and she turned her head to look at me.

“She has been a comfort unlike any other in my time of need.” The woman said.

I dropped the Stealth technique and stepped close to her. “I know the feeling.”

“Are you...”

“No.” I said and I felt like I needed to comfort the woman. “I have met her.”

The woman gasped and grabbed onto me. “You're not lying!” She exclaimed. “You've seen her divine visage!”

For some reason, I knew I needed to tell her what happened. “When we met, she kissed me and we made a date.”

The woman's mouth dropped open in shock and she stared at me for several moments, then she closed her mouth and let a huge smile slowly spread across her face.

“You're killing them all.” The woman said.

I nodded and reached up to touch the scar on the side of her head, then used her Presence to pop the wires and the battery on the suicide charge. She let out a sigh and her hand reached up to take mine.

“Thank you.” She said. “What do you need me to do?”

“Guard the device we're setting up.” I said and Simone already had it in place and had the computer running. We were pretty sure there wouldn't be anything new and just wanted to confirm the data we already had.

“No one will touch it, I swear on my life.” The woman said and let my hand go.

“We will return in a little while.” I said and used Stealth to disappear.

Simone and I left the room and she told me which of the people being held were actually prisoners. It matched the data we already had, so we went through the rest of the building and cleared it all out. We ended in the basement and once the two guards on the door were disposed of and pilfered of their keys, we walked inside and killed the trainees and stored the bodies.

“Ugh, what... what's...” A man rolled over on the floor at the sounds of a wooden bat hitting a watermelon and looked over at the next cell to see that it was empty. “Karl! He's gone!”

That made the other prisoners take notice and they all sat up to look around. All they saw were four others and no one else.

“They're clearing us out!” A woman almost shrieked.

“No, only the pretenders.” I said and let my Stealth technique fade. “I'm here to rescue you.”

“You killed Karl!” The man exclaimed.

“Actually, the assassins did by putting that suicide charge in his head. I just activated it before he did it voluntarily.”

“You can't do it voluntarily.” A woman responded. “It needs an external device to activate.”

“I'll show you the command codes needed to activate it, after we've removed the charge from your head.” Simone said with a smile. “We can't have you accidentally popping your own brain apart, can we?”

“You're serious.” She said, surprised. “They really can be self activated?”

Simone nodded. “They use them if they are about to be captured.”

“Like you're capturing us?” Another woman asked me.

“If I was going to capture you, I would have just walked you out of here under the guise of transferring you to a new place.” I said and opened her cage first. “I have a hover car waiting not far away then a shuttle to take us to my ship.”

“You have a ship?!?” She asked.

“That is how one travels through space.” I joked. “Also, when I open these cuffs, don't freak out and try to wreck the place. I want it left in pristine condition, that way anyone that comes here looking for you, they won't have any traces to follow.”

“That's... actually pretty smart.” She said.

“I tried to tell the last group of prisoners not to wreck the place and they ignored me.” I said and opened her cuffs. “I had to blow the place up to cover the escape and remove the evidence.”

“Wait, did you say the last group of prisoners?” She asked, surprised. “I thought this was the only prisoner camp.”

“This is the second camp we've raided.” I said and Simone opened a cage and let another woman go. “We've got another camp on our itinerary in a couple of months.”

“You've made it into a campaign?” The man asked as Simone let him out.

“I was only going to come here to free you, then realized I would be wasting a ton of time by going back home to drop you off then would have to come all the way back out to the next place.” I said and let the last woman go. “Now we're doing a huge circuitous route to hit as many places as we can along the way.”

“So, you can't get these things out of our heads?” One of the women asked. “We'll need at least a trained medical technician to assist and a space station's medical bay to...”

“I've got everything we need on my ship.” I said and she stopped talking.

“You... how big...”

“It's a full medical bay.” I said and walked around to each of them and took their hands and used their own Presence to disable the charges. After a quick Presence Heal, Simone and I led them out of the basement and up into the building.

“We couldn't bring the med-bot, though.” Simone said. “Even with the upgraded reactor, Herbie is linked to Udelis and won't operate when away from him.” She chuckled. “The cute little guy goes into sleep mode every time we tried.”

“You have a med-bot.” The man said, his voice full of disbelief.

“Yes, just not here.” I said and stopped just outside the control room. “Stay here. I need to check the progress of the data retrieval.”

They nodded and I left Simone to watch them as I went inside.

“It's still intact and I didn't touch anything.” The woman said as she came to attention.

“Are you a guard?” I asked, because I recognized the movement as one I did to annoy The Order.

The woman gave me a crisp salute. “Lieutenant Commander Isabella Ebanez of the Quick Response Squad, at your service, sir.”

“You can drop the sir.” I said.

“Yes, sir.” Isabella said with a smile.

“You're going to keep saying it, aren't you?”

“Yes, sir.” Isabella said and kept the smile.

“I take it your quick response let you see something you weren't supposed to see?”

Isabella nodded. “I was quickly apprehended and interrogated, then shipped here two months ago.”

“Did they... try...”

“They did and the two of them died before it could happen.” Isabella said and her smile hadn't faltered.

“Good.” I said and saw approval on her face. “What's the progress of the display?”

“It's at eighty percent, sir.”

“Okay, so another ten minutes and we can get out of here.”

“I'm glad to hear that, sir.”

“You don't happen to have medical training, do you?” I asked and she shook her head. “I'll just have to hope there's someone at the next camp.”

“The next one, sir?”

“There's more than one and this is the second I've raided.” I said and her eyes widened slightly, then she frowned.

“How many more?”

“Six.” I said.

“How many are you raiding?”

“There's only one more on this route.” I said. “The others are in a completely different direction and will take a while to plan for.”

“I'd like to help, sir.” Isabella said.

“That's great, except we've got a couple months before we reach the next camp, not to mention all of the businesses we'll be stopping at along the way to raid before then.”

“Sir, I'll do everything I can to help, no matter how small the task.”

I smiled and held a hand out to her. She stepped close and took my hand, then she caught her breath as I used a quick Presence Heal on her. “I'm happy to have you aboard.”

“So am I, sir.” Isabelle said with a smile. “Very, very happy.”

The recording equipment finished a couple of minutes later and I packed everything up. We left the building and went right out through the front door as if it was a normal thing for prisoners to do. We walked over to the hover car, climbed in, and drove back towards Monna and Jelly.

“Only six this time.” I said over the wrist communicator. “If I read the records right, then the three missing prisoners have already been... removed.”

“We should do a local sweep, just in case.” Jelly said.

“That's a good idea.” Simone said. “They could have been sold off or traded for... well, you know.”

“I'll need some local access to try and match the descriptions to the local populace.” I said. “Even with Luxea's old comparison software, I don't know if we can stay around long enough to see if they are actually alive.”

“All we can do is all we can do.” Isabelle said. “Sir, if I may assist...”

“...I'll take any help I can get, especially if it nets us another rescued prisoner.”

“Do you have a satellite in orbit?”

“I'll shunt a link for you to use when we get to the shuttle.” I said.

“I'm sure with the two of us working, we will be able to make sure no one else is alive.” Isabella said.

It took us twenty minutes to reach the shuttle, then we parked the hover car inside, to the prisoners' surprise.

“No time for surprise.” I said and left the others inside as I brought Simone and Isabelle out of the cargo area and had them join me in the cockpit. “Isabelle, can you use the console there?”

Isabelle checked it and nodded, so I sent her a link to the satellite in orbit as well as the descriptions of the three missing prisoners, then I started my own search. It took us almost four hours to confirm that no one on the planet matched the descriptions. We also checked the outgoing transports and their passenger manifests and compared them to the descriptions.

“They had to be disposed of.” Simone said and I didn't feel the Presence waver.

I let out a sigh and nodded. “All right, Jelly. Get us out of here.”

Jelly had been waiting for the command and Monna had been in standby mode for quite some time. We took off from the planet's surface and went back up to the ship.

“You came here in a destroyer?” Isabella asked, surprised.

“It's a cargo ship.” I said with a smile and she gave me a skeptical look. “Really. We had to give it a major overhaul to make the shell an actual hull.”

“Mom's really pretty!” Monna said over the intercom.

Isabella gasped. “Your cargo shuttle has an AI?”

“All our ships do.” Simone said. “Hey, Adona. Say hello to our latest recruit.”

“Hello, recruit.” Adona said over the communications console. “Welcome aboard.”

“I... am going to like it here.” Isabella said with a big smile.

“Don't get your hopes up.” Simone said with a smile. “You have to pass the hardest test ever.”

“What test?” Isabella asked.

“You'll see.” Simone said and turned back to look at me.

“Don't mind the alarmist.” I said with a chuckle. “You just have to meet someone special in my life.”

“Yes, and if she doesn't approve of you...” Simone grinned and looked back at the console. “It was nice meeting you.”

Both Jelly and I laughed.

“It's not really like that.” Jelly said. “She does influence a lot that has to do with Hunter, though.”

I didn't dispute that and Isabelle went quiet for a few minutes, then she turned to me and smiled.

“I think I'm going to like meeting her, no matter the outcome.” Isabella said.

We docked to Adona not long after that and we left Monna and Jelly in the shuttle bay and I assigned everyone to their own quarters, then Simone turned to look down the hallway and smiled.

“Isabella, this is Hailey, my future wife.” I said as Hailey walked towards us. She didn't run like I thought she would have, then she came to a stop beside me and looked up slightly at Isabella.

“You've touched death.” Hailey said.

Isabella took in a sharp breath, then she let it out and nodded.

“Then you can help keep Hunter grounded.” Hailey said and looked up at me. “Bath, please.”

I smiled and picked her up, even though she was getting too tall for it, and I carried her to our room and shut the door.