"This has been quite the depressing talk," Jackson said as he stood up.

"When will I know what you've decided?"

"Does it matter?"

"Not in the least."

Jackson walked out of the chamber, firmly shutting the hatch behind him. He handed the chair back to the Marine standing guard and watched the monitors for a moment, noticing Trapp's neck and cheeks were flushed through the thermal imagers.

"Anything?"

"Not really," Jackson said. "I'd say she definitely has a connection to Xinjia, but I'm not sure that really helps us all that much. I'll pass it on to Pike to check into, but I think it's a bust."

He'd hoped to get something out of her about her background and maybe leverage that. She would be able to tell if he was lying after spending so much time with him so, in this case, the truth was the most powerful weapon he'd had, but it hadn't been enough. He saw the involuntary reaction when he mentioned Xinjia was in the gun sights of Kohl's taskforce. It must be a strong connection for her to let her control slip even for a millisecond like that.

"It might be better to sedate and chain her to a rack," Barton said as they left the detention area. "I have confidence in those Marines, but in my time serving with you, I've also learned to never underestimate someone any of the intelligence services trained and sent into the field."

"Fair point," Jackson said. "I'll consider it."

* * *

"You redirected Kohl to Xinjia. Why?"

"Because this part of the operation is under my purview, Councilman, and I deemed it necessary," Makov said, his voice being converted to text to send over Bluebird.

"Major operational decisions being changed this late in the game need to be discussed," Councilman Chan wrote back. "Is there something we're not aware of?"

Makov hesitated at this. So far, nobody but his group knew their entire taskforce at B-1171 had been taken out. Those ships had been earmarked for Xinjia, but he'd pulled them to back up the stealth ships supposed to have been able to handle neutralizing the base defenses. After the infiltration force and the stealth ships failed to take Exeter Base, he'd sent in Taskforce Twelve to try and salvage the operation, thinking the sheer weight of numbers would force Wolfe to flee with his five destroyers.

What he hadn't counted on, however, was a Juggernaut-class battleship transitioning from warp deep in the system. As bad luck would have it, right in the midst of the relief force he'd sent. His group commander had managed to take out the damnable battleship, but in the process had lost every single ship, including the one he was on.

Makov had watched the time-lapse footage from their recon ship sitting in the outer system. It was brutality like he'd never scene in a space battle. The Jericho had taken hit after hit while opening up on the Alliance ships with dual broadsides, wiping out over three quarters of the taskforce before finally being brought down.