The overall consensus was: something had gone boom, and it was an unprecedented tragedy, but it was nobody’s fault. Now there was a big hole in the political system and an area of space ripe for the taking, with some juicy TNA facilities left largely unattended, from asteroid-based research labs to wind farms to icy planitesimals turned into factories, all floating around without clear ownership. So far none of the big players had maneuvered to take over the old TNA holdings, and it was basically lawless out there, once you got beyond the Imperative’s reach.

Every remaining TNA facility was probably a mini-fiefdom now, ruled by whoever happened to be there when Meditreme blew, and they would remain so until Mars or the Imperative or some kind of joint venture could conjure up the legal status necessary to claim those holdings, or buy them cheap from the few surviving TNA shareholders, before going in with guns to restore order. That would take months, at best; maybe years; some places would probably remain stubbornly, weirdly independent for the foreseeable future. It was sure to be interesting out there.

Nobody was looking for the perpetrators, though, since no one except a few conspiracy theorists thought there were any perpetrators, and certainly no one was looking for a sect of murderous Liars out in the Oort Cloud. That meant Callie’s work wasn’t done. She still had to get justice for Meditreme.

Fortunately there was a way to combine her need for a new home with her need for justice, but she wondered how Lantern would take the idea.

She didn’t have to wonder long.

“Captain, do you have a moment?”

“Come on in, Lantern.”

There was gravity, since they were under thrust, and Lantern waddled into the captain’s quarters. She slumped down on the floor and fluttered her tentacles. “I was able to copy some of the deep archives from the station onto my infosphere. I have been reviewing them since our return.”

Callie sat on the edge of her bunk. “And?”

“My sect, the truth-tellers… our ostensible purpose is a lie. The Axiom made arrangements to form our organization. They wanted to maintain a core of devoted servants in their absence. A small group of my people were trained, conditioned, and convinced of the absolute rightness and necessity of their purpose: to safeguard Axiom facilities over the coming millennia, while several long-term projects came to fruition. The way the organization is structured, the operational parameters the records lay out… I have no doubt that group is the origin of my sect. I thought we were safeguarding the universe from the Axiom. But we aren’t. We’re– what’s the human phrase? Guard dogs.”

“I’m sorry, Lantern. Maybe the sect has changed over the centuries. Is it possible they started out as servants, and became protectors over time?”