“Yes Mistress Solae,” Mia chimed in. Rene started slightly, unaware that the AI had been listening in to the communication circuit. The communication was audio and the girl looked up from beating her unconcious tormentor at the sound.

“If you and Sir Rene are ready, I shall begin the transmission,” the computer purred.

“Go ahead,” Solae responded and Rene gave his affirmation as well. Under normal circumstances there would be no way even an expensive AI like Mia could break military grade encryption. Fortunately Zatis did not possess a governmentally controlled satellite constellation and Duke Tan’s forces were forced to rely on the commercial system. Mia was more than capable of commandeering one and using it to route a signal so that the receivers inside Ralch’s compound would see it as originating from a familiar source. Furthermore, the wide variety of voice settings that came with Mia’s software, plus the voice prints she had picked up over the years, made it almost disturbingly easy for her to match the voice of the communications officer of the Decameron, whose transmissions they had been able to intercept passing through the satellite. A trained signals intelligence officer who was watching for it might still have spotted the ruse, but any spooks the Duke had bought would be on the Decameron itself, not in the compound where the transmission was received.

 “Are you a knight?” the girl asked curiously. Rene glanced down at her to uneasily notice she was still holding the neural switch. Her tormentor had a dozen burns across his face and his bald pate, that would require medical attention when he awoke. The wise move may have been to shoot her and take the switch away, but Rene found he didn’t have the stomach to stun a fourteen year old girl, even if it made tactical sense. If she hit him with that whip though, his opinion might change.

“A knight?” he asked, somewhat perplexed by the question for a moment.

“The lady on the communicator called you Sir Rene, and you look like an aristocrat,” the girl observed.  Rene nodded in understanding, the girl must have had some education in history and seen enough holograms to recognise the genetically tweaked perfection of his features.

“It is a long story,” he explained, “and we need to get out of here. Mistress Thorne is unlikely to be pleased when she realises that I have rescued you.”

“How very knightly of you,” the girl observed, though her expression remained skeptical.

“Is that what you are doing? Rescuing me?” she spoke with a directness and incisiveness beyond her age. She might be young but she had clearly seen a lot.

“Is that what you want?” he asked, glancing meaningfully at the bruises and welts on her arms and then to her supine tormentor.

“How do I know you aren’t dragging me off someplace worse?” she demanded, though she seemed a little less sure of herself now. Rene patted the receiver of his slung sub machine gun.

“If I wanted to stun you and carry you out of here I could have,” he explained.

“I don't exactly know what we are going to do with you, but I do know that if you want to come back then I will let you come back, and if you don’t want to no one will make you,” Rene explained. He was growing increasingly impatient, as it was certain that Thorne’s first act would be to send men to the townhouse but he wouldn’t get a second chance to make a first impression and that might be important.

“Mistress Thorne will make me come back, she will take me from you and you will die screaming,” the girl said, the resigned matter of fact tone chilling Rene’s blood.

“No one will make you do anything you don’t want to,” Rene repeated, “but if we don’t walk out of here in the next few minutes, I’ll have to shoot my way out.” The girl cocked her head curiously.

“Can you do that?” she asked. Rene smiled a mirthless predatory smile.

“It is one of the things I’m good at,” he admitted, “though it rather depends on how many men she sends.” The girl looked around the training room, shivering with the effort of making what must be a momentous decision.

“Very well Sir Rene,” she said at last. Rene winced and held up his palm.

“Rene is fine, it causes enough confusion as it is,” he told her.

“What should I call you?” he inquired as he turned and led her at a trot down through the townhouse.

“Rosaria,” she told him, glancing in some interest at the dead man who had fallen from the balcony. From the way she regarded him it wasn’t the first corpse she had seen. 

A half hour later they arrived at the rendezvous, an unobtrusive warehouse owned by one of Ten’s many front companies. Rene, Rosaria and the driver were all crammed into the front compartment of the delivery van as it pulled to a stop amidst containers of what appeared to be food stuffs. Solae and Ten were already there standing over a lightweight air cushion jeep. Rene opened the cab before the vehicle stopped moving and swept Solae up in his arms, hugging her close.  He didn’t enjoy being apart from her under what passed for normal circumstances, and he most especially hated for her to take risk while he wasn’t beside her. It had been necessary but it hadn’t been pleasant. In the back of the jeep lay a variety of gear, including two sets of the gray lightweight body armor that the Duke’s forces wore, or at least a close enough facsimile to defeat casual inspection. Fortunately Duke Tan’s forces, unlike many of the GIDs, included both male and female soldiers, and though Solae was a little short for the role, her sex wouldn’t be a huge detriment. There was climbing gear and web belts loaded with equipment, grenades and other supplies. It didn’t seem like so very much to be taking on a compound filled with soldiers, but if they were lucky they might not need to fire a shot. 

“Thank the Stars you are ok,” he whispered to Solae.