Audio Log File #75213-Rho

Major Irisz Magyari: I can guess why you asked to see me.

Commander Roxana Zaryos: I think we both can agree that we should be honest with each other here. After what’s happened in the last few days, I can’t see anything that will be gained by doing otherwise, and I certainly think that we both want the same things here.

Magyari: Given what my men discovered, I can agree entirely. Commander Zaryos, I’m not the sort of mercenary who’s going to rigidly stick to a contract and not deviate from it an inch, and I’m not going to sit idly by and do nothing because it’s not what I’m being paid for. What the QLF showed was a capacity to do a lot more than we had anticipated, and I want to prevent that from happening.

Zaryos: Understood and appreciated, Major. However, I would like a full accounting of exactly what happened today.

Magyari: As long as nothing I say goes beyond this room, and there are no repercussions on my men. I take full responsibility for their actions.

Zaryos: Entirely fair. Of course, right now, punishing them is the last thing on my mind. My people have been hamstrung by integration into the League, and SAFE oversight is strangling a lot of our efforts to infiltrate and gather information on the QLF. They achiever a massive breakthrough. I still need to know how they did it.

Magayri: Understandable. To start with, this is a follow-up from what happened yesterday; both the attack on the Convention Centre as well as (Randy) Georges’… less successful efforts to gather information.

Zaryos: I heard about that too. I have no idea what he was trying to achieve there.

Magyari: Me either, but at the same time, I felt that he might have the right idea if not the right way of doing it. After last night, I instructed him to further look into matters, especially relating to the attack. No offence to your people, but I wanted him to conduct his own investigation and see what he could find independently. That attack had targeted my people too. I wasn’t going to allow it to happen again.

Zaryos: Understood, and I can appreciate the desire to work outside of official channels. With that being said, I noticed that there was another mercenary involved with all this.

Magayri: Yes, that was (Nikola) Kardos. He’s an associate of mine, one who is connected with the unit. He’s a freelance investigator and scout, who I use for situations like this.

Zaryos: You wouldn’t be the first mercenary commander to do such by a long way.

Magyari: At any rate, my people (Georges, Kardos and Lee Zheng) started their investigation at the convention centre with the security breach and the bomb. They found that the security had been shut off with the night watch manager’s master switch, which explained how the QLF were able to get in without setting anything off. They also determined that the bomb was intended to be remote-detonated, but hadn’t been.

Zaryos: Did they find out why?

Magyari: Eventually. From security footage  they determined that the remote trigger had been in a van that had been parked in a nearby carpark, one with a view over the area. They also found that somebody had spliced into the local phone networks, likely to facilitate communication.

Zaryos: And the van?

Magyari: It belonged to Omar Kyustabai, an electrical contractor who lived in an outer suburb. However, my men chose to investigate Azkhat Nurusaltan, the shift leader. They found that he was living in a small apartment in the inner city, and put it under surveillance.

Zaryos: Entirely illegal surveillance at that, but I’m willing to let that slip for now. What did they find?

Magyari: Azkhat was engaged in a rather heated phone conversation with somebody; the gist of it was that he was irritated about being held prisoner inside the centre and left on top of the bomb. It was pretty clear to them that he had been an accomplice to the whole incident, and had provided the QLF with the means needed to enter the building. They followed him as he was leaving to try and pursue this further.

Zaryos: And did that lead them anywhere?

Mayari: It did; in fact, straight to Kyustabi and the same van they’d seen at the car park. Azkhat pretty much stormed into his house and demanded to know why he’d been set up. Kyustabi didn’t offer an explanation beyond ‘talk to your boss’ . On the other hand, it seems that Kyustabi had done something wrong in the assembly of his bomb or the remote detonator, as it seemed that he’d meant to set it off remotely but hadn’t.

Zaryos: Interesting. I have to wonder when they were intending to set the bomb off. Presumably when my people stormed the building.

Magyari: It’s hard to say, but his ineptitude may have saved us all. Either way, Azkhat left, with my men in tailing him. Rather than heading back to his home, he travelled to a derelict factory on the outskirts of (Kazan) city. I think they figured he was headed to meet his ‘boss’.

Zaryos: Was he?

Magyari: Not a clue. In truth, we still have no idea who his ‘boss’ was, although he may have been one of the people on-site. When they got there, my men found that the factory was occupied, with armed men watching over it. There were also several delivery trucks on-site. Randy attempted to get closer to the building to investigate, but was spotted. The trio managed to withdraw, but were pursued.

Zaryos: I saw that here. Apparently a trio of armed men were found dead in a wrecked car. One of them had died of a gunshot, the other two when it slammed into the side of a concrete storage facility.

Magyari: Well, they managed to lose their pursuers and return to the site, only to find that the QLF were evacuating it. Lee sabotaged their trucks, while Randy and Nikola infiltrated the building.

Zaryos: That’s when they discovered the Nerve Gas.

Magyari: Correct. It seems that the QLF had been using the equipment on-site to manufacture it.

Zaryos: So what did they do next?

Magyari: They did their best to secure the site, and call for police backup. That’s pretty much where you came in.

Zaryos: And Azkhat was dead when they arrived?

Magyari: Apparently executed.

Zaryos: Damn. However, given what else we learned today, I’ll gladly take that as the price. (pause) So the QLF have WMDs now. This has escalated to a whole new level. It’s going to take ages to get reinforcements from the FWLM at the moment, and I’m not sure that the Planetary Guard has the resources we need to take the fight to them. But so far, we’ve been far too reactive; something we can no longer afford.

Magyari: This affects my men too. Whatever you need, let me know.

Zaryos: And don’t worry about what they did today. As I said, I’m willing to gloss over all that, given what we found.

(END RECORDING)