Chapter 343 --343
The beast knights in the outer districts were, by all early reports, a significant improvement over the human soldier complement they had replaced or supplemented. Not because they were more aggressive — she had been specific about that in the reassignment orders, had written the deployment guidelines herself, had been precise about what she wanted the perimeter presence to look like and how she wanted them interfacing with the populations in the districts they were covering. What they were was more capable, and capability was visible. People in the outer districts noticed the difference. Early dispatches from the district administrators — she had insisted on weekly reports, which was apparently unprecedented and which the district administrators had found alarming and then, once they understood she actually read the reports, quietly relieved — suggested that incidents of certain kinds were already declining.
She read all the reports.
She read everything.
---
The shadow guards came back with the information on the eleven names at the end of the week, exactly as she had asked.
She read their assessments in her study, late in the evening, with the lamp turned up and a cup of cooling tea that she had been meaning to drink for two hours. She read each assessment against what Mahir and Ken had told her, cross-referencing, looking for the discrepancies.
There were almost none.
Reva: the shadow guards’ assessment confirmed sixty percent recovery with intermittent clarity, confirmed that the logistics assignment was stabilizing rather than frustrating, confirmed one detail that Mahir had not mentioned — that Reva had, in her clearer moments, been voluntarily reviewing administrative procedure documents from the supply office, apparently because she had decided to become competent at what she had been assigned to do rather than simply present.
Brennan: confirmed. Stable and static and at peace with it, exactly as described.
Sela: confirmed. Oscillating, unpredictable, currently in a good period that had been holding for eight days, which the shadow guards noted was the longest stable run they had observed.