In the System Authority control room four similar raids were being monitored.
Chief Rowley cast a casual eye over the screens but his teams had everything in hand, there was no need to interfere.
The teams were interrogating in situ, Rowley wanted information and expected to get it. He was sure the wait would be less than an hour, then the next stage of the operation would begin. He only needed one of the four suspects to break to get the names he wanted, and the stakes were high enough to merit extreme measures to hurry things along.
The girl was an interesting one. Daughter of a lawyer, the worst kind, an academic with a social conscience. He'd raised her to speak out, to voice her opinion, to join in with disruptive protests if she thought the cause was just.
"You don't protest against the system, young lady," Rowley mumbled while watching her on the screen. "The Federation IS The System."
She was too young to understand the perils of the world, and her father was too ...
"Theoretical," he smiled to himself as he saw the old man tied up. He looked in a bad way, "all the better for us".
She would break easily. Ten minutes at the most. He'd sent his best interrogator her way to make sure.
He checked the time, then watched the screen. Looking into her eyes he willed her to spill what she knew; the clock was ticking.
All his officers wore body cams, the lawyers had insisted. "To protect them," they'd said - the hell it was. Rowley would personally see to it that any and all footage from tonight's events would suffer technical difficulties.
He expected his officers to go above and beyond for this op. He hoped that they all knew they could trust him to make it right. The four teams were selected with that in mind, and his control room team likewise. No leaks, no ruined careers, just get the names we need.
Rowley was old school, he'd been around the block but somehow ended up back at square one, running system authority ops taking down bad guys in a coriolis. His career had peaked decades ago working directly for Zachary Hudson, but one disastrous outcome and he was back here. He never had understood the events leading up to his downfall - no one had.
Years later he'd assigned his best investigator a side-project looking into those events. An abuse of power, misuse of Federation resources, call it what you will, but Rowley had had to know the truth.
It had taken a few months, but his man had come back with absolutely nothing. Nothing concrete, that is. Just a collection of coincidences, bad luck, freak accidents, and bizarre happenings that taken in isolation would have been just that. Put them all together though and it looked like a coordinated plan to lose Hudson a key star system and with it Rowley's job.
Who gained?
"Well follow the money," Rowley's investigator had suggested. "If these events are connected, then it all points to agents of Edmund Mahon."
It was so obvious when he'd heard those words years later. And here is where he had been ever since. His reverie was broken by the images on the screen.
The girl was weakening, he could see it in her eyes. The interrogation had only just begun, the officer had barely touched her, but her neat, comfortable lifestyle had just been turned upside down. It was the shock that did it every time.
"You're not invincible," Rowley told her through the screen. "You're not the unflappable, untouchable freedom fighter you thought you were." Reality always crashed down on suspects after a lightening raid like this. They could have knocked and entered in a civilised way, but blowing the door and lobbing in a stun grenade or two was always a rude awakening to who the big boys were.
"Five minutes and we'll have her," he announced to the control room. "How are the others progressing?"
He didn't really listen to the replies, he didn't much care at this point. He was certain the girl would break first. He turned up the sound to listen to his operator interrogate her.
"Someone's losing a finger," he heard him say - playing hardball already, he must sense how close she is too.
'You told them to get results fast,' he reminded himself with another smile.
"Who's it going to be?" the operator asked her, getting in her face. "Your father?" Rowley watched the body cam turn to the older man as the operator grabbed his index finger and yanked towards the shears. A couple of practice snips for effect.
"Nooo," she screamed, in tears now. "Please nooo."
"Then tell me the names, that's all we need." "All this stops when you tell me the names."
The camera turned the other way. The third man, a neighbour if Rowley remembered the briefing correctly, not important. "How about his finger first instead, just a quick snip?" The shears were there again, slicing menacingly open and closed.
"No oh, God no. I'm so sorry," she managed to blub her apology to the irrelevant third man. He hadn't moved, Rowley realised. All the way through the performance his head was drooped to his chest. He must have seen the shears, but not even a flinch. Had he passed out?
"The names?" he heard from the speaker.
The camera panned back to the crying girl, this was it, this was the moment, Rowley knew they'd won.
"Wait!" he startled everyone in the control room.
"Sir?"
"Back," urgently he beckoned the video operator to skip backwards.
"Sir, she's about to cra..."
"Back, back, back, skip it backwards."
The face, he knew that face, or was his mind playing tricks after remembering the past.
The operator skipped back a few seconds.
"There!" Rowley stopped him. The neighbour's head was drooped, the shears were being threatening, then as his agent panned back to the girl.
"Stop!" just as he was going out of shot the neighbour looked up. It wasn't a clear view, the left half of a face, and still mostly looking at the floor at that. He was imagining things, surely. It couldn't be.
"Who is the neighbour? Give me a name, someone, quickly please."
The name offered meant nothing to him, but still he stared at the screen.
"Did we run him through the facial rec databases?"
"Yes, Sir. Nothing came up on the locals."
Rowley's face spun from screen to officer: "You only checked locals?"
"Of course, sir. A galaxy-wide Federation check would still have been running." His man was right, of course. "Why, who is he?"
Rowley turned back to the screen, still not sure.
"Patch me through," he ordered the communications officer, "I need a better look."
"Sir, he's about to get the names we can't interrupt h..."
"Patch me through, officer, right now!"
As soon as the scolded comms officer hit the button Rowley was yelling instructions.
"This is Chief Rowley, I need to see the neighbour's face."
"What?" the confused response was heard over the speakers.
"The neighbour's face - turn to your left so I can see the man's face on your camera."
"Sir, can this wait."
"Do it, right now!"
The screen turned towards the neighbour once more, his head drooped again. Rowley was sure he saw it drop as the officer turned.
"Lift your head up," they heard over the speakers
"And be careful," Rowley added without knowing why.
"Don't worry, Sir. This one's harmless." They all watched as the officer pointed his blaster at the man's chin and pushed it up. "His hands are tied anyway, just for good measure."
The blaster pushed the chin higher. As the face came into view Rowley's eyes opened wide.
"Don't get too cl..."