Chapter Four

"Did Zanir have any work contacts in Lazar?" Keith asked once Chief Andros ended his report an hour later.

"Yes, he had several, and we've reopened Frelyn's case. Whoever was behind her disappearance could also be connected to Zanir." He had already skimmed through Jazia's report, reaching the same line of thought as the young officer mentioned in her report. "We're in contact with Lazar constabulary. They're leading the inquiries to two inns where Frelyn last stayed," Andros added, putting down Jazia's report.

"I mean no disrespect to your efforts or your officers, Chief Andros," Councilor Magan stated. "But so much time has elapsed since she went missing, she might not—" he let the words trail off.

Larmina, a Voltron force cadet and member of the royal family was observing the meeting from her seat beside her aunt. She glanced around the table of serious faces. She felt sad for Frelyn and breathed a prayer for her.

"I can only hope, Councilor, that she's alive." Andros said and pushed his own misgivings at the back of his mind.

"What will be your next course of action?" Allura asked. She wanted to know the proper steps had been initiated.

"Two of my deputies will depart for Lazar this afternoon to retrace Frelyn's route after they've interviewed Zanir's assistant again at his store later in the day, Princess." Andros answered.

"They may," Councillor Magan began, "perhaps find an old schedule book that was overlooked from the previous investigation."

Andros agreed. "I also have my officers review Gran Soren's and Winter Ashburn's cases. There could be a connection with the men that was missed from the first sweep."

"It's a good start," Allura said. She caught a glimpse of an officer passing one file to a woman and to Marsh before disappearing from her view. She watched the officers through the transparent glass wall panels that separated the chief's office and the bullpen. "I didn't expect it to be a—"

"Small force?" Andros answered. "We are still repairing our lives." His tone was grandfatherly as if he was speaking to his younger grandchildren.

"Most of the families were broken from the wars. We may have found relative peace over the course of eight years, but it wasn't easy. Many are still afraid to let loved ones join anything that was close to a military." Andros raised his hand, waving the councilor to silence.

"Believe me; I know the constabulary is not," he paused. "My grandson, Wyx," he nodded at the young man seen entering the bullpen. "His mother doesn't want him applying for the Galaxy Alliance Flight Academy that would take him away from Arus; it took a while for Wyx to convince his mother to join me here. She only relented when Wyx promised that he wouldn't try out for the flight academy." He turned to the councilor. "You can give it another year or so, Councilor. I am sure the young people will come around too."

"Everyone still needs to feel safe and secure." Allura strode toward the partitioned glass panel, observing the young woman officer a couple years her junior, swiveling back to her workstation. "The people need Voltron to be an ever-present force of protection and a source of hope that good will prevail."

"Voltron will always be where it's needed, your Royal Highness, and the team won't stop fighting whatever Castle Doom throws at us." Keith decided against mentioning Sky Marshall Wade to the group today. That was a Voltron Force concern.

Allura nodded and took heart in hearing the reassuring words. "Chief Andros, who is that young woman?" Her gaze lighted from one officer to another. Over the years, she had taken steps to get acquainted with everyone at the station, but she hadn't seen this woman before.

"Jazia Trell came from one of our distant provinces, Oliyar. She's been with us for four months now." He tried not to look embarrassed for the next words he was going to say, and appreciated the visit, but he needed to get back to work. "If you have more concerns, Princess, Commander, Councilor?"

The other two men shook their heads. Allura smiled apologetically for taking more of the chief's time. "Please keep me informed if you have found Zanir's daughter and if you have the perpetrators to the three deaths in your custody."

"I will send my report to Castle Control and Councilor Magan once the cases have been solved," Andros promised and walked with everyone out of the office.

Deputy Marsh Nevs, a stocky man with pepper grey hair—cut in military style—glanced up from his workstation when Allura approached him. "Your Highness," he quickly stood and bowed. He shook hands with the princess and did his best to cover the pain of betrayal from reaching his eyes.

"I know it has been three months since you've concluded your wife's search," she tried to keep the sadness out of her voice, yet as she spoke, her thoughts turned to Keith and what it would have been like if he was lost to her. "Aside from Frelyn, have you had new developments on others that went missing from the wars?" Those first two years when Keith had gone dark to avoid detection as he searched for Black Lion had been terrifying.

Wade had stepped up his efforts in capturing Keith by hiring rogue agents through under-the-table agreements. The Den had been in communications blackout too, and she only had Coran, Romelle, and Sven to air her concerns, which prompted Romelle to make frequent trips whenever she could.

Allura had reached out countless times through the link for Keith's responses, but it had been silent—even though she knew he was still there on the other end as a steady, silent dot. Keith somehow had managed to mute his side of the link from her. It had been the first time she experienced the link going dormant. She knew great distances didn't affect their connection; she could hear Keith calling her when she had been kidnapped by Hagar, and then on several other occasions by other Drule allies and by Lotor through the intervening years before the he had finally been defeated. An involuntary shiver came over her as she recalled those incidents.

The bond quavered, snapping her out from her inner musings. She felt her heart doused with love, and out from the corner of her eye, Keith stepped in her line of sight, giving the briefest of nods.

Marsh's gaze danced between the princess and the Voltron commander. There was an unspoken connection between the two which appeared subtle except for the keen observer. He took a deep breath. "Only that I've finally laid my wife's case to rest. I would have wanted her remains recovered and buried here but it was proving too difficult locating her body since she had already died years ago, leaving a child in one of the Drule-occupied worlds."

Jazia slowly turned away from reading a file as she listened to Marsh's revelation and glimpsed to her left. Larmina had stepped away from the studying the posted information on the central monitor, which still had the topography map and the timeline. She was equally stunned at hearing the deputy's tale and made her way to where the missing persons list was posted. There were so many names.

"I've asked a good friend of mine, and he carries the same list," Marsh's face was wrought with the pain he had kept. "He came across a repository station in one of the abandoned homeworlds, bearing a Drule emblem." The older deputy officer glanced around the bullpen. Every head had turned to him, listening in sympathetic silence.

"After running through a rudimentary language translator, he had found out that Naria and two other Arusian names have been grouped together. He's now following on leads for the two other Arusians." He wiped an errant tear that had slid down his cheek.

Jazia felt Marsh's vulnerability and everyone's silent compunction at his loss. This very time, she was indeed an outsider looking in at the small assembly in the bullpen. Even the Chief was standing close by his office entranceway, glancing every now and then at the deputy, afraid the man might have a coronary.

Marsh cleared his throat, continuing his heartbreak. "When he came to Naria's file, he was able to salvage some old entries concerning my wife's imprisonment, consequent barter and—termination."

The atmosphere inside the constabulary stilled. No one moved in their places out of respect for the other man who clearly has not grieved properly. Only the peripheral sounds of the building whispered into the room, letting everyone know that beyond this circle, life continued, but to Marsh, those sounds no longer held his attention.

"My wife," he found his voice and picked up the story. "Was taken as a slave by a Drule overlord and later bore that Drule a child." His shoulders slumped as he took his seat. He didn't understand why he was telling everyone this now. He gazed back at the princess. He could feel her kindness and compassionate presence reaching out to him, to unburden his grief to her. He shook his head. He had to keep it together.

Allura clamped down her shock. This was the side of war she knew Coran was still shielding her from.

"Nevertheless," Marsh pointed at the list on the holo-board. "We'll continue the search for them."

Jazia lowered her gaze. She had heard those stories about the Lost Children, growing up. Few survived the heritage of the union since most of them they died at an early age due to the incompatibility of alien and Drule physiologies. All she had from her mother was a necklace given to her when she was six years old just before she was sent to work for an off-world occult scientist. Jazia knew that was the last time she was ever going to see her mother's warm brown eyes again. She caressed the pendant in her hand, and lost in her own memories.

Keith, who had been reading the names found a familiar name on the list. "One of the missing is a relative yours?"

"Ladrel Andros," Wyx nodded from his workstation. "My father."

"If there's anything the Voltron team can do to help," Allura offered.

Marsh nodded, his hand balling into a fist at his side. "We will contact Castle Control as soon as possible." He politely bowed again and walked stiffly out of the room. He needed some air to clear his head.

Allura watched the older man striding out of the room; he gave Councilor Magan a curt nod as he went by. The councilor was conversing with one of the deputies; no doubt his informal way of checking up the officers.

She could only imagine the pain Marsh had held on to for so long. She was surprised the older officer was able to function properly in his job.

"I don't think I'd be able to keep it together if I was in his position," Keith remarked quietly beside Allura. They moved to Jazia Trell's workstation. Allura nodded in agreement, letting the bond coil infusing it with enough gratitude that he was on the other end, receiving her feelings.

Allura extended her hand to the young woman. "I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you since your move here four months ago," she said in a quiet tone. She was still affected by Marsh's tragic tale.

Jazia appeared to be flustered, though as she hastily stood and tried her best not to fall over. The spell of walking down her memory lane had annoyed her but kept the emotion from reaching her eyes.

"Your Royal Highness. Thank you," she said in a rush, causing Wyx to swallow his guffaws, sounding all weird in the background. Then she added in a somber tone, "This was the first time Marsh revealed to us the other details regarding his wife's passing."

Allura took it in. "I will do whatever I can in my power to bring home the missing," her gaze then fell on Jazia's pendant. "That's a lovely necklace," she said. She thought she recognized it from somewhere, but she couldn't place where she had seen it. "I seldom have seen a family crest fashioned as a necklace." There was tiny frown on Allura's face, still trying to recall its familiarity but the memory was too fleeting.

If Jazia paled at the snippet of information, the junior officer didn't show it and watched in her confounded silence as the small entourage file out of the constabulary. She held the necklace again. She hadn't realized it was a crest. The swirling pattern at the center was connected to three smaller downward swirling lines and was enclosed inside a ring. She had thought it was one of the Drule overlord's ludicrous efforts to ridicule her mother. The necklace couldn't have been Arusian, as the princess believed —could it? The troubling thought reverberated deep in her mind but the notion was immediately squashed. That Drule overlord must have had countless slaves originating from Arus, and on a whim he liked to buy gifts for her mother. There were moments that she was grateful to have inherited her mother's outward physical appearance, but it only made her miss her more.

Dismissing another old childhood memory before it derailed her concentration completely, she eyed the blinking anomaly found embedded in the communication routing pattern she was now examining on her screen. The spies were listening in to the communication transmissions. She mulled the thought over as she hid any trace of data transfer she was performing. When it was complete, she tucked the personal tablet inside her bag. Bringing up the main menu of the systems, she began widening her search on the constabulary systems.

The program she had uploaded to the station's system four months ago had paid off when another result flashed at the bottom of her screen, informing her of another program running alongside the constabulary video feed now. She leaned back as a small smile crossed her lips. "Someone's getting apprehensive."

She covertly began her attempt to trace the video program's origins. She was hoping no one else was trawling along the central system too because it will tip them that she has been sniffing in areas her junior officer security clearance shouldn't have any access to.