Free Schism of Blood and Stone (The Starfield Theory Book 1) by Brian Frederico Page A

explained. “After the bombing of the convoy, they changed the schedule. The ship was there, but it was full of Averi legionaries, not Azure.”
    Damien had never seen the liquid called Azure before. Allegedly the most valuable substance in the galaxy, Azure was believed by the Starfield Theorists to give the Azuren their incredible mental and physical abilities. Supposedly the Azuren replaced their blood with the substance wholesale, but no one had ever seen an Azuren bleed to confirm the myth.
    “There must have been a leak, some sort of tip off that we were coming,” Damien said as his mind raced through other Theorist agents, analyzing their loyalty, searching for possible fifth columnists.
    “There's more,” Reyna continued sadly. “Observers noted scars on Darren's head. They think he may have been indexed.”
    “They wouldn't dare,” Damien whispered. “Such torture is forbidden even on humans by their own laws let alone Amrah's laws.”
    Indexing had been made illegal centuries before and the technology was believed to be lost, but several machines were known to remain in existence. The indexing process changed the electrochemical points of information, or POI, in the brain into code which could be translated into real images, thoughts and words. The Pedant Theorists still had the ability to decode those POI, but Damien didn't believe they had any of the machines themselves. The Azuren certainly possessed a number of them, but using them publicly would have dire repercussions. The use of such machines on a Starfield Theorist however, could easily be brushed away. Theorists were dangerous terrorists, of course, so no one, especially the nobility, cared much what happened to them.
    If Darren had been indexed, it was possible, if the Azuren had decoded the POI correctly, that he had given up the location of the Theorist sect on Hidelborg, Damien's own fief. That will give me new and greater problems than the Dominion, Damien thought. Let's hope the Azuren botched the indexing.
    The process of indexing left the victim essentially mindless. As the POI were pulled and analyzed they were deleted from the brain. The victim did not always die, but rather was left with little or no memory, depending on how well he was able to resist the indexing.
    “One of the Praxis teams tried to recover his body to confirm and failed. Ojressi has been known to be particularly ruthless towards Vagabonds. He was also commanding the response force that crushed the Manderheim rebellion and executed the survivors by spearing them to the ground all over the planet's capital.”
    “I remember,” Damien said. I care little for the Dominion-sympathetic residents of Manderheim, but what happened to them is inhumane. I remember the smell of the bodies roasting in the suns. They could still be there for all I know.
    “How much danger are we in then? How much did Darren know about us?” Damien asked.
    “The time between his capture and execution was nearly two weeks, which means they could have indexed his brain repeatedly. So they either got very little or found him to be a gold mine.”
    Damien exhaled slowly. Most people don't last more than one index. The procedure is so invasive they either break and reveal everything they know or die in the process. “If he was indexed repeatedly, he must have been very resilient,” he said though he doubted it to be true.
    Reyna nodded uncertainly.
    “If the Azuren had gotten anything out of him they'd have moved on us by now.”
    “You must contact the Administration,” Reyna pleaded. “They must know immediately if we have any sort of trouble with Azuren.”
    “I must do nothing, Reyna. I must protect my identity and I must pursue my claim to Magdeborg's throne.”
    “They will expect updates. They already think you spend too much time attending to the Commonwealth's politics-”
    “And not enough to their will and whims. No more. I have my duties to the Commonwealth and my family. I