Profiteer

Shane felt an involuntary wave of sympathy for the man in front of her.

 

He turned around, putting his hands on the desk. “Something like this doesn’t happen suddenly.”

 

“What do you mean?” Was he accusing her of something? It didn’t sound like it. But it didn’t seem his emotions ever touched his voice.

 

“You must have been dissatisfied with your command, the marines, long before you’d be able to make a decision like that.”

 

“But—” Shane began to object, but she had the sinking feeling that Dominic Magnus was right. For a long time, especially after she became an officer, she’d been hiding a growing disillusionment with the marines—even from herself. When had she thought of herself, in the few moments she’d been brutally honest, as anything other than a government-sanctioned mercenary? How long had it been since she’d honestly believed what the briefings said, that they were on the side of the angels?

 

How long?

 

Years.

 

He was nodding at her, as if he could read her chain of thought. “What commanded your loyalty, Shane?”

 

Good question. She thought about it for a long time. It wasn’t the Confederacy, which she’d always seen as a self-perpetuating bureaucracy only interested in preserving the status quo. It wasn’t the planetary governments, a lot of whom were pretty nasty and deserved the rebellions that it was her job to put down. Certainly not the TEC. Not even the Occisis marines themselves. That realization hit home, because there was a time when the marines were everything, the marines were her honor. It had been a long time since she’d felt that, she realized. The dozen petty little conflicts she’d been witness to had sapped that out of her.

 

There really was only one thing that had commanded her loyalty in the end.

 

“My people,” she said.

 

Her people, her team, her command, her friends. All of whom had become strangers ever since Colonel Dacham had taken charge. She felt warmth by her eyes and hoped Magnus wouldn’t notice her tears.

 

“My people,” she repeated coldly.

 

“That’s good,” Magnus said. “That’s the only loyalty worth anything.” He sank back into his seat, nodding. “So what do you want to do, Shane?”

 

Put my hands around Klaus Dacham’s neck and slam his head into a bulkhead until his brains ooze out of his mouth.

 

“I don’t know,” she said.

 

He made a steeple of his fingers and looked at her over his tapping forefingers. “Perhaps I can offer a suggestion or two.”

 

<>

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

 

Loyal Opposition

 

 

“The future is the past’s revenge.”

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

 

“We are dead men on furlough.”

—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

(1870-1924)

 

 

Dominic Magnus was barely aware he was going to recruit Shane until he had done it. It made little sense on the surface, especially as careful as he was being with every other potential member of the team.

 

It might have been a wave of empathy he felt for Shane. Her forced renunciation of the Confederacy was painfully akin to his own.

 

Of course, she was lucky enough to come to her decision before people died.

 

Once he had extended his hand, the corporate leader took over, and he found that he couldn’t withdraw it. Even as Shane stared and tried to refuse his offer, Dom found himself playing Lucifer and turning the offer into something she couldn’t deny.

 

It wouldn’t be a betrayal, he told her. If she were involved in their heist, her information might actually save the lives of the marines. Perhaps it could even be an act of contrition.

 

Dom hated himself for the words even as he said them. She was vulnerable, and he was twisting her ...

 

But the corporation needed her. His people needed her.

 

He wove his argument seamlessly, even after Shane told him who was in command of the GA&A takeover.

 

* * * *

 

Dom left the interview amazed at how calm he was acting. He walked around to the observation room, hands clenching unconsciously. For once, his nervous tics were the farthest thing from his mind.

 

The door slid aside on Tetsami and Zanzibar, who sat on the other side of the massive one-way mirror behind the desk in the interview room. He could see Shane, still sitting in the room beyond the mirror. Shane had a bemused expression. Dom thought he might have left a little abruptly.

 

Zanzibar was seated at the monitor’s station, but right now she was ignoring the displays recording Shane’s blood pressure, skin galvanity, pupil dilation, etcetera. Instead, she was looking at Dom with an expression of concern.

 

“Sir,” Zanzibar’s voice was softer now than it normally was. “She could be lying about—”

 

“Escort her back to her room. I’ll finish the interview later.” Dom said it slowly and deliberately. He wasn’t sure his mouth would work.

 

Zanzibar looked at him for a long moment, slowly nodded, and left.