Profiteer

He was now within seventy meters.

 

Thank God the prisoners were being quiet.

 

She was going to have to meet him out there and try to bull her way through.

 

Shane turned her transponder back on and climbed out of the nest. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and started walking toward Murphy. She could feel eyes looking at her out of the darkness. Suddenly the whole GA&A complex was enemy territory. She was heading toward the Blood-Tide, and the heavily-armed drop-ship was no longer reassuring. It was sinister.

 

Shane and Murphy approached each other, and Shane prayed she reached him before he turned on his database.

 

“Captain, what are you doing out here?”

 

Murphy was radioing her. She was still over fifty meters away from him. “I couldn’t sleep. I relieved Clarke.” That was true, as far as it went.

 

She could hear Murphy snort over the radio. Murphy had no tolerance for things that didn’t go according to program. He rarely, if ever, voiced his displeasure when a superior decided to improvise, but it seemed that this was one of those rare occasions.

 

“With all respect, Captain, you should be back at the compound at Clarke’s position. I believe you’ve heard my opinion that your guard detail on the prisoners is understaffed as it is.”

 

Shane knew that well. She kept advancing. Twenty meters. “There weren’t any personnel allowances made for guarding that number of people. If it weren’t for the missions into Godwin—”

 

“Again, with all respect, we wouldn’t have this problem if you had been more timely in carrying out the colonel’s orders.” Murphy actually interrupted her. He must be really stressed.

 

Fifteen meters. “I don’t believe there is a problem.”

 

“Captain,” Shane could make out Murphy’s face now. It was lined and he was practically grimacing. She was beginning to detect the anger in Murphy’s voice. He didn’t know, but he suspected. “I think you’ve had a problem with this mission ever since planetfall.”

 

Since before that.

 

They were within ten meters of each other now. To their right was the burnt-out foundation of the old GA&A security building. A slight smell of smoke still filled the air and managed to be cycled into Shane’s suit

 

Murphy stopped his approach.

 

“I’ve voiced my reservations to the colonel. I don’t see how they’re your concern, Lieutenant.”

 

Seven meters. Murphy unlimbered his weapon and pointed it at Shane. “The mission is my concern, and it is my concern when my superior officer is behaving erratically.”

 

Oh, God, Shane thought, this is it. She slowed her approach. Was he monitoring the radio traffic at the compound? Was that why he was here? “Are you going to shoot me with that, Murphy?”

 

Murphy backed up a step. “I think you intend some sort of mutiny.”

 

“You’re going to kill your superior officer because of your own paranoia?”

 

This obviously wasn’t going as Murphy had planned. “I heard your radio transmission to Conner and Hougland— There’s no enemy out there. What the hell do you think you have them doing?”

 

Shane began closing. She hoped her renewed confidence was showing in her voice. “You dimwit, Murphy, you know how green Conner is. The only way his performance is going to improve is if I throw him some curves—”

 

Six meters.

 

“You should have cleared it with—”

 

She had him now. “I was not under the impression that regulations required me to clear training exercises with inferior officers. I’m going to ask you again, Lieutenant Murphy, are you going to shoot me with that thing?”

 

Murphy was no longer angry. He was scared. He should have been. If Shane had been telling the truth, he was the one looking at a court-martial. He lowered the gun.

 

Shane smiled and shook her head. “You’re lucky you didn’t get shot, Murphy. Go back to your quarters, consider yourself under house arrest.”

 

Murphy wordlessly nodded behind his helmet and began to walk back to the ship. Shane followed him, five meters behind. “One question, Lieutenant. Do you have any accomplices in this fiasco, or did you engineer this on your own initiative?”

 

Murphy sighed. “I did this on my own. No one even knows I’m out here.”

 

Shane turned on the ECM and shot him with the stunner. Murphy dropped like a stone before he knew what hit him.

 

Shane stood beside Murphy, waiting for the alarms to sound. None did. Nobody had seen Murphy drop. He’d told the truth. No one knew he was out here.

 

Shane rolled him into the ruin of the old GA&A security building and pulled some wreckage over him.

 

Then, with one last look at the Blood-Tide, she turned toward the prisoners’ compound. She would have an hour, an hour and a half at best.

 

She sincerely hoped that someone in the mass of prisoners would know where the hell they could go.

 

<>

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

Executive Session

 

 

“Governments are always more at risk from their subjects than they are from external threats.”

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom