Profiteer

Twenty minutes and a kilogram note later, the two were in.

 

<>

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

Golden Parachute

 

 

“True enemies are as rare as true friends.”

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

 

“It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend.”

—William Blake

(1757-1827)

 

 

Objectively speaking, the escape couldn’t have gone better.

 

Shane had opened a thirty-six-degree hole in the marines’ northern defense perimeter simply by taking herself, Hougland, and Conner out of the loop. Somehow she managed to funnel the prisoners through security’s cone of blindness. Members of GA&A’s original security managed to maintain order within the ranks of the prisoners as she guarded the rear and waited for one of the colonel’s search and destroy missions to overtake them.

 

Within an hour they were under the cover of the forest, safe from most spy sats but not from overflights. Shane let two of the security people lead the way; they seemed to know where to go—and they were going away from Godwin. Shane didn’t want to go toward the city. She knew that the colonel would concentrate any search for the prisoners in the space between GA&A and Godwin.

 

Even so, the mass of prisoners would be impossible to hide once a concentrated search started. Even though their path seemed to take them directly away from Bakunin’s excuse for civilization.

 

Shane knew the whole project was doomed. They were still close enough to the GA&A complex to know when the alarm was raised.

 

She guarded the fatalistic march into the Diderot Mountains, waiting for a miracle.

 

In two hours, a miracle occurred.

 

* * * *

 

The escape couldn’t have gone better. Shane still thought that, five overlong Bakunin days later.

 

* * * *

 

Kathy Shane lay sprawled on her cot, thinking about the briefing holos they’d shown on the Blood-Tide before the jump to Bakunin space. The planetary briefings they gave the marines before a drop were always heavy propaganda jobs. All good soldiers knew that, deep down. Just a little bit of spiritual bullshit to help everyone believe that they were on the side of the Angels; they were helping the helpless; God was on their side saying, “Rah! Rah! Rah!”

 

Of course you believed every word, or at least fooled yourself into believing every word.

 

“It was too good. Wasn’t it, Murphy?”

 

Good enough for almost all her people to forget what they’d learned about illegal orders. Good enough not to question the colonel. Good enough to make her people believe that the people of Bakunin deserved what they got.

 

She should have had her own briefings after those holos. She’d known they were over the top when she saw them....

 

Bakunin, home of a million perversions.

 

Bakunin, where every citizen is a thief and a murderer.

 

Bakunin, economic black hole trying to pull the Confederacy into its anarchic chaos.

 

Bakunin, where your typical inhabitant would shoot you, rape you, and steal your boots simply because there was no law that said he couldn’t.

 

Shane knew that by the time Dacham had given the order to vaporize the prisoners, her people had begun to think of Bakunin less as a planet and more like the first circle of Hell. If Dacham ordered carpet bombing the continent with micronukes, Shane thought most of his command would go along without any question. Those who’d question were probably too scared to do anything.

 

His command.

 

Shane shivered.

 

The room they’d put her in wasn’t originally designed as a cell. The mattress she lay on was an electrostatic fluid of variable viscosity, much more comfortable than her bunk aboard the Blood-Tide. There was a separate bathroom that seemed to have an unlimited supply of hot water. There was a half kitchen that allowed her to call up her own menu at any time. There was even a full holo entertainment system on the far wall from the door.

 

The only thing to show that she was a prisoner was the fact that the door was locked.

 

For perhaps the dozenth time in the last four days Shane wondered if she should have simply split off from the prisoners once she got them safely outside the perimeter. And again, the same answer: She’d done the right thing.

 

She had chucked her career—hell, she had chucked her whole life—to free those people, and she’d make damn sure they made it to safety. She’d been the only armed member of the escape, and if she’d split off from them, they’d have been defenseless.

 

Fortunately for the prisoners, there was an emergency rendezvous set up by the former CEO, Dominic Magnus. They’d been barely three hours out of GA&A when the patrol at the commune here saw them and took them in, through one of the hidden caves that dotted the Diderot Range.

 

Unfortunately for Shane, the command here took a dim view of her. The guards would have wasted her if the prisoners hadn’t spoken up on her behalf.