Profiteer

It gave Shane a perverse pleasure to think that most of GA&A’s personnel, as far as Colonel Dacham was concerned, had fallen off the face of the planet.

 

After a while, the tone of the corridors changed. Instead of apartments, they now passed offices, and eventually they boarded an elevator. Zanzibar said something to the control panel in a language Shane didn’t recognize, and the elevator began going up.

 

And up.

 

And up.

 

When the elevator had passed two-dozen floors, it announced that it’d reached ground level. The counter changed color as they passed, and kept going. Twenty floors above ground level, the elevator stopped.

 

Penthouse suite, Shane thought.

 

What the elevator opened on wasn’t a suite, but it was familiar. The doors opened on one side of a transparent— probably armored—partition, on the other side of which was a command center, probably for the whole commune. Zanzibar led her off, but in her brief view of the room filled with a dozen people or so she could see holos showing air-traffic patterns, perimeter security, stats on the power plant, and—of all things—at least a half-dozen examples of local Bakunin entertainment programming.

 

Then they were past the partition, and Shane noticed that she and Zanzibar had lost their escort.

 

Zanzibar led her down the corridor, through three security checks and two armored doors.

 

Eventually, after they had passed more security than she’d have needed to go through to board the Blood-Tide, Zanzibar stopped in front of an unmarked door.

 

The door whooshed open on a plushly appointed office decorated in mirrors and off-world woods. For a brain-numbing moment she thought that the person sitting behind the desk was Colonel Klaus Dacham.

 

The brain-lock lasted only a few seconds. The man behind the desk was slightly taller, less stocky, his face and hands less lined.

 

But he could be the colonel’s son, he looked so similar.

 

The man waved to a chair opposite the desk and said, “Please sit.”

 

Shane took a step forward, and the door whooshed shut behind her. She felt every muscle in her body twitch at the noise. That was the point at which she realized exactly how nervous she was. Shane was suddenly aware of the way her heart was pounding and that her face was flushed and sweating—

 

You’d think I was just about to enter combat.

 

She looked back at the man behind the desk. He regarded her with eyes as polished brown as the wood lining his office.

 

Maybe I am.

 

Shane took the offered seat and began to realize whom she was facing. “You’re Dominic Magnus, aren’t you? CEO of Godwin Arms.”

 

He tilted his head in an almost imperceptible nod. “And you’re Captain Katherine Shane, one of the officers who divested me of that title.” The flat way he said that was more frightening than the colonel’s trembling rages.

 

“I think I may have divested myself of my own title,” Shane said.

 

The small nod again. “So it would seem.” Damn it, did he think that she was a plant? Did they think all those prisoners were a cover to get her in here?

 

Well, Shane thought, it’s what I would think.

 

He continued. “You committed no small act by freeing my employees. You could be charged with treason, mutiny, and desertion. Not to mention a score of other charges.”

 

Shane sat up straight. “It was an illegal order, sir.”

 

Huh? Why was she justifying herself to him?

 

“You were obligated only to refuse the order. Not to give aid and comfort to the enemy.”

 

Maybe it was the colonel in some sort of disguise, here to torment her.

 

“Simply refusing the order would have landed me in the brig, sir.”

 

“But then you could have defended your actions. No court-martial would have convicted you.”

 

“But there would have been eight hundred corpses, sir.”

 

“Treason carries the death penalty, Shane.”

 

“You’re assuming I could live with the alternative on my conscience, sir.”

 

There was a long pause. Then he said, “Do me a favor and stop calling me ‘sir.’ “

 

“What should I call you?”

 

“Dom, Mr. Magnus, ‘hey you.’ At this point, ‘sir’ is not very appropriate.” He stood up and faced a long mirror behind his desk. He clasped his hands behind him; one finger was twitching rhythmically. “Forgive the questions, but I need to have a good idea of your state of mind.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I’ll get to that. First, though, I want you to know how grateful I am that you did save my people.

 

“Look, it was—”

 

“I know something of what you went through, making that decision. I had a similar trial, fifteen years ago. I know what kind of wounds that can leave.” His hands dropped.

 

Shane stayed quiet. Colonel Dacham had personally briefed the team on this man. She knew that Magnus had been an officer high in the Executive Command up until fifteen years ago. Colonel Dacham insisted that Magnus had turned traitor, began fighting everything the Confederacy stood for, etcetera.