Profiteer

“I want you to know that if you had come to me, surrendered, I might not have done this. Just as, had you acted differently, our mother might still be alive.”

 

The black cloud grew, the growth accelerating. In an impossibly short time it eclipsed the entire sky. Then the camera died.

 

A few seconds later, as if to confirm the atrocity that had just been committed, a dull rumble vibrated the floor. When Shane felt that rumble, she could feel her stomach fall out. “God save us,” Shane whispered.

 

Klaus’ face returned to the holo, unfazed. “There went your army, Dominic. You aren’t a special man any more, just some criminal Bakunin flotsam I have to flush from my ship. My only regret is that you’ll be unable to attend your trial.”

 

The holo died.

 

“Thirteen hundred people.”

 

“Shane,” Random said.

 

Shane leaned her forehead against a bulkhead. Was it her? Had she led that psychopath to all those people? Did she save eight hundred people just so the colonel could mop up the rest of the survivors?

 

She had just lost any justification she had for being here, fighting her people.

 

“Shane!”

 

Mosasa spun her around.

 

“What?”

 

“Random just lost life support. You have to turn your suit to full containment.”

 

Shane flipped a few internal switches and winced at the power-level on her suit. “I only have fifteen minutes.”

 

“That’s okay,” said Random. “It’s only going to take them twelve to burn through the hatches to us.”

 

<>

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

 

Loose Cannon

 

 

“The more complicated the situation, the sooner and more catastrophic the eventual screwup.”

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

 

“Treason is loved of many, but the traitor hated of all.”

—Robert Greene

(1558-1592)

 

 

07:35:00 Godwin Local

 

Despite Flower’s warning, there wasn’t a choice. They had to finish the job.

 

Finish this, then think of the ground team.

 

So, after spending a minute burning the security cameras in their section of hallway, the job went on as planned. Levy pointed the huge number one variable-gamma laser at the main safe door. After triple-checking the team’s personal radiation shields, a nervous-looking Levy began firing the laser.

 

The gamma-ray laser was powerful enough to cut through the door on its own, given unlimited time and power. However, that wasn’t the point. The point was the fact that with the hydraulics drained the only thing holding up the door was the electromagnetic lock buried inside it. The lock’s power supply also ran the field generator that was trying to soak up the energy from the gamma laser.

 

Levy was watching power readings and occasionally altering the frequency of the laser.

 

The whole process was invisible, even though Dom could swear he saw some infrared hot spots on the door.

 

‘Wow,” Levy whispered as he pulled on his goggles.

 

Suddenly, the gamma-laser beam dropped into the visible spectrum. Despite the automatic compensations of his artificial eyes, Dom was still blinded for a second.

 

The floor shook with a sound like a massive bass gong. A breeze swept by Dom as his vision came back on-line. When his sight was back, the door was gone.

 

“We did it,” Dom said.

 

The immediate shift from gamma radiation down to visible light had managed a microsecond-long overload in the door’s power circuits. That microsecond failure was enough for the weight of the door and the vacuum hydraulics to pull it open far enough to prevent the electromagnets from closing it again.

 

Levy rose from behind his holo, and Zanzibar stepped up between him and Dom.

 

“Gods,” she said.

 

Behind the open safe door was a long rectangular room. The visible walls, ceiling and floor were all the same black metal. The walls on either side were lined with dull-gray lockers with uniformly square doors.

 

Stacked on the floor ahead of them were three or four dozen white shipping containers—each the size of a foot-locker, the same containers GA&A sold rifles in. One of the containers stood near the safe door. It was open.

 

It was half-full of Imperial Waldgrave ten-thousand mark notes.

 

“Zanzibar,” Dom said, “help Levy load the sled. Flower can guard our rear.”

 

“Yes, sir.” Zanzibar’s voice sounded distant as she stepped forward and closed the open container.

 

Dom felt his pulse pounding through his temple and his neck. It was a measure of how tense he was that biological imperatives were overriding his body’s finely tuned mechanisms. He forced his thoughts into colder, smoother channels. Don’t get excited, he thought, no mistakes.

 

He stepped into the safe and looked at the lockers. He tried one of the locks, and it winked green at him. These locks hadn’t been wiped by the EMP that had scragged the outer door’s lock. He ran his onboard computer for inventory and began popping doors.

 

It had taken them nearly fifteen minutes to open the safe.

 

It took them three to empty it.