Profiteer

“Jonah,” came Klaus’ voice from behind him. Dom turned and saw Klaus riding the edge of fury. “While you talk of surrender and capitulation, your ‘people—’ your Bakuninite traitors—are setting off plasma explosions aboard the Blood-Tide. You get no deals.”

 

“Damn it, Klaus!”

 

“I’m going to make you pay for everything!”

 

That was the point at which the world decided to explode.

 

Dom’s brain, computer-assisted as it was, had to suddenly contend with processing a tremendous amount of information in a very short time. From Dom’s point of view, this had the ironic result of slowing his thought processes down to a crawl.

 

Klaus was finishing his sentence, the word “everything” still on his lips, when a flower of smoke erupted from his arm. Dom watched his brother fall across the holo, knocking the image askew. In the cockeyed slice of the top of the residence tower, Dom saw telltale heat ripples cutting through the air, marking the passage of the otherwise invisible beam of a high-frequency sniping laser. The invisible laser cut through air, concrete roof, and defending guards with equal impunity. The angle of the shots marked them as originating from above the office complex, in the air-traffic tower.

 

It had to be Levy.

 

Dom had barely a fraction of a second to grasp that when the doors to the office blew apart.

 

Five well-armed marines fanned out into the room, even as the doors were still in the air. Part of the door landed on the desk, smashing the holo Dom was watching. Four narrow-aperture plasma rifles turned to lock on him. Dom started raising his arms as the leader shouted, “Freeze!” through the loudspeaker on his shoulder.

 

One marine didn’t level his weapon at Dom. He was the last one into the room, and he never looked at Dom at all. He ran into the room to take his position between the front two marines and froze, weapon at his side, staring, through his faceplate, out the window behind Dom.

 

Dom stood there, arms raised, facing the marines across the desk. There was a second of silence. The floodlights in the quad cut abstract shadows in the wall beyond the marines.

 

The shadows were moving.

 

The one marine looking past Dom said, “My God.” Dom never would have heard the hoarse whisper without his enhanced ears.

 

The light disappeared entirely and, despite the warnings, Dom turned.

 

The view out Cy Helmsman’s picture windows was now entirely dominated by a pair of the Blood-Tide’s eighteen-meter diameter main engines. As Dom watched, the engines moved slowly upward. Looking at the silent, majestic progression, Dom could swear that the engines were getting closer—nearly touching the window.

 

Then they touched.

 

The entire office complex tried to shake itself apart. Glass flew into the room. The floor tilted down toward the window, scattering marines and throwing Dom across the desk.

 

Two marines tumbled past him, stopping short at the window as Dom grabbed for purchase on the desk. The entire room shook. Dom looked behind him, right down the throat of the Blood-Tide’s number three main engine.

 

“Shit.”

 

The floor was still tilting, and the engine looked as though it was backing toward him. The desk was starting to slide. A marine fell into the gap between the edge of the floor and the engine, there was a grinding noise, a scream, and the marine disappeared.

 

The Blood-Tide continued to rise.

 

The building was shaking itself apart around him, and behind him the number three engine was sliding up, past him. Dom lost track of the marines. As the engine rose, the floor tilted back. Soon it would be shifting in the opposite direction as the bottom of the engine passed by this floor.

 

The engine was huge. It could swallow most of the room Dom was in. It looked more like a cavern than ever. If the maniac who was piloting the Blood-Tide fired the mains, the blast would vaporize the whole building.

 

Dom felt a massive shudder through the surface of the desk, and part of the roof above him buckled. Dom jumped as pieces of the ceiling began collapsing. He landed on the still moving floor between the desk and the engine. Dom fell on his side and rolled as the floor itself began to crack and buckle. As he tumbled, he caught glimpses of the space beyond the floor. He saw one ugly scene of a marine being ground between multiton slabs of concrete on the floor below him.

 

Dom’s mad scramble, avoiding collapsing ceiling and suddenly hungry floor, took him straight toward the window. He had hoped to get by the Blood-Tide, but by now that entire side of the room was slowly moving engine. Even with the edges of the containment nozzle shredded and torn by the impact with the building, it was the only stable refuge left.