Profiteer

He told his onboard computer to call up the GA&A communications net. He needed to contact the control tower, now. Air traffic control was supposed to confirm the ID of any approaching craft and sound the all-clear before anyone even thought of lowering the defense screens.

 

He turned around and faced the holo projection above his desk.

 

Nobody was manning the control tower. He was looking at a totally empty room, lit only by the computer schematics showing the local airspace. There was no one to authorize downing the screens.

 

Dom called security.

 

The holo fuzzed and the empty control room was replaced by the dusky face of Mariah Zanzibar. “Yes, sir?”

 

“Red Alert. Prepare the defenses for immediate attack.”

 

Alarms sounded, and the antiaircraft batteries began turning to track the incoming target. Dom had the feeling that it was already too late. He turned back to watch the approaching Prometheus. The ship that was just becoming visible over the glowing sprawl of Godwin wasn’t the Prometheus, or anything close to a Hegira cargo liner—

 

The lines were unmistakable, even at this distance. It was a Confed troopship.

 

“Damn it, Zanzibar, get those screens back up—”

 

Even as he spoke, he could see a streak of light emerge from the ship. It split into five arrows of fire, heading right for the perimeter towers. EM-tracking missiles with independently targetable warheads. If the screens were up, the ECM would take out 70% of them.

 

The screens did not go back up.

 

Five field generators and accompanying antiaircraft exploded into cherry-red balls of flame. Dom felt the building shake underneath him and knew that defending the complex now would be a futile gesture.

 

The realization was like a sheet of ice slicing through him. He was suddenly very calm.

 

He turned back to the holo. Zanzibar was facing away from him and shouting orders at her security team. She turned back. “We can’t get the defense screens back up, Mr. Magnus. Someone scragged the independent power supply. We’re trying to hook into the factory generators. That’ll take another five minutes and the power supply will be vulnerable.”

 

Dom nodded; he knew his own complex well enough. “Start evacuating personnel,” he said, his voice a monotone. “It’s a lost cause.”

 

“Sir?”

 

“Get everyone you can to the Diderot Commune. That’s an order.”

 

“Yes, Mr. Magnus. Good luck.”

 

Dom cut the connection.

 

Behind him the holographic walls flashed with more red light. Five more warheads, Dom thought, another five perimeter towers. Even if Zanzibar could get power to the remaining screen generators immediately, the screens would cover only three-quarters of the complex.

 

Dom looked toward the invader. The ship was slowing, disgorging its landing craft. It wasn’t going to blast the complex.

 

They were going to try to take it.

 

His thoughts were ice-fine and cold, like filaments of metallic hydrogen. Only briefly did he wonder why this was happening. But the fact that the invaders were shifting to a ground assault gave him a chance to salvage something—

 

Himself.

 

It also gave him a chance to deny them at least part of what they were after.

 

Dom called down to the computer core. The control center for GA&A, its heart and brains, was buried in a concrete bunker two klicks under the surface. Even a direct hit by a micronuke would leave GA&A’s assets and records unharmed. If he’d had some warning of the attack, he could be down there and control most of the aspects of the complex, including defense.

 

By the time he had stopped talking to Zanzibar, the cold reptilian part of his mind had decided that there was a traitor, who he was, and where he had to be.

 

Cy Helmsman, his Vice President of Operations, was one of the more powerful cogs in the GA&A machine. Dom had built GA&A, but much of it had been on the foundation of Helmsman’s expertise. In many senses, Helmsman was Dom’s sword arm. Helmsman fought GA&A’s secret battles, and had brought many of GA&A’s competitors to their knees. Helmsman had come out of the same background that Dom had—war, espionage, the TEC.

 

Which all meant that Dom had never fully trusted him.

 

Helmsman was the man who answered the holo call down to the core. The core was the only place where it was possible to override the defense screens without Dom himself being present.

 

“I’ve been expecting you,” Helmsman said.

 

Helmsman was middle-aged, white-haired, a slow, plodding, methodical man used to deception and double-think. Dom had felt he could keep Helmsman’s ambition in check by using Helmsman’s incredible cowardice. Dom had miscalculated.

 

Very slowly, Dom asked him, “How much did they offer?”

 

“Ownership of the company.”

 

Helmsman had abandoned the TEC to save his own precious skin. Apparently he had returned to the fold because he thought he deserved a bigger slice of the pie.

 

Helmsman was a fool.