Chromium

4.1

"A spy" Dia repeated, her voice dull.

Reyes didn't say anything else. He looked wary, staring at her as if she would snap at any moment. He knows me well.

"A spy for who, Reyes? You have to be more specific, there are a lot of choices." Dia said, without bothering to tone down the sarcasm. "Corporations? Dissidents? Anarchists? Who, Reyes?"

Reyes tightened his lips, his nails scratching on his stubble.

"A Spice Lord."

When those words left his mouth, Dia kept staring at him, paralyzed and cold like she had been thrown into a tank filled with liquid hydrogen.

"The Syndicate." She gasped like it was becoming hard to breathe and speak at the same time. "Since when did you start working for criminals, Reyes?"

Reyes winced.

"It's not that simple, Dia, and you know it. The people in the system..."

"Please, spare me from that." Dia cut him short. "I don't want to hear the sob story about how the Empire abandoned the people of Ether System, or how they were forced to turn into criminals to survive."

She'd heard enough of that nonsense in the years she had been stationed on Heuliv III, the so-called "intellectual capital" of the empire. Finding faults for what the Empire had done hundreds of years ago seemed to be the new trend for the scions of rich families, a way to enhance their images.

"Not all of us are criminals, Dia." Reyes said, his voice shaking a bit as his anger started to leak into it. "And you're leaving out a couple of things. For example why we had to do it in the first place. If the Empire hadn't abandoned the first colonists right after polluting our worlds and depleting the system's natural resources, we wouldn't have to live this way."

Dia's lips parted.

We, he said.

"This is ancient history, Reyes. It happened two hundred years ago and in all this time they..." She shook her head. "you choose to live that way. You choose to become pirates, or worse, banking terrorists to wreak havoc on the Empire. No Reyes, sorry but I feel no sympathy for you."

Reyes snorted.

"Of course not. You are a good little soldier now, another small cog in the Empire's machine."

Better than a pirate. She thought, but she didn't say that to him. She couldn't let him push her buttons, not if she wanted to get some answers.

"Things change, Reyes. Just because we spent a year together a long time ago, don't think you know me."

Reyes didn't seem to like her answer, and even less the detached look on her face and the unemotional sound of her voice.

"Now, if you can please lend me a commlink I have to contact the Empire."

"The Empire, right." He laughed. "It seems to be the only thing you care about at the moment."

But if Reyes was planning to rile her up, he was bound to be disappointed. Dia simply stared at him like she didn't hear his mocking remark. Reyes waited a full minute but sighed as he started to realize his plan wasn't working.

"Fine then. But I wouldn't worry about that, Dia. You see, the Empire already knows what happened. They know about the Collective."

Dia opened her mouth wide.

"How do you know about the Collective?"

"It's not just me, Dia. Everyone knows. You aren't the only one who survived that day. There is another man, Sergent Sunner, if I remember correctly, who managed to get away. "