“You didn’t think about it that way,” he corrected her. “How you meant it was that they’re fighters, and that must mean we have something in common.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that, so they walked in silence until they reached the lift and the doors closed on them.

“I’ve seen a lot of bad things in my career, on all sides,” Eric said. “Men tortured for information, even though we both know that torture is a complete sadistic fantasy.”

Deirdre sighed, but nodded. Torture was a fictional solution to real-world problems, and generally made said problems far worse. Some thought no one could withstand torture indefinitely. That was complete bullshit. Plenty of men and women had done just that. The easiest way was just to talk, and lie. It would take weeks or months to confirm or deny information given, and by that time you could say that things must have changed before offering up another lie.

“I’ve seen genocide,” Eric went on. “I’ve even been party to it, indirectly. That’s a stain on my soul that will never wash away, though I spilled enough blood trying, foolish as that sounds. I’ve seen my own men execute prisoners just because they felt righteous fury burning in their veins . . .”

Conner grimaced, knowing that she’d seen some of the same things in her career and been encouraged to look away.

“Through all that, however, I have never flinched from my duty,” he said. “Do you know why, Colonel?”

“Semper fi, sir.”

“Precisely. The Corps, and humanity, are not perfect,” Eric said. “We do horrible things to one another, and all too often have no shame in the action, or remorse in the memory. But the ideals of the Corps . . . those are perfect.”

He took a deep breath. “What I just heard in that cell block, Colonel . . . I hope and I pray that those were the words of imperfect men who have, somewhere deep down, a perfect ideal to look up to . . . but I’m very much afraid that may be a lesson we’ll be forced to teach them in blood.”

“If it comes to that,” she said, “then so be it.”

Eric’s lips twisted into a parody of a smile.

“Semper fi, indeed, Colonel. Semper fi, indeed.”

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 16

► The Odysseus was a fast ship, even when under normal space-warp drive, but when the crew engaged the Terran transition system, there was possibly nothing in the universe, real or imagined, that could beat it.

The big ship transitioned back into real space outside the limits of Ranquil’s solar wind, warping space downwell within a few minutes of reconstitution. They were met within the hour by one of the patrol ships covering the outer system.