Dome of Souls (Book 2 of 2, after Story Less Told)

Ch17 Old Dog Unchained

"Greg, what the hell?" she asked as her eyes widened and he hugged her. Suddenly there was a concussive explosion. The room was filled with smoke and dust as Izzy wheezed and rubbed her neck.

"What was that?" she yelled.

"Precautions. I need you to listen very carefully because we don't have much time and I need you to do what I say."

"Not a fucking chance." she barked. He put his hand over her mouth and gently restrained her.

"I'm not asking, just listen. That was a conduit overload I rigged to blow." he said abruptly jamming a syringe in her neck.

"Ow damnit! Why?" she yelled.

"I packed the conduit with a radioactive isotope, should mimic the radiation I emit when I lose my temper and go nuclear, that injection will protect you, this has to look like a psychotic episode.

"It IS a psychotic episode!" she insisted.

"Good then it's even convincing you. They have you bugged, wireless implant probably near the brain stem, no way I could get it out without hurting you or alerting them, so I just...disabled it, with an EMP shock. Sorry it had to be unpleasant but I don't know any other way to knock out an Osirian tracker except obviously just killing you and that would really suck for you. Okay. They are using you as a spy to gather information about me."

"I'm not a spy, everyone knows I'm evaluating you, I even told you that the first day, that's why I'm here!" she yelled.

"Aha! That's what they want you to think, and you do. However, they are also working behind your back. Sneaky bastards mess with your mind, I mean look at what they did to me all those years, dicking around with my memory. Drove me insane, made me question what was real."

"That I agree with."

"Okay, but they are playing everyone. You, Christophe, everyone is just a pawn and its all about me, controlling me, killing me, maybe making an army of me, I don't know exactly but it's bad. It has to be bad because they wont even bring Christophe into the loop and the only reason they wouldn't want him on their side is of they knew he would morally object and be their enemy."

"You can't prove any of this, Greg, you are losing your mind, and you nearly killed me."

"I know but I have to be contained here. They can't move me to a different base, they need to think I'm too dangerous to move so they'll leave me here a little longer.

"Why? Why do you want to be stuck here?"

"Because I'm not done with the plan yet and if they move me I'll have to start over and I don't have the resources to try this again."

"Oh god, Greg are you trying to hijack the prison planet?"

"No...sort of. I'm hijacking the confinement dome and removing it from the planet and placed into a Shiva Class warship.

"Shit, Greg, you really are dangerous to the Empire. They were completely right."

"No, not MY Empire. Not the Empire that you and me and my family and everyone we love knows. The damn council is corrupted. I don't know what or how but one by one, the elders have changed. None of you kids noticed it but I did, thats why I made them think I was insane. You don't want to corrupt an unstable time bomb, you just box it up and hide it somewhere it can explode safely. They think they got me by the balls but I got them...almost. I need more time. Shiva is almost alive!"