Lee entered the Recruitment Office's main lobby. He walked to the coffee machine.
He filled his cup of coffee and headed towards the main lobbies where the recruits were still shocked from the recent beating.
He sipped his coffee while pointing at a recruit.
"You!" He pointed his finger at Koos Niekerk. "You're up, come with me"
2 Coalition Marine Guards escort Niekerk and followed Lee into a dark room.
The room was very opaque with smoke from gunfire and reeked of death. There was a single desk with a single light shining over it. Near the door there was a bland bookshelf, but other than that, it was empty.
"Take a seat" Lee commanded sternly as he motioned the recruit to sit down.
Lee continued to sip his coffee while pacing back and forth behind the recruit.
"So lets begin with introductions hmm? What is your name, where do you come from, and what influenced you to apply for the Coalition Fighter Corps?"
Recipient of the Hispania Memorium, Golden Fourragere, Halo of Valor, Order of the Red Star, and the Hero of the Revolution
"I don't believe so mein herr, my mother did not take my father's name."
He watched as the recruit was dragged out of the room
"However, the details, I do not know. So you may have."
"While you correctly identified that the transport should be obliterated, what use is the money if the transport is toast? 10m is a lot of money, Money that could fuel and finance the revolution - You think Revolution bombers grow on trees?!"
Ling slashed at the recruit's chest leaving a deep laceration. It was not a killer strike but he was in no doubt the recruit was now in total pain as his blood spilled across the deck.
"You're not dead yet, I still have roughly about 5 minutes before all your blood flows out your body onto this deck. Tell me why I should save you."
Ling stood over the recruit and pointed his sword at the man's right eye.
Ling sighed. The man's blood which he was coughing up had stained his trousers. A new perk to the rank of Captain he thought.
"I didn't ask for your opinion on me. I asked for reasons why you should live!"
Ling pulled out his service pistol and took out the clip. He removed all the bullets from the clip save one, and loaded that directly into the chamber.
"Honour, dedication, strength of will. These are characteristics which are needed in the Coalition. The ability to outsmart your opponent and stealth are more important than being the best fighter ace. Teamwork, trust - These are most important of all."
Ling crouched by the recruit and placed the gun on the deck, just outside his reach..
"What you have shown me is fear, naivety and a lack of understanding for our cause. While Mendel seeks fairness and equal opportunity - Only those who are worthy may fly with us."
He shook his head once more.
"You are right though, I am not a murderer. So you will choose your own death. You can either bleed out on this deck, or crawl over there - pick up the gun and shoot yourself. This door's going to be locked and no-one else is coming in. Die with honour."
Ling then tapped on the door to be let out and the door was locked behind him. He stood by it for a few moments, wondering if he would hear that gunshot. He spoke with the marines at the door.
"Stand ready. If there's no gunshot, Wait 15 minutes - He should be dead and dispose the corpse out the airlock. If he does do the honourable thing... dispose the corpse out the airlock.
The smoke was so thick it brought a tear to Koos' eye. He tried to ignore the obvious smell of cordite gunpowder that hung heavily in the room.
"I am Koos Niekerk. I am a child a privilege, born into a wealthy family of four in a gated community on Planet Manhattan.
My father comes from a long line of merchants, each more successful than the last, all the way back the ancient country of South Africa on Earth. There were Niekerks in the skies above Manhattan since the earliest days of Liberty, and Niekerks blazed the path for capitalist expansionism and blazing a new trail of markets, enslaving ever more with the materialist, narcissistic lifestyle that poisons the souls of men sector-wide.
My kin is responsible for the spread of that great plague and deceiver democracy. We were the ones who made it possible for the few to enslave the many, for the capitalist pigs to chain the worker in every way possible. We Niekerks spread that opiate religion wherever we went with a singular mind. Why not? A drugged populace is much easier to exploit.
You may be wondering, sir, what would cause a boy with everything to turn on his family, their tradition, their so called honor. How can such a soft young man be truely dedicated to this lifestyle. I was 17 when I took a trip after secondary school to Rheinland. It was in that corrupt, decaying society that I met my god: socialism.
I met a man in a bar on New Berlin. He asked me "Son, are you happy?" "Of course I am" I replied. "What makes you happy? Your clothes? Your friends? Your family? Your ship?" he asked. I answered, "All those things, and the things that I love." "You deserve none of them. They are the work of others, unjustly appropriated. Your friends? They are only thus because of your money. Your family? They only love you because your greedy father wants his property to stay in your family." The stranger then took me to the country. He showed me how the worker had nothing and the master everything. He showed me how democracy is impressed upon the people and deludes them into thinking that they matter, that they have a voice. He showed me how the women was enslaved in her home, her work ignored and unappreciated. He showed me how the man on the pulpit tells the worker to shut up and wait, your rewards are waiting just around the corner and to be obedient. I remember seeing all this and weeping at the tragedy and folly of mankind. How could it be that so few could dominate so many with so little effort? How could it be that the great mass of mankind was stripped naked of it's humanity? How could this continue?
Two people returned to the city. One was not the same man who left. Before parting ways the man turned to me and said, "Property is the root of all evil." It is this simple tenet that I have kept with me. Utopia was before me.
Upon my return home I disowned my father, my mother, and my brother. How can they not only be part of such a cosmic scandal but not be the least bit shamed by having actively participated in the suffering of millions? It was disgusting to me now. All of it. The house. The servants. The marble floors.
I left with no where to go. No safe harbor to call my own. I heard a rumor while returning to Rheinland, the only place in the sector of which I knew something, of a shadow of a possibility. I heard what I and many had thought was impossible, that the coalition survives. I hope this finds you wherever you are. I hope that your grace sees me as worthy of joining the only hope for mankind's continued survival. I want to become a glorious member of the SCRA more than life itself. Nothing else has any meaning or holds any value to me. I will be a faithful servant of the vanguard. I will be a servant of the proletariat."
So true is it that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural.
"Captain... have I taught you nothing? Zombies man.... Zombies... you give them a chance and they rise from the dead... try to do crazy crap like shoot you... me... or blow up the ship... all from some kind of deranged..." he held out a hand. "Pasha... Shotgun!"
He levelled it at the door. "Now Ling-ling... if something... anything opens that door, you blow it to kingdom come... don't worry about ammo, we have lots for this very reason!"
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