IMP44

==Chapter 44 - Important People==
The Triad
Tharkad System
Lyran Commonwealth
November, 3097
[Elsewhere in the Triad, 10:00 AM....]
Amanda was finally able to get showered and dressed.  It's the little things, like being able to wash the physical filth away and put on something clean that really impact your mental state.
She watched the red swirl down the drain, as hot water pounded on her scalp and skin.  In the steam and relative solitude. She let herself feel, remembering every scream of every face until her legs gave out and she was sitting on the wet tiles, hot water hammering her from above, shaking from the come-down.
I killed people today.  Dear Patrick, I killed people today.  Some of them innocent of all but trusting the wrong officers, some of them guilty of treason themselves. I killed people today. She mentally said to Patrick.
It wasn't like the Colleen system, this wasn't protecting refugees fleeing genocide.
Dear mother, I tortured a man for information.  I cut him, and I shocked him, and I beat him until he told me what I wanted to hear.  Are you proud of that, I wonder?
Her breathing hitched from the memory of his screams. The look of shock on his face, the turning from anxiety to fear in his eyes.
Would father be proud of me for this, I wonder?
Her fingers gripped the sponge harder until they hurt.  Did I actually save anyone?  Have I ever actually saved anyone?
General Wood had laid it out for her: They were doing this to preserve the peace, that a war was inevitable. That the only way to defend the peace, was to restore a balance of power, otherwise the other powers would unite to attack the Lyran Commonwealth.  He'd been so certain it was almost compelling.
Almost.  She'd applied the contacts to his most sensitive parts to make him stop.
She shuddered in disgust at the memory.
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