Dreadnaught

“You didn’t have to make that decision, Admiral.”

Desjani glanced at Geary as he ended that call. “You should get some rest.”

“So should you.”

“I told you first.”

“Damn good job back there.”

“Why, thank you, Admiral. Can I still shoot Vente?”

“No.” Geary closed his eyes for a moment, a great wave of weariness washing over him now that the days of tension had ended in success. “That threat did seem to motivate him, though. Another couple of minutes, and we’d still have been too close to that asteroid when those alien ships turned it into high-velocity junk.”

Her voice sounded a little distant. “We had to succeed this time because we can’t do it again. Next time we come within a light hour of any place they’re holding humans, they’ll blow it apart.”

He knew she was right. This had been a victory, but it had ensured no similar victories could be won.

GEARY took the time to gather the fleet and organize it back into a single formation despite the appearance of almost twenty more enigma warships at other jump points. The days required for that and the journey to the jump point they planned to use next also provided time to learn something about the humans they had rescued.

“They’ve never seen any of the aliens,” Lieutenant Iger reported to Geary. “Even the ones who were captured as opposed to being born in there.” He activated another window showing a man who looked well past middle age. “This man was a crew member on a Syndic HuK. He doesn’t know how long ago that was because the humans inside the asteroid had no means of telling time, but by comparing his account to the records the Syndics provided, it was probably forty years ago when a HuK transiting through the border star system of Ina disappeared.”

The old man began speaking. “I don’t know what happened. I was at my watch station, and suddenly we started taking hits out of nowhere. I remember that. Everyone yelling ‘where’s it coming from?’ Then we got orders to evacuate, and I made it to an escape pod with two others from the crew, and we punched clear, and that’s the last I remembered until I woke up in that place. An asteroid. I always thought it must be an asteroid. I don’t know what happened to the other two who were in the pod with me. I was the only one from our mobile force unit who showed up there. No. No one saw me arrive. I was just there. The lights would go out sometimes, then we’d all fall asleep, and when we woke up, there might be a new person lying next to the lock, or maybe some crates of food, or somebody who had died would be gone. When someone died, we knew that either a new prisoner would show up eventually, or one of the women would become pregnant and have a child. Always the same number of us. Yes. Three hundred thirty-three. Don’t know why.”

The freed prisoner had stopped speaking, blinking away tears. “I know you’re Alliance, but . . . can I go home, sir? It’s been a long time, and I thought I’d die in that place. I want to go home, sir.”

Geary looked away, trying to control his emotions, trying not to let pity for that man and hate for his captors sway his decisions. How would we have treated aliens that we captured? Maybe not the Alliance. But the Syndics, they could have built something like that asteroid prison. “He can’t tell us anything, Lieutenant Iger?”

“No, sir. None of them can.”

The fleet’s chief medical officer had an only slightly more encouraging report. “We didn’t find any biological agents in them, or evidence that any such had been tested. But they did have nanodevices inside them, which outside the asteroid would have triggered fatal reactions if we hadn’t neutralized them as quickly as we did.”

Another form of dead-man switch. “How’s their health now?”

The doctor shrugged. “Not bad, considering. They had a closed community. Human-origin equipment and devices for survival, medical care and the like. Two of the prisoners had enough medical training to use the equipment and take care of all but the most serious afflictions. They grew crops, and occasionally, quantities of foodstuffs that had clearly been manufactured by humans appeared near the air-lock. From the state of their health, they’ve had adequate nutrition, though of course the diet lacked variety most of the time.”

“What about mentally? How are they?”

The doctor looked down before answering. “Fragile. They had constructed a society inside that asteroid, something stable enough to pass on knowledge and maintain order. There’s a council of sorts that made decisions. But they’ve been so isolated, subject to the whims of totally unseen and unknown captors. Now . . . some of them are excited at the thought of seeing the sky. Others are terrified of the same thing. Their world, their source of stability, has been destroyed, and not just in the literal sense of the asteroid being shattered.”