Dreadnaught

He called up windows for the Marine unit leaders, momentarily surprised by the number that appeared. He had more than twice as many Marines as had previously been with the fleet, meaning twice as many unit leaders. He touched one face, the subdisplay showing activity in the prison camp immediately highlighting that officer’s position near the shuttles. Trying again, Geary got a lieutenant who was leading a platoon inside one of the buildings, and called up another window offering a view from that Marine’s combat armor.

A moment’s disorientation vanished as Geary’s mind made sense of the images, seeing a darkened hallway lined with doors. The Marines moved quickly, weapons ready, all the way to the end of the hallway, then, at the lieutenant’s command, one of them reached for a locked door and twisted the lock with the enhanced strength of the combat armor. With a squeal of protesting metal, the lock snapped, and the door swung open.

Two men in faded Alliance ground forces uniforms stood within, not moving, their hands out. They had enough sense not to do anything while nervous Marines had weapons trained on them. “Where are the guards?” the lieutenant asked them.

“Even floors, guard stations at the end,” one of the prisoners immediately replied. “Normally three guards.”

“Got it. Stay put until the follow-on forces come through.” The lieutenant sent her men up the stairs at the end of the hall, the combat armor allowing them to leap several stars at a time until they crashed through the doors onto the next floor.

The guard station was deserted, its alarm panel blinking frantic and futile warnings. “Guard stations in this building are abandoned,” the lieutenant reported. “Roger,” Geary heard her captain reply, his voice sharp. “Make sure you check every one. Combat engineers are coming through to disable alarm panels and ensure they aren’t linked to any dead-man traps. Make sure your Marines don’t touch them.”

“Understood.” A moment later, the lieutenant roared at some of her own Marines. “Orvis! Rendillon! Don’t touch those damned buttons!”

Geary closed the window, feeling guilty at concentrating on a single, small piece of the picture when the entire fleet was his responsibility. “Why is it that whenever sailors or Marines see a button, they want to push it?”

“Did you ever wonder what they did before humans invented buttons to push?” Desjani asked. “There must have been something they weren’t supposed to do.”

“No resistance,” Carabali reported. “The guards are hunkered down in their barracks and surrendered to the first Marines to breach the doors.”

That was going well, anyway. “Any problems?”

“Not yet. Seventy-five percent of the prison camp is now secured. Estimated time to completely secured is five minutes.”

“Thank you.” Things were going far too well, but he couldn’t spot any problems hiding, ready to pounce. He tried to relax while staying alert and shifting his attention between different displays, watching his ships jink and dodge slightly at random intervals to confuse any attempt to target them from the planet’s surface, watching the green “cleared” areas on the prison camp display grow to cover the entire area, waiting as the Marines ensured that no booby traps were active before they began breaking open doors wholesale and herding newly liberated prisoners into courtyards where shuttles waited.

Another window popped open next to Geary. “We’re getting identifications on the prisoners, Admiral,” Lieutenant Iger said. “It looks like this was a VIP labor camp.”

“A what?”

“VIPs, sir. Every other prisoner ID we’re getting is for an admiral or general. The lower-ranking officers among them, and by ‘lower-ranking’ I mean usually fleet captains and colonels, all seem to be men and women who were highly decorated and influential before being captured. Now we know where the general officers have been, why the prison camps we’ve liberated prior to this had captains and colonels as the senior officers. There are a few civilians so far, but even those are high-ranking officials or political leaders who were nabbed in raids or assaults on Alliance worlds. No enlisted personnel at all.”

“Highly decorated and influential,” Geary repeated, something telling him that those words were critically important.

“Yes, sir. Like, um, Captain Falco.”

Captain Falco. A single individual who had triggered mutiny against Geary and caused the loss of several ships. And this Syndic labor camp was full of individuals with similar backgrounds. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Is there anything else, sir?”