The other ship wasn’t far away, so the reply came so quickly that it almost seemed real time. “There are materials on the Syndic survival pods we can cannibalize, sir. Emergency life support and emergency rations, mostly.”
“Do you intend leaving the corvette intact?” Not that it was all that much of a threat, but Geary hadn’t intended leaving any enemy warship in functional condition behind them, regardless of whether or not its combat systems had been trashed.
“No, sir.” Audacious replied. “The corvette will be destroyed by triggering a power core overload after we’ve finished stripping it.”
Geary waited, but when Audacious said nothing more, he tapped his communications key again. “Audacious, how do you intend disposing of the corvette’s crew?” He didn’t want to have to divert a ship to deliver prisoners to a planet’s surface or some other safe location.
“They’re on the corvette, sir.” The voice from Audacious sounded surprised at the question.
Once more, Geary waited a moment for Audacious to finish replying to his question. He was moving to tap the communications key again when he suddenly realized with a growing sense of horror that the other ship had finished answering him. “How do you intend disposing of the crew?” “They’re on the corvette, sir.” The corvette that was going to be destroyed by its own power core.
Geary looked down at his hand, the finger still poised over the communications key, and saw that his lower arm was trembling. He wondered how much of the rest of him was reacting to the shock of what he’d realized. They’re going to simply blow up the prisoners with their own ship. Ancestors, what’s become of my people? He looked over at Captain Desjani, who was talking with one of the Dauntless’s watch-standers and seemed unconcerned about Geary’s conversation with Audacious. Rione was apparently seated behind him once again, out of his sight.
Geary closed his eyes, trying to order his thoughts, then slowly opened them again and finally, moving his finger with great care, keyed communications. “Audacious, this is Captain Geary.” You’re about to commit mass murder, you bastards. “Return the survival pods to the Syndic corvette.”
A few seconds passed. “Sir?” Audacious asked. “You want the survival pods destroyed, too? We could use some of their components.”
Geary stared straight ahead and spoke with a flat voice. “What I want, Audacious, is for the crew of that corvette to be allowed to evacuate that ship in their survival pods prior to the destruction of the corvette so they can reach safety. Is that absolutely clear?”
A longer pause. “We’re supposed to let them go?” The captain of the Audacious sounded incredulous.
Geary noticed Captain Desjani was staring at him now. Ignoring her, he spoke again, letting each word fall slowly and heavily like falling hammers. “That’s correct. The Alliance fleet does not murder prisoners. The Alliance fleet does not violate the laws of war.”
“But … but … we’ve—”
Captain Desjani was leaning toward him, whispering urgently. “The Syndics—”
Geary’s control snapped. “I don’t care what’s been done before!” he roared at both the communications circuit and the bridge of the Dauntless. “I don’t care what our enemies do! I will not allow any prisoners to be massacred by any ship under my command! I will not allow this fleet and the Alliance and the ancestors of all aboard these ships to be dishonored by war crimes committed under the all-seeing eyes of the living stars! We are sailors of the Alliance, and we will hold ourselves to the standards of honor our ancestors believed in! Are there any further questions?”
Silence reigned. Captain Desjani was staring at him, her face frozen, her eyes reflecting shock. Finally, Audacious replied, her Captain’s voice hushed. “The survival pods are on their way back to the corvette, Captain Geary.”
Geary struggled to control his voice. “Thank you.”
“If you wish my resignation—”
“No.” It had been several days since the last wave of weakness had hit him, but one seemed to have come on now, and Geary tried to fight it off without resorting to a med-patch. “I don’t know everything that has led to this. I have every reason to believe you were carrying out your duties as you understood them. But I must emphasize that whatever violations of the laws of war that took place before this must stop. We are the Alliance. We have honor. If we hold to that, we will win. If we don’t hold to it … we don’t deserve to win.”
“Yes, sir.” It was hard to tell from the voice of the Captain of Audacious what he thought of what Geary had said, but at least he was doing what he was told.
Geary slumped in his chair, feeling as if in the last several minutes he’d aged the century he’d slept through. Captain Desjani was staring at the deck, her face troubled. She’s a good officer. Like the Captain of the Audacious. Just misguided. Somewhere along the line a lot of important things got set adrift. “Captain Desjani—”
“Sir.” Desjani swallowed and shook her head. “Forgive me for interrupting you, sir, but while you were speaking to Audacious, the Marines reported they have taken the Syndic base and are conducting mop-up operations.”
“Thank you, Captain Desjani. I wanted to say—”
“Sir. The Marines have taken prisoners of most of the garrison of the base.”
Geary nodded, trying to understand why Desjani kept interrupting him.
“The rest of the fleet heard what you told Audacious. However, the Marines would not have been monitoring the communications circuit you used with Audacious.”
Then he got it. Prisoners. Lots of them. And Captain Desjani, whether she agreed with Geary or not, was going to keep interrupting him until he realized what might well be going on at that base. “Get me Colonel Carabali.”
“She’s out of communications for some reason, sir, but we have an audio and video feed from the ground force command-and-control net.”
“Give me a link to that!” His display blinked, and the three-dimensional projection of ships and the Corvus Star System was replaced by a panel made up of at least thirty individual pictures ranked side by side and in vertical columns. It took Geary a moment to realize he was looking at video depictions from what were probably each squad leader in the Marine assault force. He reached forward as if to touch one, and the image expanded, pushing the other images to the side. Geary touched another, and it and the first image adjusted so both were the same size, the other small images ranked around their borders ready for access. Wow. That’s a pretty neat toy. I wonder how many commanders have played with it while they lost track of the big picture?
Geary scanned his eyes across the images, searching for signs of prisoners or any obvious indication that one of the images represented a link to the commander of the assault force. His eyes paused on one image, watching the metal of a corridor wall warp as something firing large solid slugs punched numerous holes in it. Symbols flowed across the image, he saw an arm gesturing within the view, then he could see Marines dashing forward, looking inhuman in their combat armor. Two fired some sort of barrage in the direction from which the shots that hit the wall had come, then a third leveled a large tube and fired it.