“If the command and control net is still as fragmented as it looks, no Syndic in orbit or on the surface may have a decent picture of what’s going on,” Geary pointed out. “We don’t even know who’s giving orders to these units. Some of them may be operating independently, following standing orders to resist any force attacking the planet.”
His eyes went to the window for the lieutenant leading Third Company. The battle armor showed a gradual lessening of destruction as the Marines made their way out of the area flattened by Warspite. But as Geary watched, the image suddenly blanked, to be replaced by another of roughly the same scene but from another spot. “Lieutenant Tillyer is down,” someone was saying. The window identified the new speaker as Sergeant Paratnam. A building to one side collapsed as Marine fire tore it apart. “We got the sniper.”
“Understood,” Carabali replied. “I read you one hundred fifty meters from a linkup with elements of Fifth Company. Do you have them on your HUD?”
“Yes, Colonel. Got’em.” Paratnam sounded immensely relieved. “Proceeding to linkup.”
Geary tapped a control, getting the health stats for the Marines in Third Company. Lieutenant Tillyer’s status readouts were all zeroed. “One hundred fifty meters,” he murmured.
“Sir?” Desjani asked.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? In a space engagement, one hundred fifty meters is too small a distance to worry about. At point one light speed we cover that distance in a tiny fraction of a second. It might as well be nothing. Except for weapons targeting. Then it means the difference between a miss or a direct hit. And for a Marine on a planet’s surface that small distance decides life and death. He takes the chance of calling in our own fire right on top of his own position, he leads his unit to safety, and just short of safety, he dies.”
Desjani looked away for a moment. “The living stars decide our fates. It often seems random, but there’s always a purpose.”
“You truly believe that?”
Her eyes met his, and Geary thought for a moment that he could see reflections of every death Desjani must have witnessed in this war, every friend and family member she’d lost. “If I didn’t,” she said quietly, “I couldn’t keep going.”
“I understand.” Not for the first time he remembered that the people around him had grown up with this war. So had their parents. He couldn’t begin truly to feel the pain they must have endured as the casualty tolls mounted ever higher with no end in sight.
“You didn’t always.” She gave him a sad smile. “You couldn’t handle even minor losses once. Now, you can endure them and keep on. But I felt sadness back then, seeing your reaction to the loss of a single ship, and wishing I hadn’t been born in a time when such innocence could never be.”
“I can’t remember the last time I was called innocent. Back when I was an ensign, I guess.” Geary took a deep breath. “Let’s get this battle done with and make sure we lose as few more people as possible.”
The watch-standers and automated combat systems would alert him to anything he needed to know, but Geary made a last check of the larger picture before diving back into a close-up of the action in the POW camp.
On the overhead image of the POW camp, a swarm of human bodies could now be seen clustered near the large, open center. Left open in the middle was the landing field where Alliance shuttles were touching down and lifting off in what appeared a calmly choreographed operation. Geary called up a screen for one of Marines controlling the evacuation and saw a scene of seeming bedlam, the sky painted with the aftereffects of Alliance bombardments and hell-lance fire, peoples rushing here and there, shuttles dropping fast, loading liberated POWs as quickly as they could pack the bodies in, then leaping back upward. It took a moment to spot the order hidden behind the frantic activity. The officers among the POWs were apparently keeping the other POWs in clusters until called to send people for a shuttle, and the Marines were sorting out and guiding disoriented former prisoners while shouting everyone into maintaining discipline. To one side he saw battle armor labeled with Colonel Carabali’s ID huddled next to a Marine shuttle with a couple of other Marines standing watch over her while she doubtless concentrated on the movements of her units.
“I wonder,” Desjani remarked, “if those former prisoners are trying to figure out if they’re being rescued or if the apocalypse has come.”
“Maybe both. Colonel Carabali, when opportunity permits I’d like your assessment of the operation.”
Her image appeared instantly. “Better than I’d feared, sir. We’ve taken casualties in almost every unit as we withdrew toward the center of the camp, but only Third Company got badly beat-up. Apparently they did stumble into an area intended as a last-ditch defensive zone for the Syndic guards. The evacuation of the liberated POWs is proceeding with no other holdups. I estimate forty minutes until the last POW is off, then another twenty minutes before the last Marine shuttle lifts.”
“Thank you, Colonel. We’ll try to keep the Syndics off your backs until then.”
Carabali frowned in surprise and it took Geary a moment to realize it wasn’t in response to his statement but to something that had come in to her over another channel. “Sir, we’ve got guards and their families trying to surrender in exchange for safe passage out of here.”
“Families?” His stomach clenched as Geary thought about the bombardments hitting the camp.
“Yes, sir. We hadn’t seen any, either. Just a moment, sir.” Carabali turned to some nearby POWs and spoke quickly, then reactivated her circuit with Geary. “The former prisoners say the guards’ families lived outside the camp. The guards must have brought them in for safety when the fighting started on the planet.”
“And then invited a battle on top of their heads?” Geary barked in disbelief.
“Agreed, sir. Our personnel who were imprisoned here say there are extensive underground storage areas in the north portion of the camp and are guessing the guards kept their families safe in those.”
Geary checked the display of the camp quickly, seeing that the northern areas were almost unmarked by fighting. “Thank the living stars they had the brains to do that and not to resist our Marines in that area. What does safe passage mean? Where do they want to go?”
“Wait one, sir.” Carabali passed on the question, then waited for it to be passed to the Syndics and a reply to come back. “Off-planet, sir.”
“Out of the question.”
“They say if they’re left here, it’ll be a death sentence. The revolutionaries in the city demanded the Alliance prisoners from them, and the guards refused to turn them over without proper orders. The guards claim they held off the revolutionaries until we got here, but with the camp shot to hell and so many casualties when they tried to fight us off, they can’t hope to hold out once we leave.”
“Damn.” Geary turned and explained the situation to Rione and Desjani. “Suggestions?”
“If they hadn’t fought us,” Desjani pointed out with some heat, “they’d be able to defend themselves once we left. Besides, we can’t lift them off the planet. None of our ships are configured for that many prisoners. And in any event we don’t owe them any favors after they did their best to chop up our Marines. They dug this hole for themselves.”
Rione looked unhappy, but nodded. “There doesn’t seem any way to assist them at this point, Captain Geary.”
“Yeah, but as long as they keep fighting, we keep losing people.” Geary sat and stared at the display for a moment, letting options cascade through his mind. One caught his attention, and he focused on it, then called Carabali back. “Colonel, here’s what you offer them. They stop all resistance and we stop killing them. Once we’ve lifted all of our people off, we’ll bombard the approaches from the city while the surviving guards and their families withdraw in the other direction. If anyone tries to hit them while we’re still within range, we’ll provide cover. That’s the best deal they’re going to get.”