Solbidyum Wars Saga 6: Defeat of the Tottalax (7 page)

“Admiral,” another senator spoke up, “where exactly is this L-1?”

“I’m sorry, Senator; I am not at liberty to divulge that information for security reasons.”  I replied.

“But come now, Admiral, we’re government representatives, surely you can tell us,” he replied.

“May I remind you, Garfreed Aliquatee, head of the FOI, and several dozen senators who defected when Roritat fled were all government representatives as well.  You will excuse me if I elect to keep secret the location of this facility.  Under the Wars Powers Act, I have every right to do so, and I will continue to do so as long as this war continues, or as long as I am an admiral, and the War Powers Act is in place.

“Now if you will just follow me.”  I said as I turned and led the group through the heavily guarded Cantolla Gate.  In reality, I had way more guards there than was necessary simply to impress on the senators the seriousness of the prisoners’ dangerous threat.  I had two full squads of troopers on both sides of the gate armed and ready for action.  In addition, we were accompanied by over a dozen fully armed guards as we toured the facility.

Before all the senators had passed through the gate, an alarm went off and the line was stopped.  One of the troopers approached the senator passing through the gate when the alarm activated, and ran a scanner over him and then asked him to empty his pockets.  The search revealed a small device only a few square millimeters in size.  A quick scan revealed the object was a transponder that emitted a very strong signal for its size and would have been able to send out code that would have enabled anyone receiving it to isolate its location.

“I’m sorry, Senator,” I said, “you will not be able to accompany us today.”

“But why?  I was picked for this committee to examine the prison and the way it’s being run.  I demand to go.”

“Demand all you like, but you were told beforehand that no devices capable of emitting a signal that could be used to locate the prison facility would be allowed.  You violated that directive, so you won’t be going.”

“You can’t stop me!  I’m a senator and I have every right to go,” the senator fumed.

“And I have every right under the War Powers Act to have you arrested and brought up on charges of attempting to help the enemy,” I said.  I saw the senator suddenly pale and appear visibly shaken, so I added, “However, I seriously doubt you were intending treason, so I am going to forget this little incident, but you still are not going on with the others today.  Is that understood, Senator?”

“Ah, yes, I apologize, Admiral.  You see some of my constituents have relatives in the prison, and ah... they are concerned and would like to know where they are.”

“If they had been concerned enough, they would have seen to it their relatives didn’t get involved with the Brotherhood to begin with.  Now understand this, we are NOT keeping anyone from seeing their relatives, or knowing about their status.  If they go through proper channels with the Federation Military, they can get passes that will allow them to visit relatives.  However, it will be under stringent conditions with guards, and at a time and place we specify.  Furthermore, there will be a limit as to the number of visitors allowed on any given day.  Now let’s go.”

After we were on the lunar side of the Cantolla Gates the going was slow until the senators got used to walking.  I suggested they walk by shuffling their feet at first until they adjusted to the gravity difference.  It didn’t take long before they got the gist of it, and the tour was underway.  Throughout the prison, there were many large open areas or common halls.  In these rooms prisoners milled about, watched programs on vid screens and played games.  The atmosphere was calm and relaxed, and laughing could be heard about the rooms.  I explained that these rooms and prisoners were the ones we felt posed the least threat and had tested out as being of little danger to the Federation, and that we hoped soon to be able to repatriate most of them back into Federation society.

We allowed the senators to freely move about the prisoners and talk with them about the facility and how they were being treated.  Next we took the senators through some of the other areas that included the gym and accommodations sections.  The Chinese had created a large facility with many individual rooms, and clearly they had intended the Lunar colony eventually to house thousands, so there was plenty of room to spare.  Each prisoner had his or her own room, though the toilet and shower areas were common.  There was a giant dining hall, and additional food synthesizers were located at numerous locations throughout the facility.

After about an hour of milling about this area, I announced to the senators that we would now be going to the area where devout hardcore Brotherhood members were held, and that this area was more dangerous, and that they should not approach, or allow any of the Brotherhood members to approach them without clearing it with me.  Almost immediately Senator Sipollie spoke up.

“Admiral, are you trying to hide something?  Why can’t we just talk to anyone without getting approval from you?” he demanded.

“Because these men are dangerous; they care nothing about life or honor.  They will smile at you and act like your best friend and then stab you in the back and slit your throat before you know what happened.”  I said.

“Aren’t you being a bit over melodramatic?”  Sipollie asked.

“No, if anything I am sugar-coating it for you, Senator.”  I replied.

“We have an airlock that separates this section of the prison from the section we are going to.  We call this L-1A, and the other section is L-1B.  The airlock can only accommodate about half this group at a time, so as soon as the first group is through, I want you to remain at the receiving area on the other side, do NOT go off on your own.  Once the second group is through, we will all go, as a group, through the facility.  Is that understood?”  I said.

“Sir,” one of the senators spoke up, “why is there an airlock?”

“The airlock prevents prisoners from escaping in a mass, if they should overcome their guards on the other side.  The controls for the airlock are all on the L-1A side, and they cannot be activated from the L-1B side.  It’s an added security feature.”

“Does this indicate that we are, in fact, on a space station of some sort, and it’s a vacuum outside?” The senator added.

“You can make whatever assumptions you wish, Senator; however, the airlock function is exactly for the function I described,” I replied.

Before we went through the airlock, all the troopers accompanying us checked their gear to make sure they were combat ready.  I noticed most of the senators looked somewhat terrified by their action, while a few grinned smugly, clearly thinking it all a show and of no necessity.  Finally, we entered the airlock, and I went through with the first group.  Once the second group was there, we proceeded to a large mezzanine area that surrounded a great hall below.  The entire mezzanine was enclosed with one-way glass viewing panes of unbreakable synthetic material.  “Admiral,” one of the senators asked, “why is the mezzanine protected by these windows?  If the prisoners have no weapons, I see no need for it.”

“You forget we are in a lesser gravity area here, they could easily jump up here onto the mezzanine if there were no windows," I answered.

“This great room looks exactly like the one in the L-1A area,” one of the senators noted.

“Yes, I said both areas are identical as far as facilities, they have the same living areas, same amenities, same food.  The only difference between the two is that here in L-1B, all the women’s rooms are in one area, and the women’s toilet and bathing area is separate from the men’s; other than for that, they share all the other common areas “  I replied.

“Why is that?” one of the senators asked.

“We’re not sure why, but the mentality of the hard-core Brotherhood members is more prone to violence. They have little or no empathy for others.  Without the separation, we would have more rapes of women prisoners.  Even though the Brotherhood has women members and some female officers, women in general are looked down on as inferior by the Brotherhood, and they are more likely to be subjected to sexual violence.  Look down there,” I commanded, “do you notice anything else different?”  The senators stared out the windows at the room below, one of the senators exclaimed, “The prisoners aren’t moving about as much and seem to be collected into small groups.”

“Right,” I said, “most of the Brotherhood members display a pack mentality and collect into small groups with an alpha male and a lot of followers volleying for positions under him.  We see a lot of fights break out between groups down there.  Each group, for example, has their own specific table.  If someone from another group gets too close to their table, they might injure or even kill him.  You don’t see any friendly interaction between groups in this section of the prison.  We’ve had to revive and reconstruct a lot of prisoners in this bunch because they keep killing and/or dismembering each other.  There – see that one prisoner over there leaning against the wall?” I pointed to a tall, muscular looking man with dark hair, “he’s already been killed and revived three times since this prison was set up.  He doesn’t fit in well with any group.  And that blond woman at the third table from the end, she’s been raped twice, and the last time the guy who did it slit her throat with a sliver of plastic he scrounged somewhere.  Luckily, she was found by a guard before she completely bled out, and they were able to save her.”

“What happened to her assailant?” someone asked.

“He went missing a few days later.  Some of his DNA was found in one of the recycling replicator receivers, and the mass of organic material in the replicator would indicate that a mass similar to his weight was added to the biological material there at the time he went missing.”.

“By the stars!” one of the senators muttered, “I guess you weren’t able to reconstruct him.”

“Admiral, may we go down there and speak to those prisoners?”  Senator Sipollie asked.

“I would advise against it,” I answered, “however, if you really want to, you may, but I can’t guarantee how safe it will be. If you do so, I won't accept responsibility for what happens to you.”

“I really insist, Admiral; we need to know so we can report to our constituents just how prisoners are being treated here by the Federation.  We simply can’t accept your words for it, now can we?” Sipollie said just a bit more sarcastically than I liked.

“All right Senator, we’ll take you down in groups of four at a time, and you will have six troopers with each group.”  I answered.  “You may talk with the prisoners, but do not get closer than three meters to any of them and stay within the circle of your guards.”

“Aren’t you being just a bit melodramatic, Admiral, after all, those are men down there; not animals?”

“Senator, if you had seen some of the things those prisoners, ‘down there’, are capable of you would not be so quick to call them
men
.”

As the first team of senators and troopers went down to the main hall, a squad of troopers took up stations around the mezzanine at specific locations where gun portals existed.  I could see many of the senators were rather nervous, but Senator Sipollie seemed amused and joked about it.  Each group spent about 15 minutes on the floor talking briefly with prisoners.  One of the women senators wanted to talk with the woman I had pointed out as having been raped, and she was allowed to do so.  Senator Sipollie was in the fourth group to go to the floor, and instinctively I knew that things were not going to go well, so I decided to go along with his group.  We had been there about five minutes when Sipollie decided he wanted to talk with a group at a far table at the corner of the room.  We were halfway to the table when I heard a thud behind me and turned to see a trooper falling onto the floor as a prisoner leapt forward to grab his rifle.  Before I could reach him, he had the gun and was firing at our guards on the floor.  Instinctively, I jumped toward him to try to get the gun, when in mid-air, everything went dark.

I woke up to a roaring headache and Marranalis standing over me, “Welcome back, Admiral, how are you feeling?”

“Like an asteroid slammed into my head.  How do you think I feel?  Did we lose any men?” I asked.

“No, but three were wounded including Senator Sipollie.”  It was a good thing you had A’Lappe replicate that Tottalax sleep device and installed it in the prison area.  As soon as the guards saw the attack in progress they hit the button immediately.  Everyone not wearing a protected Trooper’s helmet was knocked out instantly.  It’s a shame, too, because the senators on the mezzanine didn’t get to see everyone go down, as they were knocked out also, but we got it all on a vid recording if they want to see it.”

“How long has it been?”  I asked while my pulse pounded in my head.

“About forty minutes,” he said.  “I rushed here from the
DUSTEN
with five squads of troopers as soon as I got word.”

“Are any of the other senators awake?”  I asked.

“No sir,” you’re the first to wake up, but I see two of them that seem to be waking now.”

“How bad was Senator Sipollie’s wound?”

“He got a really nasty hole blown in his shoulder.  It's going to take a while for it to heal, and he’s not going to be very happy, I suspect.”  Marranalis replied.

“I take it we are still at the prison in the infirmary?”  I asked.