“Damn.” Geary exchanged a glance with Desjani. “Those aren’t merchant sailors. They look like soldiers.”
“I’d stake my career on them being military,” Carabali agreed. “And not just any military. They’re trying to slouch around and act like civilians, but they don’t really know how to relax like that anymore. They’ve been too highly trained. They look to me like the sort of people you find in shock troops.”
“Shock troops.” Geary inhaled slowly. “The sort of troops you send on desperate missions.”
“Or one-way missions. Yes, sir.”
Desjani looked ready to order mass murder, and for once Geary didn’t blame her. “Alright, Colonel. What do you think they’re planning? Some sort of attack?”
Carabali chewed her lower lip. “Not a conventional assault. They’re too few, they’re not in armor, and they can’t have weapons easily accessible because we’d have found them. If there were sailors guarding them, they might still be able to overwhelm the guards, but not with my Marines on watch in full combat gear.”
“That’s what I’d think. Then what? We’ve confirmed there’s no weapons on those merchant ships.”
Desjani jerked as if struck by a thought, then leaned toward Geary and spoke in a low but urgent voice. “They have a weapon, sir. Their power cores.”
Geary blinked, trying to digest the information and seeing Carabali pale slightly as she heard Desjani’s statement. “Their power cores. Do you think they mean to overload their power cores when they get close to our ships?”
Carabali nodded vigorously. “Captain Desjani is right, sir. I’m sure of it. Look at the eyes of those Syndics, sir. They’re on a suicide mission.”
“I concur,” Desjani stated. “We all agree those aren’t merchant crews. They’re combat troops, and they have only one weapon available to them on those ships.”
Well, damn. Geary fought down an urge to curse loud and long. “Agreed. How can they overload their power cores while the Marines are watching?”
Desjani spoke again. “They’d have to have some sort of remote trigger rigged.” Carabali nodded. “It could be anywhere and look like anything.” Another nod.
“So should we take the crews down? Get them off the ships?”
Carabali shook her head this time. “If we start trying to herd them off the ships, they’ll probably trigger the overloads right away. Your big ships might be safe enough, but we’d lose every Marine and all the boarding shuttles.”
“What about killing them?” Desjani asked calmly.
Geary considered the question, and he considered what those Syndics were planning. “Yes. How good an option is that?”
Carabali grimaced. “Chancey, sir. We might be able to take them all down fast enough, but if they’ve got triggers tied to dead-man switches it’d just doom my Marines anyway.”
“Dead-man switches? Couldn’t we see-?”
Geary stopped speaking as Carabali shook her head again. “No, sir,” the Marine stated. “The switches could be implanted and linked to their nervous systems or their hearts. If the Syndics died and their hearts or nervous systems shut down, it could well trigger the overloads.”
“I see.” That’s an advance over what was available in my time, though I wouldn’t call it an improvement.
Carabali’s face brightened. “But there’s another option. My Marines have a riot control load-out because we expected to be dealing with civilians.”
“Meaning?” Geary pressed.
“Among other things, they have CRX gas dispensers. It’s riot suppression gas, not riot dispersal, so it’s odorless, colorless, and a tiny amount inhaled knocks someone out cold in a moment.”
“You’re suggesting we knock them out.”
“Yes, sir. They’ll be unconscious before they know we’re acting.”
“And you’re certain this CRX won’t cause some physical reaction that might trigger a dead-man switch?”
“Fairly certain. I can check with my medical personnel.”
“Do so, please.” Geary waited, trying not to let his impatience show, while the seconds crawled by until Carabali’s image focused back on Geary.
“Medical staff says the CRX will be safe.”
“Will be safe or probably will be safe?” Geary pressed.
Carabali grinned. “I asked them if they’d stake their lives on that assessment, and none of them hesitated.”
“They’re Marines,” Desjani noted dryly.
“Not the medical staff,” Carabali reminded her. “They’re all seconded to the Marines from the fleet, so even though associating with the Marines so closely causes a bit of us to rub off on them, they’re still not part of the same mind-set.”
The brief exchange brought a grin to Geary’s face. “Alright, then. We’ve established that the medical staff aren’t quite as willing to die in the line of duty as the average Marine. So we can assume we can take down those alleged merchant sailors safely.”
“That doesn’t mean there still won’t be a threat,” Desjani interjected. “The ships could be rigged in a dozen ways to automatically overload their cores when they get near our big ships. A few smart proximity fuses hidden on the hulls would do the trick, and there’s no way to guarantee we’d find them all in the time we’ve got.” Desjani paused. “Merchant ships don’t carry all the equipment that warships do, but they still have lots of different systems. There’s no telling what else might’ve been rigged to set off the power cores.”
Like maybe if we change the course or speed of those ships without some special input from the Syndic crew. I’ve got twenty flying bombs heading for the most vulnerable and valuable ships in this fleet. Geary thought about the situation. “Okay. Say we use the CRX. That’ll leave us with twenty ships we can’t let get close to our big units and twenty crews of unconscious Syndics.” He knew Desjani was watching him, waiting for his decision and wondering how he’d square that decision with his expressed concern for prisoners. After all, he’d be justified in any action against people who planned a sneak suicide attack. But that doesn’t mean I have to do anything I don’t want to. And what I do want to do is to make life difficult for the people who planned this, who sent those shock troops on a suicide mission while they’re sitting safe and happy back near that inhabited world. “How long do we have to work with?”
Carabali looked toward Desjani, who tapped rapidly on her controls. On Geary’s display, large spheres appeared surrounding each Syndic merchant ship. “That’s the estimated damage radius if one of those merchants blows its core. You can see the damage radius for each merchant bulged slightly to one side because of the movement vector of that ship. If our ships are farther away than that, their shields should be able to handle any debris that gets to them.”
Geary judged the distances and the time left until the merchants got too close to the auxiliaries. The time remaining wasn’t much, but hopefully it’d be enough. “Very well, Colonel. Here’s what we’ll do.”
Twenty minutes later, Geary watched on the remote video feeds as the last of the unconscious Syndic crew members were dumped unceremoniously into the escape pods on their ships. Since none of them were strapped into the seats, they’d get banged up a bit when the pods blasted away. But since they were planning on dying, I don’t think they’ll have any legitimate grounds to complain about bruises and broken bones.
The pod hatches were left open as a precaution against a booby trap, and the Marines hastened back to their boarding shuttles, being met at the airlocks by the rest of the Marines in the boarding party who’d come from downloading instructions to the autopilots on the bridges of the merchant ships.
