Within The Castle Walls There Be Danger.

Posted on Wed May 15th, 2024 @ 3:55pm by Captain Ethan De Havilland

1,372 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Ethics, Morals & The Prime Directive.
Location: Ready Room.
Timeline: Current

Ethan was sitting in his Ready Room watching on two monitors live visual feeds and text information of the ground mission that was taking place below him. The fallout from this would be considerable which is why he made sure everything was recorded, documented and backups saved for independent review when the time came....and it would come. His orders would impact civilian lives and that would demand answering for, especially if some of those lives were lost.

His computer chimed indicating that someone wanted to speak with him, it broke his focus on the views in front of him, bringing him back to the here and now. "Yes."

"Captain, the Administrator has been requesting to speak with you, insistently." The Brig Officer spoke.

To date, the information provided by the administrator had been no minimal at best, a source. of great frustration for Ethan as he tried to gather more information about the situation to which he was sending the men, women of his crew into danger for. now find that the administrator was willingly wanting to talk to him was of great surprise to Ethan, but Ethan couldn't help but wonder what ulterior motive the administrator has to be suddenly so cooperative.

"Very well, send him up." Ethan replied. The administrator had clearly had something to say to Ethan. And while Ethan was curious to us to what it was, he wondered. He wondered just how accurate and valid the information that he was about to receive actually was and moreover, if it could be trusted from a man whose fate was already doomed by his own action. The wait was brief but there lingered enough time to wonder how much of his time would be wasted boiling the moment down to the substance of the matter.

It wasn't long before the door chimes sounded, indicating the presence of the administrator, along with two security guards, flanking him. "Come." Ethan spoke and the doors opened with the verbal approval for entry. The administrator walked in, though there was a noticeable difference on lack of confidence that the man had before an air of self-imposed power that with he was now stripped of light of his actions that had come to light. Slowly, the administrator sank into one of the seats in front of the Captain looking sheepish and somewhat concerned about what he had to say. Ethan, however, sat staring at the administrator wondering what he was to be hearing next but also what information could he not ignore if there was any information of value at all?

"You requested to speak with me, so...speak." Ethan got right to it, not interested in wasting time with meaningless chatter or mumblings.

"The ship, he..comes on. Is a modified Orion cruiser. I only saw it once when it orbited our colony after it destroyed our orbital satellites. It was huge, I could see it through a telescope from the roof." The man started, clearly having boiled in the stew of his own making in the Brig had prompted him to loosen his tongue a little and try to salvage a measure of hope.

"Go on." Ethan spoke.

"The colony was overrun within an hour, we are a research facility, we didn't really have a security detail, a few weapons at best for crowd control and peace keeping but nothing that would stand up to a take over. What I told you about the public executions is true, the abductions too. The interrogations, the torture, mutilations as well. The planetary weapons he placed, to protect his investment as he called it. The research labs were located and stormed, any data was stolen but once he found out what they could do, the looting and damage stopped. Our facilities were turned into labs of death, experiments conducted on people all with the eye of profit and arms dealing."

"I should advise you, that divulging this now, will have little sway on what happens, since you could have been upfront with me from the onset of this very situation." Ethan injected.

"I know." The two words themselves reeked with the truth and learned realization of the fact. "The Nausicaan, the leader of the raiders. He has a base located somewhere in the region but its not close I don't think otherwise I'm sure you'd have found it by now. I also overheard some of his subordinates talk that there was another, a helper."

That latter bit of information was of interest to Ethan, hinting that there was another player involved that was so far, unknown.

"Anything else?" Ethan probed.

"There are many levels to the underground labs, they were built underground in the event of accident or disaster. The lower levels of the labs are sealed. They killed the Chief Scientist, and it locked the labs down. There are no doubt raiders trapped down there but there is no food, no water, replicators of any kind on those levels. You could simply wait them out."

"I have the information from your database about the members of the original colonists, we are verifying them against those brought back to the ship to week out raiders amongst their numbers. Is there anything you wish to add about this?" Ethan asked.

"Some were taken, as a guarantee we upheld our end of the bargain. We do the work tasked to us or they start killing hostages. Some raiders assumed the identities of those taken and no doubt reported progress on a regular basis." The Administrator paused. "If possible, with a secure connection to my office database I can pull a security list of all the colonist, identification characteristics and biography data that might help your efforts weeding the raiders from those rescued."

The link was promptly established, and the administrator downloaded all of the information that he'd promised onto a pad, which he then handed over to Ethan. Ethan looked over the information that he was given, and it was indeed a detailed and accurate list of all of the colonists that arrived onto the planet when work began While at this stage, it was uncertain as to who remained and who exactly was who. It would give him a solid work base to start from, and something that he could use to give security the upper hand. After glancing at the information that he had been given, he'd returned his attention back to the administrator, who, in his eyes, sat waiting his fate, a fate that he himself could not administer as much as his conscience told him to.

"As I mentioned, this will have little bearing on the outcome for you, but I will not it in my report. As late as your cooperation is, it is nonetheless, appreciated." Ethan added. "I'm sure you can understand the need for your return to the Brig, given the events that have transpired thus far."

Knowing and expecting that would be the outcome the administrator didn't put up any fight, verbally or otherwise. He had hoped by clearing his conscience that it might absolve him in some way to the deeds that he'd partaken in though if it worked was yet to be seen. Standing up he followed the pair of security officers back out of the room and back towards the Brig leaving Ethan alone in his Ready Room again.

With this new information though he was able to forward a copy of the data to Commander Bawden who was at this stage receiving those gathered from the colony before being checked over by medical staff. He had to ensure the security and safety of his ship, the wellbeing of those injured but also making sure those in the wrong were properly dealt with and secured. Ethan made a new report containing this information and everything that he had been told, the addition of this so far unknown player was something he'd have to investigate, maybe someone on the surface would know more or one of the captive raiders would be more talkative.

Once done he returned to viewing the progress of the surface mission with the marines hoping they were having better luck in bringing a swift conclusion to the situation than he apparently was.

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