After they’d eaten, he allowed Devora to feed Bragan, and escorted him to the fresher. Then he and Calvin donned their suits and made their way to the airlock.

“The hand blaster is still fully charged,” he reminded Devora as they left. “Don’t hesitate to shoot him if he gets out of hand. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“You shouldn’t leave them stupid bitches with a weapon,” Calvin muttered as soon as they started walking toward the ruined domes. “They’ll probably end up hurting themselves. And I don’t figure why you want to keep that murderin’ bastard alive. He ain’t got no more information for us. He don’t deserve to live.”

“It’s not up for discussion,” Seth coldly, and abruptly turned his radio down so he wouldn’t have to listen any more. The man really was a monster, he thought. It would be a pleasure locking him up. He had more than enough evidence to convict him for plotting against the occupation.

They reached the main bubble where Bragan had been living first, but that wasn’t Seth’s target today.

He wanted to explore the second bubble, where the families had been. Calvin stumbled along beside him, muttering to himself. They didn’t have far to go, although the craters and debris made walking hard. The second dome’s entrance was still relatively intact, its airlock doors shut tightly. There was no power to open them, but it wasn’t a problem. They simply walked around, stepping through one of the many holes that had been blasted in the wall.

What they found inside was an eerily quiet war zone, a ghost colony. The interior rooms and corridors that remained were scarred with blaster fire and pocked with holes. It was hard to tell what had happened, but as they moved through the various rooms it appeared the men had fought their way out room by room. Darkened blood spatters could be seen in several places. It had been an ugly fight.

Nearly two hours later, Seth made their first useful discovery. Just outside one of the apartments was a holo-camera, the kind used often used as a security device. It looked like it had once been trained on the apartment’s caved-in door, although it was now dangling from a single cord.

“It’s probably where Bose, the station leader, lived,” Calvin said as Seth examined the device. “He would’ve wanted a record of who came to see him, even when he wasn’t around.”

Gesturing for Calvin to boost him up, Seth managed to grab the recorder and pull it down from its precarious perch. He turned it over in his hands several times, searching for signs of what happened. As far as he could tell, it was fine except for a power source.

“It’s amazing it wasn’t more damaged during the attack,” he finally said. “I wonder if there’s anything on the recording. Let’s hook it into a power source and see. Turn around.”

Calvin turned, giving Seth access to the small power pack on the back of his suit. It took Seth a couple of tries before he managed to splice a connection between Calvin’s suit and the camera. Then it flickered into life. Seth started the playback mode, and a small holographic representation of the apartment entrance appeared in the air before them.

Apparently the camera had been set to slowly pan back and forth between the apartment door and the corridor, and for several minutes they watched shots of nothing happening. No one walked by; it had been a quiet day on the station. Calvin grew impatient, and made to pull the camera away from his suit, but Seth held up a hand to stall him. The picture before them was changing. There was a flash of movement, then the camera’s view slowly panned from the apartment entrance to the corridor, revealing a horrifying struggle for survival.

First there was simply a shot of empty corridor as it once appeared, unmarked by blaster fire. Then a group of filthy men–presumably the slaves–came creeping up into the camera’s vision. Several carried homemade weapons, while a few held blasters. Their leader gestured them to stay back, and cautiously stuck his head around the corner at the far end of the corridor. A flash of blaster fire came back, and the men froze. Then the leader stood and yelled something. Seth and Calvin had no idea what he was saying–the camera wasn’t sophisticated enough to record sound–but whatever it was put life into his men. As a group they charged around the corner. There was more blaster fire, then the camera’s angle started to change as it swept back toward the apartment entrance.

At first there was nothing, then an obviously terrified child came running up to the door, pounding on it for entrance. The door opened, and a young woman wearing a dark dress opened it quickly and pulled the child in. She glanced down the hall, then slammed the door shut. After a few seconds another woman, this one older and carrying an infant, came running up. She too was allowed into the apartment, then nothing.

The camera swept back to the corridor, where several men–different than those who had been there before–were setting up benches to form a makeshift barricade. They seemed to be Pilgrims. They shot down around the corner several times, with blaster fire answering them. After a few seconds of intense firing, one was hit and he went down. Then a second was hit. The final man continued to shoot desperately until his blaster stopped responding. It must have run out of charge, Seth thought grimly. The slaves sensed his weakness and swarmed him in an instant, one of them slitting his throat savagely. The fight appeared to be over.

The camera slowly panned back to the door, which remained shut. Seth and Calvin watched, mesmerized, as one of the bloodied men came up to the door and hammered on it. The man was tall, his bare arms roped with muscles. It was the leader who had lead the charge around the corner earlier. He turned his head, said something to the men behind him, then hit the door with one fist. A weapon came into view, passed to the escaped slave from one of his companions, and he yelled again. Then he stood back, took careful aim and shot at the locking mechanism.

It held out for a minute or two, then exploded in a shower of sparks. The man shoved the door open and stalked into the apartment purposefully. Several men followed him, their mouths open in silent whoops and screeches of victory. After a second the child who had taken shelter in the apartment came running out, chased by two of them. The woman with the baby walked out next, surrounded by several more. They quickly disappeared from the camera’s view. Then, to Seth’s frustration, the camera’s view swept out into the hallway again, maintaining its steady surveillance schedule, oblivious to the traumatic events it recorded.

Seth and Calvin stared at the empty hallway for a minute or two. Every once in a while someone would come running through–a child, a jubilant slave. One looked like Bragan, although he moved to quickly to tell for sure. There was still no sign of the man who had broken through the door however, or the other woman who had been hiding in the apartment. Finally the camera turned back to the apartment door.




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