[Colonel, this is Sergeant Tzil'ka. We've got a prisoner.]
Two hours after Tarik had sent out the scouting party, the storm was beginning to kick up. A steady rain had begun to pour, and the weather was starting to become very cold. Tarik was sure it would freeze that night. "Excellent! Bring him in!"
In addition to seeking out prisoners, the patrol was busy seeding the area with mines, smoke bombs, and flashbang devices. Demolition charges had been set on the city's power generator and water treatment plant. Tarik hated such tactics, but under the circumstances--namely getting himself and his people out alive--he was more than willing to use them. Besides, after the way they treated those poor people, they've got some misery coming!
The catlike NCO entered the hooch, along with the five Security officers he'd led on patrol and a very bedraggled-looking Mulluran officer. "This is Major Malko Salteri, third in command of this facility. We caught him trying to sneak into town." Many of the Mulluran's various minor injuries may or may not have been inflicted by the patrol. Tarik didn't care.
"You'll get nothing out of me!" Salteri spat.
"We'll get more than you can possibly imagine out of you, Major. We already have," Tarik said wryly. "Take this piece of trash to the rear. Keep a guard on him."
Tzil'ka saluted as the detail led Salteri out of the hooch.
Mer'an entered as Tzil'ka left. "Sir, the weather is bound to get far worse. Is there anything we can do for some of these people?"
"I'm doing all I can, Mer'an. Right now we've got a bit of a problem. With the weather up the way it is, there's no way I can get anything in the air. And a starship of sufficient capacity to accommodate your people is still four hours away. My staff NCO is distributing what we've been able to recover from the Mulluran warehouses as quickly as he can."
"Perhaps we should raid the civilian settlement."
Tarik was shocked only for about five seconds. In his entire career, he'd never once looted civilians. But then again, these civilians had benefited from having a concentration camp in their midst. The city would give us added protection from enemy armor attacks as well. Although the Mulluran tanks had, for the moment, been stopped, there was always a chance that more reinforcements could show up.
He pulled up a map of the city. A large hospital was near the southwest corner of the city, along with several civilian warehouses along a river--the harbor district. Very little in the way of reinforcements were there.
"Okay, here's what we do..."
Half an hour later, the storm was reaching its maximum intensity. Tarik gave the order to set off the charges. The power plant detonated with a tremendous flash akin to the coming of Judgment Day, followed in short order by the city turning pitch black. Moments later, the water treatment plant went up. Much of the city was in a panic when the first part of the raid took place.
An advance team of 15 shock troops secured the hospital, while Tarik led a larger force of about 30 against the warehouses. As Mer'an led his people into the warehouses to start looting, Tarik's secondary force found its way to the hospital. The remaining Marines reinforced Mer'an's still largely unarmed force.
Tarik took control of the situation in the hospital as he found the administrator's office and switched on the building-wide intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Lieutenant Colonel Tarik. I am with Starfleet, and we are hereby taking control of this facility. No harm will come to any legitimate medical practitioner or patient of this facility although we will be placing military and police patients under guard. Department heads will report to me in the administration office with current patient counts and inventory of materials available. No one is to leave under any circumstances!"
Moments later, the department heads reported in. Once Tarik had consulted with the Sickbay on the Sutherland and his own corpsmen, he gave orders for the former slaves to enter the hospital.
"You can't let these--things--in here!" the administrator complained. "They're unclean!" By that Tarik understood that the administrator wasn't referring to unclean in a medical or hygienic sense, although most of the prisoners could have used attention both ways.
"This is a hospital," Tarik said. "Most of these people are very sick. Therefore they belong here. And if you want to argue the point, remember who's got the gun! Now, get your people moving or we'll put these 'unclean things' in charge!"
The administrator stepped to and ordered his nursing staff to start clearing wards.
Part of the reason Tarik had taken the hospital was because of the slaves. The other--and more immediate--reason he'd taken the hospital was because it made a very nice strong point. Vehicles and packing cases from the warehouse district were moved around the hospital as a barricade while several of his Marines cut firing positions in the walls of the first and second stories (but not on any floor with a surgical suite or patient ward). All was in readiness for the siege that was inevitable as soon as the Mulluran military and security forces learned what happened.
Tarik decided to take five minutes to get something to eat. Unlike the administrator and most Mullurans Tarik had met to date, the hospital staff seemed more concerned with medicine than politics. Tarik saw the little girl he'd first seen during the raid on the production facility, the one who looked just like Kassia, waiting in a long line for soup. He stepped in behind her, taking his place in line. Several of the former slaves noticed him and offered to let him ahead, but Tarik refused. As an officer he could not--'first in garrison, last in the field' had been the rule for centuries. As a gentleman he would not.
The line settled down. The little girl in front of Tarik said nothing, although he could feel something from her. Suddenly--very loudly and distinctly--Tarik heard a voice.
<They're coming, Mister! We need to go!>
Tarik drew his phaser. "All right, dinner's temporarily suspended. Everyone clear this corridor now!" he yelled. Chaos ensued, as the half-starved laborers debated amongst themselves whether or not to abandon their food.
A detail from the hospital security staff had somehow managed to find their way into the maintenance crawlspaces and spotted the food line. They weren't counting on Tarik being there as they dropped through the ceiling, firing their phasers. Tarik returned fire almost indiscriminately, dropping three of the guards before he himself was hit...