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Sara did not believe that the warden or other six administrators would be checking on what was happening in the prison itself. “Yes,” Tol agreed. “The administrators would only check the camera feeds to follow-up on any incident and not what is happening live. Given the taboo of rebellious dwarf women, the thought of being caught watching them is repugnant. They’ll tend to leave things to run themselves, and the guards are most likely left to their own devices.”
Sara took Tol’s place at the guard’s terminal. “Let’s see where the cameras are in there.”
Darius wasn’t comfortable remaining still, but he knew rushing in without covering all their bases was a bad idea. He waited while Sara worked.
“I really hope this system isn’t indicative of all dwarf computing, Tol,” Sara said without looking up. “This is some truly lackluster tech here. For a prison, that seams counterintuitive.” She looked up from the terminal and faced the crew. “Done. I’ve created a looped video that’s overriding the live feed to cover our actions.”
“Nice work,” Darius offered, “We ready to do this?”
“There is one ‘X’ factor, however, we can’t account for,” Sara remarked. “The guard with the administrators. That’s why I’ll make my way back to here once the guards are down, to make sure things have gone according to plan.”
Darius knew all too well that no plan survived contact with the enemy. He was still worried that he and Sara were far less stealthy than their half-elf or kitsune companions. It was challenging, and they either had to get the guards fast, before any could sound the alarm, or simultaneously. The latter was too tricky to work out.
“Okay,” Darius began. “One last thing before we do this. No killing. There’s no need to kill any of the guards. So do your best to just knock them out.” However, Darius was a realist. While they would not take the guards out by killing them in their initial attack, if anything went wrong, all bets were off.
Again, plans, failure, and contact with the enemy. After everyone acknowledged his final statement, they passed through the control room and entered the area where the prisoners were kept.
Nobody had been near the control room doors, so nobody took notice of them as they entered. The communal space was huge, probably sixty meters wide, rising at least fifteen meters high. It was broken into sections of chairs, tables, exercise areas, and the like.
Embedded in the concrete-like walls along the open space were what appeared to be lavatory spaces, kitchen areas, and various closed doors which Darius presumed either led to storage, stairwells, or elevators that went to the dorms above. There were walkways on the upper levels in front of the dorms, with railings too low for anyone but a dwarf. Each dorm was indicated by a door with a large clear window of plastic or a transparent metal beside it. All the doors were open, which Darius presumed meant they were completely emptied of their occupants.
He stayed low. It was the only way to not stand out among the dwarves. Though he was not especially tall among human men, he still stood a good half a meter or more taller than the dwarf females in the prison. His task was to get the two guards nearest the observation/access chamber.
Everyone had agreed that Sara and Aya would be better able, both because they were shorter than Darius and female, to get across the room. Kaz, with his cleric training, would hit the guards at the end furthest from the point of entry. Tol had gone to locate his mate.
As he moved towards his targets, keeping low, Darius saw the blurs that were Kaz and Aya. As fast as Aya was, Kaz was practically invisible.
It didn’t hurt that none of the dwarf females seemed to be paying any attention to Darius or his companions. He wondered if they were either too badly kept down to even consider someone might come to their rescue, racially oblivious to non-dwarves, drugged, or all of those at once.
Darius reached the first of his two guard targets. As expected, the dwarf male had his rifle slung on his back and was half watching a handheld docupad, hardly looking out at his charges. He would have to move fast, but his target gave him the perfect chance, as the guard turned and looked away from where Darius was.
He moved, his pistol in his hand. When he reached the guard, he jabbed the barrel against his body and flicked the energy release.
Most synchronized plasma pistols (SPP) had a nonlethal secondary feature. From touch to about a meter away, they could discharge energy that would disrupt a single target’s nervous system, rendering them unconscious for a time. While it tended to work perfectly well from a meter away, at point blank or touch it was more readily guaranteed and irresistible.
Darius knew that orcs, trolls, and bugbears were resistant to the stun effect because of their thick skins. Unless you hit a hobgoblin or goblin in the chest or head at point blank, they were, too. But humans, dwarves, elves, drow, kitsune, and halflings could not resist.
Soundlessly, the dwarf guard dropped to the floor.
A moment later, half a dozen dwarf females were silently swarming the guard, disarming and restraining him. Darius was impressed to see that the dwarf females of the prison, despite looking literally and figuratively beaten down, still had spirit.
He didn’t hesitate and quickly moved on to the next guard. Once more, he reached his target and discharged the SPP energy, knocking him out without drawing attention to himself or his actions.
Across the room, Darius heard several shouts, then cries and screams followed by SPP fire. He took a chance and stood up to his full height. Being more than a head taller than the dwarves, Darius could clearly see two of the guards firing at someone. He suspected it was Kaz or Aya, moving too fast for them to get a bead on.
Darius was too far away to use the stun setting, but he wasn’t going to leave things to chance. He aimed for one of the two shooting guards and fired twice. The guard dropped.
A second later, the other ceased to shoot, but Darius couldn’t tell if Kaz or Aya had gotten him. He knew that standing up straight made him a target, but as Darius scanned for the other guards, he did not see them. His crew must have gotten them all.
The second guard he had knocked unconscious like the first had been disarmed and restrained by the prison’s occupants. Now the dwarf females nearest Darius were talking in Dwarven among themselves while gesturing and pointing at him.
The volume in the room began to rise. Darius had numerous dwarf females around him, but all were maintaining a distance of a little less than two meters. He could see Aya and Kaz in similar positions across the room.
Darius was about to say something, and help, but the distinctive hum of a public address speaker turning on became obvious. “Hello? Is this thing on? Good, I see that it is. Hi. I am the human woman standing at the window of the observation chamber. If you would give me your attention, ladies?”
The room went silent as all the dwarf females turned to look at Sara. She was not at the window, but at the door that opened into the central prison gathering space.
“Thank you. As you are now observing, my companions and I have disabled your guards. We feel that what has occurred here, and the way your government treats you, is a travesty. So, you should know that all of the doors have been unsealed throughout this facility.”
There were a few cheers among the dwarf females. Sara continued, saying, “My companions and I will be leaving by our own means, and I’m afraid you are too many for us to take along. However, all that stands between you and your freedom is the warden, a guard, and six more administrators. Apart from that, as I said, all the doors are open and you are free to leave.”
During Sara’s speech, Darius, Aya, and Kaz had all moved through the crowd of dwarf females to the door. Already within were Tol and a very nervous-looking dwarf female Darius presumed to be Tol’s mate, Zya’ny-a ubi Cua’lle-a. Behind him, Darius heard the dwarf females getting louder again. He couldn’t understand the discussion but suspected that was because it was in Dwarvish.
“They don’t even plan to go to the dorms to get their things,” Kaz said. Darius noted that the half-elf must have understood Dwarvish. Kaz tilted his head as he listened and said, “A few of the more spirited are rousing the rest, and they don’t plan to let anything get in their way or let any dwarf males imprison them again.”
“We should go,” Darius said to his crew. He didn’t need to look back to sense that the dwarf females were starting to head their way.
Without another word, Sara, Darius, Aya, Kaz, Tol, and Zya started back towards the Moon Raven. Kaz blurred ahead, on watch for the remaining guard. Behind them, Darius could hear the dwarf females starting to depart their imprisonment.
The crew met no resistance, and good to her word, Sara had disabled all biometrics on the doors on he way to the ship. As a door before them opened, rather than close automatically, it remained open after they’d passed through it. “I reprogrammed the doors to keep open,” Sara informed them.
When they reached the ship, Kaz was not immediately present. However, as Darius waited to let the rest board before him the half-elf arrived. “I did them a favor and found and disabled the last guard,” Kaz said.
At this point, Darius didn’t feel it would make much difference if that meant the guard was dead. He had killed at least one guard himself, and he did not know if the newly freed, angry, empowered dwarf females would leave anyone alive.
“Get us off the ground, please, Kaz, before we have a swarm of female dwarves trying to leave with us,” said Darius.
Kaz said nothing and went up the ramp. Darius sealed the hatch and followed. Once he reached the flight deck he saw that Sara and Aya were at their stations. Darius presumed Tol and Zya were in his cabin.
The ship began to rise as Darius climbed into the command nest behind Kaz. As he looked at his monitors and the external cameras, he could see that there were numerous dwarf females exiting the large prison facility in various sized groups. They were beginning to wend their way into Col’te-Varitz.
“That was not how I expected all of that to turn out,” remarked Sara.
“Nor me. But I think we did good,” said Aya.
“I hope so,” said Darius. “Because I think we did an awful job of keeping a low profile and remaining unnoticed.”
