Despite what the fevered dreams of holo-movie directors might indicate, bridge officers are neither allowed to accompany boarding actions, nor are they wanted. The brutal, delicate, complex operation of taking an enemy vessel is best left to professionals. Marines, after all, exist for a reason.
Ardek couldn't be a direct participant in the invasion of the Gauntlet, but thanks to the marvels of modern technology he was able to watch. He'd managed it so that one soldier in every squad had been rigged with a flat-view camera, so that he and his other senior officers could monitor the assault and keep an eye out for anything interesting.
His marines hadn't been receptive to the idea, and he was sure that a few had rolled their eyes and cursed his name behind his back. He had promised not to micromanage, but if his officers had to be excluded from the action, someone still needed to be able to watch for intelligence material. The capture of an intact enemy vessel was a potential gold mine of information. It could give them anything from fleet dispositions to changes in political policy, but you had to know what you were looking for. A squad sergeant, frankly, wouldn't.
He couldn't do all the monitoring himself, so several other officers sat at terminals on his bridge and most of the others across the fleet. Even then, the massive number of force being brought to bear against the single ship meant that some things might slip through. The marines were under orders to report anything suspicious. Hopefully that would help.
Surprise in a boarding action is almost impossible, so they hadn't even tried. After the ion bombardment, boarding vessels had darted in, securing themselves to every docking ring, maintenance access and cargo hatch they could find, and pushing their way into the hull. In the lead were the Selonians, who used their speed and natural affinity for close quarters combat to take corridor after corridor from the stunned Imperials.
So far they hadn't come across much other than heavy resistance. Ardek sat and watched the display, rhythmically selecting between the squads he was responsible for. Outwardly he was dispassionate, as always. Internally however, he marveled whenever the cameras caught the Selonians in action. There weren't many, not more than fifty or so, but they moved with a fluid precision and grace that no human soldier could hope to match.
It was going well. The Selonians were still the spearhead, thrusting further into the bowels of the ship, supported by 4th Fleet marines. They made their way first to the engineering section, and then to the bridge. Wherever marines seemed to find themselves bogged down, a group of Selonians would push forward and break the stalemate. Once the critical areas were taken, 4th Fleet marines spread out to cover the rest of the ship.
An hour or so into the assault, a younger officer cleared his throat to get Ardek's attention. He turned and looked up to see one of the lieutenants he'd detailed to watch the squads taking the ship's brig.
"Sir," said the young man, "you'd better take a look at this."
The hallways of the brig were lit with emergency lights, but the cells themselves weren't. Imperial designers didn't feel the need to light the spaces of criminals when the power went out. Most believed the psychological power of darkness anyhow, and in this case the needs to conserve power and to scare the ever living out of prisoners meshed.
All of the prisoners that the Marines had so far recovered were malnourished. Some had even expired from starvation. Once the Gauntlet had been disabled, the guards had had little reason to take care of them. Only the automated feeding and waste disposal systems had kept any of them alive, and at least one prisoner had not survived the experience.
Not all the cells had been cleared. The group of marines being monitored was clustered around the door to a single cell, still sealed. Cell 14B was in the maximum security part of the Gauntlet's small detention block. Someone, or something, was hammering on the other side.
It wasn't that the hammering itself that was unusual. Various other prisoners who had yet to be freed were beating on the insides of their own cells out of fear and desperation. What was unusual was the pure force of the blows. Whoever, or whatever, was beating on the inside of the door was hammering with what sounded like bestial force. Each one was a partially-muffled crash that shook the reinforced door, and threatened to buckle it. Already it bulged outward where a few particularly strong blows had fallen.
The Imperials had been kind enough to install infrared cameras on the inside of the cells. The boarding party was using them to keep an eye on the prisoners still locked in their cells until power could be restored and their status sorted out. Cell 14B, however, had somehow had its camera disabled. Whether this was by the Imperials or by the occupant of 14B was unknown. Whatever the cause, the marines knew nothing of what lay beyond the locked cell door, other than that it made them nervous.
"We're not sure what to do," said the young officer that had brought the problem to Ardek's attention. "We're worried that whatever is on the other side of that door could be in trouble. On the other hand..."
He shrugged, not saying the obvious, that whatever was on the other side of that door could be an extreme danger to the marines. It had happened more than once before. A captured ship would carry an unusual exotic animal or unique alien pit-fighting slave for some Moff or sector commander. Such special prisoners were invariably a problem, but they still had to be dealt with.
Ardek took a moment to think about it. "Order the nearest two squads up there for support," he ordered after a bit, "and make sure one of the Selonian units is in the area just in case things get really bad."
It took a moment for the marines to get into place. As they moved into position the hammering grew harder and more intense, as though the being on the other side could sense that they were there. Finally, with everyone in place, the emergency catch was pulled, and the door was opened.
At first, there was nothing. The door of the cell sat open like a black hole, the gaping maw of some great beast. Tentatively, the point man of the first squad went inside.
The lead trooper didn't carry a camera with him. Ardek was forced to watch from the fourth man of the squad as the others went in, spotlight shining. The other troopers not participating in the entry stood to either side of the door, not wanting to silhouette themselves against the light of the corridor.
Through the sound pickups, Ardek could hear the others moving around, searching the cell. It was quiet, the only sound the slow methodical footsteps of boots on the deck as the cell was searched.
Suddenly, Ardek heard a muffle crunch, followed by a scream. The silence had been broken, and was shattered further by the buzz of a blaster being fired on stun. Their comrades inside under attack, the other marines responded immediately. They stormed around the doorway with stun-beams blazing. He could barely make out the blurred form of something small and fast moving past the camera, and the muffled thump of flesh smacking against flesh.
Finally, one of the marines got a bead on whatever it was that was tearing into them. His blaster made a stuttering buzz as he tracked his target with his weapon, catching up to it and finally bringing it down. The trooper carrying the camera had been knocked to the ground and struggled to his feet with a series of muffled curses. He regained his feet, bringing the camera around, rendered speechless by the source of all of their troubles.
At his feet lay the limp, frail form of a young girl.