"…Yes, I'll pass that along." Rick continued, sounding troubled. "But Calista, we have… a new problem here.
Thirteen prisoners, plus that tank that's temporarily out of commission. With the prison's current holding capacity and defensive manpower, handling all of them is going to be difficult."
Calista immediately understood what he meant.
There weren't many people at the prison. Even with the Defense Force, T-Dog, and the others who had received training, they only had a little over twenty armed personnel, and those people still had to handle defense, patrols, and search operations.
Keeping more than a dozen additional prisoners under close guard was hardly their specialty, and it could easily create internal security problems.
"You mean…?" she asked, though she already knew what he was getting at.
"The rotation team from Rock Fortress should be arriving soon," Rick said. "I was thinking, could Edmund's team escort the prisoners and the tank back to Rock Fortress? You can handle the prisoners' interrogation and disposition there, and take custody of the tank as well."
It was a perfectly reasonable suggestion.
After a moment's thought, Calista agreed. "All right. I'll notify them. Edmund's squad and Lily will take the prisoners and the tank back with them.
Make sure everything is ready for the handover, and keep the escort completely secure, especially those three military prisoners.
Have Edmund make a detailed record of the tank's damage. Keep it covered as much as possible on the road so it doesn't attract attention."
"Roger that! We'll take care of it." Rick's voice finally relaxed.
...
The convoy transporting the prisoners and the tank arrived at the Knoxville Industrial Park one afternoon.
Under heavy guard inside the reinforced truck, the prisoners had spent most of the trip either hanging their heads in despair, staring blankly ahead, or trying to put on a brave face.
But when the industrial park finally came fully into view, almost everyone instinctively raised their heads and stared in disbelief.
Tara was curled up in a corner of the truck. Days of fear, exhaustion, and worry over her sister and her girlfriend Alisha had hollowed out her once-round cheeks, and her eyes were bloodshot.
She had held no hope for this transfer. As far as she was concerned, they were simply being moved from one cage to another, probably an even worse one. They might even be executed.
But now, looking through the truck window, Tara saw something far beyond anything she had imagined.
An intact industrial park!
The barbed-wire fence stood more than six meters high. A protected patrol walkway ran along the top, with watchtowers positioned at sensible intervals. Armed sentries could be seen standing guard inside them.
The outside of the fence was covered with anti-climbing barbs and other sharp obstacles. Even the base appeared reinforced, with firing slits built into it.
The convoy slowly passed through the gate.
What lay inside made the prisoners hold their breath.
A broad central avenue stretched ahead of them. The road had clearly been cleared and leveled, with no mountains of garbage or wreckage and not a single walker in sight.
Rows of factory buildings and warehouses lined both sides of the avenue. Their structures were intact, and most of the windows were either undamaged or neatly boarded over.
Some buildings even had clear signs and numbers painted on their exterior walls.
Farther away stood towering cooling towers, networks of crisscrossing pipe racks, and enormous storage tanks, forming the vast outline of a complete industrial complex.
But even that wasn't what shocked them most.
Everywhere they looked, there were people.
Armed Defense Force squads patrolled in proper formations.
Technicians and workers in overalls moved between the factory buildings, pushing carts or carrying materials.
Everything was organized and full of activity. Compared to the shabby wilderness camp they had been living in, this place felt like another world entirely.
"OMG…" muttered a young prisoner sitting beside Tara, staring with wide eyes. "W-what kind of place is this?"
An older prisoner's lips trembled. "This can't be possible! The apocalypse hasn't even been going on that long… How could they have built a place like this?"
Mickey, the tank driver, exchanged a look of utter shock with his older brother Pete, who sat across from him.
As former National Guard members, they understood better than most just how much organization, stockpiled resources, and military strength it took to maintain a stronghold on this scale.
The design of the defenses, the discipline of the patrols, the organization of supplies. Everything pointed to an extremely high level of professionalism and control.
There was no way a ragtag group of survivors who had simply gotten lucky could have accomplished this.
Pete lowered his voice and said to Mickey, "Look at the patrols' gear and formation. And those sentry positions over there… Fuck, this is at least a company-level defensive system. Where the hell did they find so many trained people?"
Mickey stared at their tank nearby as a recovery vehicle slowly towed it toward a large maintenance building.
It was someone else's war trophy now.
Watching the steel monster he had once driven being hauled away like livestock left him with mixed feelings, but more than anything, he felt a lingering chill.
They had actually planned to raid an outpost belonging to a force like this?
They had even thought the place "looked like it might be worth a quick score"?
That was like taking a fishing boat and trying to ram an aircraft carrier.
They must have been out of their minds!
Alisha gripped Tara's hand tightly, every bit as stunned as the others.
"Look at this. They've got a lot of people here who actually know what they're doing. Could this be a secure zone run by an organized military unit?" she said to Tara in disbelief. "What we were doing before… it was like kids playing house."
Just then, the convoy stopped near an area enclosed by barbed wire and makeshift prefab buildings.
It was clearly a dedicated quarantine and screening zone.
Heavily armed, stern-faced Defense Force soldiers ordered the prisoners out of the trucks and made them form a line.
"Listen up!" Saed stepped forward and shouted. "You are now prisoners of Rock Fortress!
You will undergo quarantine and preliminary interrogation. Enter the designated rooms in order and cooperate with all inspections.
Anyone who refuses to cooperate or attempts to resist will be treated as hostile and shot on the spot!"
His gaze swept over the prisoners, lingering for a moment on the three soldiers, Mickey, Pete, and Alisha.
"You, you, and you." Saed pointed at the three of them. "Step out of line and go with those people over there."
He gestured toward several Defense Force soldiers standing off to one side, all of them looking even more severe.
Alisha stiffened. Tara instinctively tightened her grip on her hand.
"Alisha!"
Alisha looked back at her, silently telling her not to worry. "It's okay, Tara. Just cooperate with them."
She let go and followed Mickey and Pete out of the line.
Tara's heart clenched as she watched Alisha being led away.
Rationally, she knew that in a place this organized, they were unlikely to execute prisoners of war arbitrarily, but that did little to ease the tightness in her chest.
The other civilian prisoners were taken to another row of prefab buildings for basic registration, searches, and preliminary questioning.
Gwendolyn and Oak were responsible for their group.
The process was simple.
They surrendered all personal belongings, underwent a basic physical examination, and answered routine questions about their names, ages, occupations before the apocalypse, and how they had joined the group.
...
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