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  "Dammit," Ramage muttered. "I liked that guy."

  "The SecState has already been sworn in as the Continuity Coordinator," the Gunny continued. "Same as President for your purposes and as soon as the Senate votes she will be. We just keep fighting. All that being said, anyone who uses undue force on any of the prisoners will answer to me and then an Article Thirty-Two. That is all."

  "How'd they get the President?" Chaosman asked.

  "They have very smart missiles," Father said.

  "Rammer," Thermal commed. "First customer coming up."

  "Roger," Rammer commed. "Make sure your door is locked down. Chaosman, Lassie," he continued, pointing to opposite forward corners of the cargo bay. "Weapons hot. Father, you're with me. When they're in the cargo bay, they take off their helmets and leave them in a pile. If they get froggy, Thermal...?"

  "You want me to remote the doors or pump down?"

  "Pump down," Ramage commed. "They should have the same anoxia reaction as humans. And if they don't, nobody survives hard vac."

  —|—

  "They are coming," Captain Bacajezh said.

  Bacajezh was as surprised as the cook with whom he shared the escape pod at his survival.

  The SAPL beam had hit just abaft his position in the CIC. The beam had, to his continued surprise and shock, cut through faster than thought. One moment the shields were holding, the next the compartment was open to vacuum. And his ship was being torn apart by missiles.

  There was an escape pod bay a short distance from the bridge. He'd made sure everyone that was mobile was out and followed. He was more or less blown into the last escape pod and he didn't really remember much after that until he regained consciousness looking into the face of a concerned junior enlisted.

  After that there was not much to do but wait. The enemy was jamming hypercom channels so the pods could not communicate. But from time to time he could spot small boats moving among the debris so they were probably picking up survivors. If they were killing them he'd have seen the pods in view popping like vab pods.

  He'd adjusted the trajectory of the pod and could also see the battlestation looming over the battlefield. They were far enough away that it was relatively small, the size of his thumb when he held it out at arm's length. But given that this was space, that was beyond massive.

  "It will be well," Bacajezh said. "Just submit to them. I understand that humans treat their prisoners fairly well."

  "Yes, Captain," the cook said nervously. He was not presenting the image of the fierce Rangora warrior but, after all, he was a cook.

  One of the small boats locked onto the pod with gravity grapnels and pulled the escape hatch up to its air lock. The air lock was open but wouldn't mate, it was far too small. One of the humans, armed with a laser rifle, leaned over and looked through the porthole in the hatch. Then he dialed out the pressure and opened the hatch.

  Bacajezh climbed out at a gesture from the rifle and entered the small air lock. There was barely room for the two humans and two Rangora. The pod was released to drift, the hatch shut and the air lock dialed up to pressure. Very efficient. The only loss was the air of the pod and the humans apparently had all the air they could use.

  He ducked through the inner hatch when it was opened and was unsurprised to find seven survivors sitting at the rear of the cargo compartment. What was fairly unnerving was that they were all helmetless.

  "Take off the helmet," his radio chimed in fluent Rangora. He looked to his side, and one of the puny humans was gesturing with his left hand at a pile of same on the port side of the boat.

  They might be puny, but he recognized the signs of a ground fighter with much experience of his weapons. Every movement was sharp, clear. And there was no particular point in fighting with that damned battlestation looming over all. He took off his helmet and added it to the pile.

  "Captain!"

  The speaker was a junior officer he barely recognized, someone from tactics.

  "Jaushom," Bacajezh said, sitting down next to the lieutenant.

  "No talking," the human's helmet barked. The voice was, again, fluent Rangora. Which gave the captain a very interesting bit of intelligence he wished had been in his briefing.

  Most implant translation systems were rather robotic and had poor word choice and inflection. It took a very advanced implant system, more advanced than Rangoran, to give a clear, eloquent translation that sounded like a natural speaker.

  These human ground fighters, presumably their lowest value enlisted, were using Glatun quality implants.

  And that explained missiles that cut through Rangora screens like butter and targeting that was so powerful and precise it was far beyond what the Terrans should have. Even the rifles had the look of a modification of a Glatun design.

  The Glatuns had released their military technology to the Terrans before the embargo.

  He was unsure if High Command knew that. There were various reasons they might have sacrificed his task force with that knowledge. But if they did not, it was intelligence beyond price.

  It also did not bode well for taking this system.

  —|—

  "Captain Bacajezh," the human said. The voice was coming from a speaker on his collar and he didn't open his mouth when he spoke. "I am pleased that you survived."

  "I am sure you are," Bacajezh said. He didn't bother to try to use his own system to speak Terran. The human's implant would translate better than his own very expensive personalized set. "Captain Saeshon Bacajezh. Four-One-Eight-Seven-Six-Three-Nine-Four."

  The interview was taking place onboard the Ceixen, which seemed to have suffered no damage whatsoever. If it had surrendered without a fight, Bacajezh was going to kill the captain if it was the last thing he did.

  The human looked very small and alone in the Rangoran station chair. On the other hand, the two Marines with rifles in the corner were nearly big enough to be Rangora.

  "Very much as we would reply," the officer said. "I am Lieutenant Gularte. We have some skul. Would you care for some?"

  "Only if my men are receiving it as well," the captain said. He'd, frankly, kill for a cup of skul.

  "I've offered it to all the officer prisoners I've spoken to," the lieutenant said, shrugging. "There's only as much as is in your ships. When it runs out, absent getting some more supplies from your people, it will be gone. So you may feel free to take it or not."

  "Please," the Rangoran said.

  The brew was cold and somewhat softened. Not the best and clearly from an instant mix he didn't recognize. But it was skul.

  "This is not, as such, an interrogation," the lieutenant said. "Oh, some aspects of it. But I won't be asking you about your military posture, plans for more attacks or your order of battle. You wouldn't answer absent harsh methods and we have rather strict laws against those."

  "That is..." Bacajezh wasn't sure how to reply to that. The term that came to mind was "stupid." But that didn't seem like a good thing to say.

  "According to most of your junior officers, the term you're looking for is stupid," the lieutenant said, grinning with open teeth in that offensive Terran fashion. "I will simply note that it is I doing the interrogation and not the other way around. Our ways are, we recognize, unusual to this area of galactic society but... Aliens, what can you say? This is more about the problem of dealing with ninety thousand Rangora prisoners—"

  "That many survived?" Bacajezh said, trying not to pant in relief.

  "After we figured out how to target your ships, we took some care," the lieutenant said. "Eight of the Aggressors were captured more or less intact as well as most of the consorts. Some of the crews gave fight but we pointed out we were only leaving them alive because we were... stupid. And when a couple of pockets were compelled to surrender with SAPL fire, and we broadcast that to the rest, they got the picture. So, yes, about ninety thousand, we think. We're still picking up the pods..." The lieutenant seemed to slump for a moment. "We are really tired of clearing up t
he scrap of your ships, Captain. It's the biggest reason to not blow them apart. The clean-up is just..."

  "I see," Bacajezh said. "And there is no problem with our bombardment?"

  "You killed our President and Vice President," the lieutenant said, moving his shoulders up and down. "Unlike you, however, we do not have problems with transfer of power. Because we are... stupid. So the new leadership is sworn in, there was no internal dissent, beyond that which is our normal way of doing things, and we continue on. We have been bombed repeatedly, Captain. We have had plagues released upon us. We have been oppressed and murdered in the billions. Your little bombardment was something along the lines of a day at the park by comparison. The largest problem with your fleet is that it is now in so many pieces and a hazard to navigation. The other issue we face is another set of thousands of prisoners we have to feed and house."

  "If you are trying to destroy my faith in the Rangora Imperium, it won't work," Bacajezh said.

  "I am doing nothing of the sort," the lieutenant said. "I am simply acquainting the senior officer of this cluster grope with the realities of the situation. We had little or no diplomatic contact with any group other than the Glatun prior to this war breaking out. We didn't even have a consul with the Rangora: The Empire didn't consider us sufficiently important to have diplomatic contacts. We, therefore, are having a hard time figuring out how to proceed. Fortunately, we have you. According to our records you are not only a captain but a member of a prominent family."

  "Not prominent enough to ransom," Bacajezh said.

  "Ransom?" the lieutenant said. "You use that archaic custom?" He barked some sounds that weren't translated and wiped at what appeared to be leakage from his eyes. "You guys really employ ransom? Oh, good Lord, you really are neophytes, aren't you? No, Captain, we won't be requiring ransom. Among other things, we'd be fools to allow intelligence to go out from our system. No, the question is... We can create processors to make Rangora food. Easy enough. But it's that sort of proto-carb gruel. We find that to be unfit food for prisoners. Our watchdogs over prisoner well-being would become angry if that was all we fed you. They're bad enough over the food we give the Horvath. How, exactly, do we contact the Rangora High Command, under the circumstance, and ask them to send you guys some care packages or something?"

  —|—

  "Captain Bacajezh!"

  The wardroom was packed with senior officers. Several of them were captains of Aggressors and he spotted Kiuchep, the captain of the Ceixen, among them.

  "Captain Bacajezh," Captain Kiuchep said, coming over to clap him on the shoulder. "They told us you had made it. Thank Jocup—"

  "How the hell did they take your ship without any damage, Captain?" Bacajezh snarled.

  "They didn't take it with no damage," Commander Pe'Sheshodac said. The XO of the Faluc seemed either stoned or slightly brain hurt. "They did just enough."

  "Three hits," Kiuchep said, his scales rippling in frustration. "Screens went down, then they took out main guns, control runs and engines, bam, bam, bam. Three hits. We were drifting with nothing but secondaries. Then they sent a request for surrender which I accepted. I could have fought, fought their Marines, fought their small ships, but what was the point?"

  "Only took one for the Faluc!" Pe'Sheshodac said. "Hooray for the great Imperium Navy! Long live the Emperor!"

  The Thirty Families were not immune to the occasional inbred cretin. They were generally put to work in minor jobs on conquered worlds, as far out of sight as possible.

  Occasionally, however, the Navy had to put up with a few. It was the price of doing business.

  "Pe'Sheshodac, if you do not control yourself I will denounce you for conduct unbecoming when we return," Bacajezh said. "You will control yourself."

  "Yes, sir!" Pe'Sheshodac said, saluting broadly.

  "They are... treating us well," Kiuchep said.

  "They are mad," Bacajezh said, waving a commander out of his seat and sitting down. "They wanted to know how they could contact High Command, all communications of course being jammed, so that they could ask for 'care packages' for us."

  "Do they not know the meaning of war?" Kiuchep asked.

  "Have you seen the gate area?" Bacajezh said. "They let me view it. From a porthole so it was clear it wasn't a computer generated image. Ships drifting everywhere. I think they have a new meaning of war."

  "They did mention they were getting tired of picking up the scrap," Kiuchep said.

  "That was another thing," Bacajezh said. "They showed me what they call the 'scrapyard' which is where all the Horvath ships ended up."

  "And now ours are headed there," a commander muttered.

  "This was a deliberate set-up," another said. "I don't know who it is High Command wanted out of the way..." he continued, looking at Pe'Sheshodac then Bacajezh.

  "Enough of that," Bacajezh said. "I don't begin to know High Command's thinking. But I doubt they would throw away this much weight of ships to put aside a minor political inconvenience. There's poison for that sort of thing. The point is, we now have to deal with the conditions as they a—" He paused as the door opened.

  "Pardon me, gentlemen," Lieutenant Gularte said. "We're having a bit of a space problem. And we don't have all the air systems repaired. So you're being transferred to Terra. If you could come with me, please?"

  —|—

  "Man, it's a good thing we've got fuel," Hartman said as Dana pulled the shuttle out of the bay.

  "I wonder if we can get some time on ground," Dana said.

  "Just good to see the mudball again," Hartman said. "What's our destination?"

  "They haven't told me, yet. Just head for Earth."

  —|—

  "What is this place?" Bacajezh said as he stepped out of the door of the shuttle.

  It had, clearly, once been a city. They were on the very edge of the crater that was made when a KEW impacted. There had been many tall buildings, which now were twisted ruins. The air was clear and clean, the bombing was not recent, but the light wind from the sea whistled through devastation.

  "This used to be called Los Angeles," Gularte said. "You should be fairly comfortable here for your... visit. The climate is mild with relatively rare rains. There is more than sufficient material to make shelters, obviously. There will be some hand tools coming along in time. We'll drop off food as we have it. Since terrestrial foods are not edible to you, any of you can feel free to run if you wish. In which case, you'll die of starvation. Oh, and there's not much water. We'll pump some in. We will also do our level best to keep the local population away. They have a hard time distinguishing between types of aliens. The Horvath did this but... squids, lizards? All the same to them."

  "I am beginning to understand the human approach to kindness," Bacajezh said, looking around.

  "I would suggest you and your staff get ready to get to work," Gularte said, walking back to the shuttle. "We're going to be dropping off all your personnel in very short order. Some of them seem a little... perturbed by the outcome of the battle. What happens after that is entirely up to you."

  —|—

  "You okay, Dana?" Hartman asked as the shuttle started to climb back to orbit.

  "I am five by five, EM," Dana said. "Five by five."

  "Okay," Hartman said. "If you're sure."

  "Looks pretty much the same as the last time I was here," Dana said. "'Cept it's not on fire."

  —|—

  "Missile ready?"

  "Yes, sir," Captain Sharp said.

  "Launch."

  —|—

  "Gate activation," the sensor technician said. "Inbound from Earth."

  "At last!" Commander Jesij said. "I was wondering how long it was going to take them to send back a report."

  "Longer than they were supposed to take," Captain Mexur said. The commander of the Cofubof-class cruiser Thomud had been getting nervous. It had been over sixteen hours since the task force had entered the Terran system.

  "Miss
ile!" the tech said. "Unknown class."

  "Defensive systems," the captain ordered.

  "The missile is not tracking," the defense officer said. "Say again, not tracking. It is broadcasting."

  "Put it on."

  "Message to Rangora High Command. Repeat. Message to Rangora High Command. Please send supplies for ninety thousand prisoners. Oh, and please keep sending us ships. It's easier than making them. Message to Rangora High Command..."

  "This is one message I do not want to deliver," Captain Mexur said.

  —|—

  "Congratulations, Colonel To'Jopeviq," Star Marshall Lhi'Kasishaj said as the officer entered his office.

  "Colonel?" To'Jopeviq said. He had already noticed the new novas on Lhi'Kasishaj's epaulets. He sat down at a gesture from the Sky Marshall.

  "It was the best I could do," Lhi'Kasishaj said, rippling his scales. "High Command balked at General. But we are back in business!"

  "Yes, sir," To'Jopeviq said, totally confused.

  "Ah, you have not heard the news," Lhi'Kasishaj said. "The humans sent a request through the gate for supplies for ninety thousand prisoners."

  "The task force was defeated," To'Jopeviq said, bobbing his head in frustration.

  "Of course," Lhi'Kasishaj said. "As you predicted. And while, as I noted, being right is often a very bad thing, when played right it can be a very good thing. And this was, I must admit, well played on my part. I have been given, again, authority for bringing the Terran system into submission. Sorry, liberating it from its oppressive governments and bringing unification for the good of all Terrans."

  "I see," To'Jopeviq said, thoughtfully. "Ninety thousand. Ten thousand per Aggressor..."

  "The number is clearly false," Lhi'Kasishaj said. "Don't let it trouble you."

  "Are we sending supplies?" To'Jopeviq asked.