“But I will happily return the scientists to you,” I said, trying to sound carefree and cheerful.
“Under what terms?”
“That you return my troopers to me.”
“They are prisoners. They surrendered with hardly a fight.”
“So they are worth very little,” I taunted. “How much courage can you ingest from soldiers such as they?”
“Then why do you want them?”
I had to think fast. “I want to revive them and train them to be true soldiers, worthy of their calling. So that the next time you meet them they will offer you a better meal than their miserable carcasses offer now.”
Now it was her turn to do some thinking. She undoubtedly thought that I was lying, that there was something else going on. But actually, what I told her was as close to the truth as I could say. My troopers needed better training—and better leadership—if they were to survive their battles.
“I must consider this carefully,” said the base commander. “The prisoners have been frozen. They belong to the larders of those who captured them. I must determine what payment those warriors should receive if they give up their food.”
Nodding, I replied, “I’m inserting this vessel into a stationary orbit around the planet. In one hour I will set off the engines and blow up the ship.”
“I will give you my response in less than one hour, Orion.”
“Good.” I cut the connection, and saw that my finger trembled slightly.
“You can’t be serious.”
Turning in the pilot’s chair I saw that Randa was standing behind me. She had not gone back to the galley. She had heard my conversation with the base commander.
“I’m completely serious,” I told her.
“You’d kill us all for the sake of a handful of soldiers? Soldiers? Why, they’re little better than machines.”
“They’re quite human,” I said, holding on to my temper.
“And you think that we’ll just sit here quietly and allow you to murder us?”
There were no weapons among them, I knew. Even the tools that the ship carried were in cargo containers outside this crew habitat module.
I grinned up at her. “There are twenty-two of you and only one of me. But I doubt that more than three or four of you could squeeze into this cockpit area at one time. And I can handle three or four of you without raising much of a sweat.”
“You’re insane!” Randa snapped. “We’re scientists, you big oaf! Each one of us is worth a hundred of your miserable soldiers.”
I let that pass. I merely said, “If you keep your cool and don’t do anything foolish, you’ll be back at the Skorpis base within an hour or so. Or what’s left of the base, anyway. If you try to stop me I’ll blow this ship to hell right here and now.”
She stared at me, horrified. “Don’t you care about your own life?”
I found myself shaking my head. “No. I don’t give a damn. Death doesn’t frighten me in the slightest. In fact, it would be a relief.”
Randa shuddered, turned, and fairly ran toward the galley and her fellow scientists.
The Skorpis commander called me when there was less than five minutes remaining in the hour. I could imagine what she had been going through: trying to determine if there was some way they could take this survey vessel or incapacitate me before I blew up the ship; weighing the worth of the forty-nine frozen prisoners against the worth of the twenty-two Hegemony scientists; deciding how much recompense to give the warriors who had captured my troopers. Idly I wondered if they ate any of the reptilian Tsihn they captured in battle.
She agreed to the trade, reluctantly. The forty-nine cryo units were carried to my orbiting vessel by a trio of Skorpis landing shuttles. I would not have my troopers destroyed by a matter transceiver. Once I was satisfied that all of the bulky sleeper units were properly attached to my vessel, I allowed the scientists to board the last of the Skorpis shuttles.
Delos stood beside me and watched his team file through the air lock that connected to the shuttle.