“Well, that’s something,” I said.
Powell nodded and pointed to one of the survivors. “I think that’s the one in charge,” she said. “At least that’s the one everyone tried to keep me from getting at.”
I went over to the Rraey, who was looking up at me. I accessed my BrainPal, which had translation modules for the couple hundred species we humans had encountered the most often; the Rraey were in there. Their language contained sounds that we can’t make, but the BrainPal would pick words that suited our mouths and throats. I’d tell the BrainPal what I wanted to say and it would offer me a suitable translation.
“Are you in charge here?” I asked the Rraey Powell had pointed out to me.
“I will not answer your questions,” the Rraey said to me, in its language, which my BrainPal translated for me.
“I could break something else,” Powell said. She was listening in.
“Torture isn’t useful to get information,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything about getting information.”
I looked back to her. “Give me a minute here, please,” I said. Powell snorted.
I turned back to the Rraey. “You are hurt,” I said, in its language. “Let us help you get better.”
“We’re hurt because of that animal over there,” the Rraey said, jerking its head to Powell.
“You are hurt because you attacked us,” I said. “You cannot attack us and expect nothing to happen in return.”
The creature said nothing to this.
“You are here on a planet you should not be,” I said. “Helping humans, which you should not do. You need to tell me why.”
“I will not.”
“We can help you. We will help you and your soldier here,” I said, pointing to the other injured Rraey. “You will not survive if you do not get help.”
“I will gladly die.”
“But will you ask this soldier to die too?” I said. “Have you asked this soldier what it wants?”
“You’re doing that thing where you’re trying to be nice to someone you were just trying to kill,” Powell said. “It doesn’t work, because they remember you were trying to kill them five minutes ago.”
“Ilse.”
“I’m just pointing this out. Someone needs to say it.”
I ignored her and turned back to the Rraey. “I am Lieutenant Heather Lee of the Colonial Defense Forces,” I said. “I promise you that from this point forward you will not be harmed. It’s a promise whether you help me or not. But if you help me, then I may say to my superiors that you have been useful. And they will treat you better.”
“We know how you treat your prisoners,” the Rraey said.
“And we know how you treat yours,” I said. “We can change things now.”
“Kill me and get it over with,” the Rraey said.
“I don’t want to die,” said the other Rraey.
The first Rraey squawked something at his underling, which my BrainPal translated as “[Silence/You are making a shameful utterance].”
“You won’t,” I said, turning my attention to it. “Help me, soldier. Help me and you will live. I promise you.”
“I am Specialist Ketrin Se Lau,” it said. It motioned with its head to the other Rraey. “This is Commander Frui Ko Tvann. We are here on behalf of Equilibrium. We are here because the government of Khartoum has struck a deal with us.”
“What’s the deal?”
“Protection,” it said. “Once the Colonial Union falls, Equilibrium will protect it from species who will try to raid or take over.”
“In exchange for what?”
Commander Tvann squawked again and tried to strike Lau. Powell crossed the distance between the two and held her Empee on Tvann.
“In exchange for what?” I repeated.
“You won’t kill us,” Lau asked. “You promise.”
“Yes, I promise. Neither of you.”
“You won’t torture us.”
“We won’t. We’re going to help you. I promise, Specialist Lau.”
“Protection in exchange for laying a trap,” Lau said. “For luring you here.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Powell said. “The Colonial Union only sent one ship. Even if the Tubingen is destroyed we’ll just send more. A lot more. This uprising will fail and then we’ll go after the Rraey for helping them.”
“Unless there’s more to it,” I said, and turned back to Lau. “What else is there?”
“I don’t know,” Lau said. “I’m a specialist. They only told me what I had to know for my part.”
I turned to Tvann. “And I don’t expect you want to fill me in.” Tvann turned its head from me.
“So we have a dead end here,” Powell said.
“No,” I said, and then cut off as the Tubingen opened a feed, searching for us. It had been attacked and damaged but had survived and with the help of another ship had destroyed the two ships attacking it. It was now asking for status reports.
“Well, at least we’re not entirely screwed,” Powell said.