“Surely the colonists would have seen them coming,” Fitzwilliam said.  He looked up at Major Parnell.  “Could your men have caught all of the colonists if you dropped from orbit?”

“If we were trying to drop in on their heads, we’d do a paraglide from the shuttles,” Parnell said.  “Or we could risk a straight drop through the planet’s atmosphere, although I’d hate to try that against any kind of ground-based defences.  Still, Vera Cruz had no defences at all.  The colonists might even have assumed the aliens were human visitors until it was too late.”

Ted barely heard him.  “The colonists might have been taken as prisoners,” he mused.  “Do we know?”

“No, sir,” Parnell said.  “We know nothing for sure.  The bodies could easily have been carried some distance from the colony and buried – or simply vaporised.  We don't know the aliens took prisoners.  But if I was waging war on a newly-discovered alien race, I'd sure as hell want prisoners to study.”

“Assuming they think like us,” Fitzwilliam mused.

“They can't be that different,” Parnell said.  “Even if they are homicidal monsters who find humans irredeemably ugly, surely they would want to know how to kill us.”

Ted shuddered.  Human doctors and scientists without morals had performed chilling experiments on helpless test subjects, after carefully deeming them to be subhuman and thus not worthy of any legal protection.  The aliens wouldn't even have to wonder if the humans deserved legal protection; they’d just start experimenting at will.  After all, humans had happily carried out experiments on non-human creatures before even starting to reach into interstellar space.

“I think they’ve already mastered the art of killing humans,” Fitzwilliam said, sardonically.  “Just ask the crews of Formidable and Invincible.”

“It doesn't matter,” Ted said.  The concept of humans being used as alien test subjects – or even being kept in POW camps – was horrifying, but there was nothing they could do about it for the moment.  “XO, how do we stand with the loading?”

Fitzwilliam glanced down at his terminal.  “A few more hours to take on raw material, then compress it down into suitable projectiles,” he said.  “Assuming we don’t get interrupted, we should be ready to make the next jump in a day or two.”

“Which will also give the crew a chance to rest,” Ted said.  Not that they dared relax completely.  The aliens had to suspect that Ark Royal needed to replenish her stocks of raw materials.  If they were watching ... he shuddered and put the thought out of his mind.  Doing nothing might have been safer, but it was also futile.  “We’ll jump through the unexplored tramline tomorrow, then.  I feel rather exposed out here.”

“My men can return to inspect the remaining settlements,” Parnell offered.  “Or even to try low-power signalling ...”