“Commander, you have the bridge.”

“Aye Captain, I have the bridge.”

Eric strode off, taking the lift into Marine country, where the ship’s detention cells were located.

He was only mildly surprised to find Colonel Conner there, apparently staring through the security glass at the prisoners. He suspected that she was more lost in her own thoughts than actually looking at anything.

“Have they spoken?” he asked, coming to a stop beside her.

“Nothing useful.”

Eric nodded, unsurprised.

Any reasonably disciplined group wouldn’t give up much in the first few hours of capture. Over time, however, it would be all but impossible to keep from slipping out something of value. People just couldn’t maintain discipline indefinitely, not even when they knew they were being watched. Actually, being watched constantly was known to erode discipline faster than if a person believed they had some sort of privacy. The tension was just another factor eating away at them.

“I’m going to talk to them,” he said as he looked in.

They wore rather grungy uniforms, though maybe he was biased. He’d always been partial to Marine dress blues, unlike most of his fellows, and the current Alliance blacks were pretty decent too. The enemy . . . troops, as he refused to call them Marines, wore dingy gray uniforms with few marking elements he could spot. Eric thought they looked like cheap coveralls.

The men themselves were sullen, but otherwise reasonably fit and solid sorts. He wouldn’t care to tangle with them up close, but given the choice between them and the colonel standing across from him, Eric would take on the aliens without hesitation.

“Sir?” Deirdre’s head snapped around and her eyes bored into him. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“You might be right,” Eric replied, “but I’m not sure I really care.”

With trepidation, the colonel watched the captain walk out of the room, her eyes shifting back to the security cells as the outer door cycled open.

Well, this is one way to get more data in the system.

“Conner to security stations,” she said, depressing a comm link.

“Yes ma’am?”

“Have a ready response team standing by outside the prisoners’ cells. The captain has decided to have a word with our guests.”

►►►

► Eric sealed the door after himself, then walked down the access corridor that ran the length of the cells, eyes scanning the cells’ inhabitants as he stiffly marched by.

The Odysseus wasn’t a prison ship. The cells primarily functioned as a brig in the event of rowdy crewmen. That didn’t mean they weren’t secure, but they certainly weren’t what he’d normally want to use for potentially dangerous POWs.

Eric stopped roughly along the centerline, turning straight toward those prisoners who would see him directly, eyes sweeping left and right.

When he spoke, it was in Priminae, with no translator in between him and the people he was addressing.