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armed, and had knees that went the wrong way. One had something resembling a handgun, and the two others had longer weapons I assumed were automatic rifles of some sort. A larger squad of the alien creatures held back and fanned out through the cargo hold, getting good vantages to fire into us, the Chandler crew. There were about sixty of us, totally unarmed. It wouldn’t take them long to go through us, if they wanted to.
    “What the hell are they?” Chieko Tellez whispered to me. She was standing next to me in the group.
    “They’re Rraey,” I said.
    “Not friendly,” she said. “Not counting these ones, I mean.”
    “No,” I said. The Colonial Union didn’t spend a lot of time advertising specific battles, but I knew enough to know we’d kicked the Rraey’s asses pretty seriously more than once in the last decade or so. There was no reason to believe any of this was going to end well for us.
    The three Rraey reached Captain Thao. “Identify your pilots,” the center Rraey said to her. It spoke in its own language, which was translated by a small object clipped to its clothes.
    “Tell me why,” Thao said.
    The Rraey raised its weapon and shot Lee Han, standing with the captain, in the face. Han lifted in the low gravity and took a long time to fall to the deck.
    “Identify your pilots,” the Rraey said again, after most of the shouting from the crew had subsided.
    Thao remained silent. The creature raised its weapon again, this time at her head. I considered stepping forward. Tellez suddenly grabbed my arm, guessing what I was thinking of doing. “Don’t you fucking dare, ” she whispered.
    “Stop it,” someone said. I followed the sound of the voice to Secretary Ocampo. He stepped forward, away from the Chandler crew. “There’s no need for that, Commander Tvann.”
    The Rraey turned its head to look at Ocampo. So did Thao. I think she realized, like I just did, that Ocampo had called the creature by name and rank.
    “Secretary Ocampo,” Tvann said, nodding its head in salute. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to identify a pilot for me.”
    “Of course,” Ocampo said. Then he pointed into crew members, directly at me. “He’s one. Take him.”
    Two Rraey peeled off and came at me. Tellez put herself in front of me. One of the two advancing Rraey raised its weapon at her. “You son of a bitch,” Thao shouted at Ocampo, and the crew of the Chandler began to agitate.
    “Quiet,” Ocampo said. He said it in a loud voice that he was clearly proud of, the sort of speaking voice that had been polished by years of diplomatic speeches and the assumption that people would naturally listen to what he had to say.
    And it worked; even the Rraey coming to get me stopped and looked at him.
    He held up a hand to further the call for silence. The crew hushed to a low murmur.
    “You will survive this,” Ocampo said, loudly. “Let me say this again: You will survive this. But only if you listen to me right now and do as I say. So listen. Quietly.”
    The Chandler crew was dead silent now.
    “I regret the death of Lee Han,” Ocampo said. “Rraey commanders are not accustomed to having orders questioned or refused. There will be no more killings unless you resist or disobey. I also recognize that from your point of view this looks very much like both piracy and treason. I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I am sorry I don’t have time to explain it to you further.
    “Now. I require the Chandler and I require a pilot. I am taking the ship and I am taking Mr. Daquin here. As for the rest of you, very shortly you will be escorted to the Chandler ’s lifepods. The lifepods will be launched and immediately after the Chandler has skipped away—three days from now—an emergency drone will be sent to Phoenix Station and the Colonial Union with the precise coordinates to this system and your lifepods. You know that the Colonial Union keeps ships at skip distance specifically for