SOPs—standard operating procedures—said they had to stop prisoners from talking to each other before processing. But SOPs hadn't allowed for the little complication of running out of air before an interrogator could be found.

Niner turned his head slightly to Orjul. “You can talk to us. Or you can wait until Sergeant Vau sits you down with a nice cup of caf and asks you to tell him your life story. He's a good listener. And you'll really want to talk to him.”

There was no response. Apart from the brief curses and grunts of pain they'd emitted when Omega stormed the cockpit and subdued them—Fi loved military understatement– none of the suspects had said a single word, not even name, rank, or serial number. And, of course, the two who were dry-frozen somewhere in the vacuum of space weren't going to provide many answers of their own free will, either.

“Look, shall I try to get some information out of these gentlemen just in case the taxi doesn't get here before our air runs out?” Fi asked.

“We're not trained to interrogate prisoners,” said Niner.

Fi maneuvered himself above the human. He didn't know what Nikto felt or feared, and suspected that it wasn't much, but he knew plenty about his own species' vulnerabilities. “I could improvise.”

“No, you'll bounce off the bulkheads, expend too much oxygen, and then we'll have to slot them to preserve the supply for us. It can wait. Vau isn't going anywhere, and neither are they.”

Niner was reclining in the pilot's chair, restraining belt buckled and staring straight ahead. The blue-lit T of his visor was reflected in the transparisteel viewscreen, making him look wonderfully droid-like. Fi wasn't sure if Niner was simply saying coldly brutal things to intimidate the prisoners or not. Fi wasn't entirely sure whether he was really joking some of the time.

War was nothing personal. But somehow Fi felt differently about people who didn't carry a rifle and who didn't kill in honest combat. They were an invisible enemy. Fierfek, even droids stood up where you could see them.

He put it out of his mind with a conscious effort, and not only because Ordo had insisted on undamaged prisoners. He knew how to kill, and he knew how to resist pain, but he wasn't sure how to inflict it deliberately.

But he was pretty sure that Vau did. He'd leave the job to him.

Darman had positioned himself against the bulkhead with his legs stretched out. He looked asleep. Arms folded, head lowered, his point-of-view icon in Fi's HUD showed only an image of his belt and lap. Dar could sleep anywhere, anytime. At one point he flinched, as if someone had said something to him, but there was nothing audible on the comlink.

Atin, belted in to the copilot's seat, worked on the assortment of datapads, datasticks, and sheets of flimsi that he'd taken from the suspects—dead and alive—and prodded probes into dataports, doing what he seemed to enjoy best: slicing, hacking, and generally dismantling things. Niner occasionally reached out to grab any of his prizes that floated free.

Fi propelled himself forward with a gentle push against the deck and offered his roll of tape. Atin managed a smile and trapped the wayward components on the sticky side, securing the other end on Niner's left forearm plate.

“Fi, you know I don't mean it, don't you?” Niner said suddenly. “When I get on your back about stuff. I'm just venting steam.”

It took Fi aback. “Sarge, I think the first thing you ever did was to tear me off a strip, and we're still brothers, aren't we? You're just like Sergeant Kal. He never meant any of it, either.”

“Did you see the state of him on the hololink?”

“He looked pretty exhausted.”

“Poor Buir. He never stops worrying.”

Fi paused. It was the first time he'd ever heard Niner use the word buir openly: father. Fi preferred to see everyone burying their fears in wisecracks. This was all too raw.

We could be dead in two hours. Well, we've been there a few times before …

He shrugged, desperately seeking the other part of him that always had the smart answer ready. “I don't know about you, vode, but I'm planning on getting back to base because Obrim still owes me a drink.”

“And your free warra nuts.” So Darman wasn't asleep, then. “Fierfek, I keep getting this weird feeling like someone's here next to me.”

“It’s me, Dar. But don’t ask me to hold you hand.”

“Di’kut.” He unfolded his arms slowly and turned to Atin. “At’ika, if you can’t decrypt that data, why not just try to send the whole memory back down the hololink as is?”

“That’s what I’m doing,” Atin said without looking up. The only light in the compartment now was the blue glow from their helmets. Fi noted that Atin had his night-vision filter in place to see the small ports on the datapads. “You’re right. I can’t crack the encryption here, but I can dump the data down the link now and let Ordo play with it if I can override the anti-tampering. Otherwise it’ll just delete everything on here. Ten minutes, maybe? I’m not letting this beat me.”

Niner eased himself out of the seat and gave Atin a pat on the shoulder as he floated past him. “I’m going to keep the hololink open. Time to update Fleet on our rate of drift anyway.”

They had nothing to say at the moment. And the link was a power drain that they might regret later if things didn’t pan out quite as they were hoping.

But Fi understood. Kal Skirata would be going crazy not being able to keep an eye on them at a time like this. It was what he always, always said when things got tough: I’m here, son. He felt he had to be there for them. And he always had been.

Buir was exactly the right word. Fi had no idea how he had managed to keep faith with more that a hundred commandos.

The link flared into blue light again. Ordo appeared, in full armor and looking away form the cam. He must have been at Fleet HQ, then, to be working with his helmet on like that, and the holo unit must have been placed in his desk.

“Omega here,” Niner said. “Captain, mind if we keep the link open until further notice?”

Ordo looked around, and Skirata’s voice cut in from outside the video pickup’s field: “I’d kick your shebs if you didn’t, ad’ike. You okay?”

“Bored, Sarge,” Said Fi.

“Well, you won't be bored much longer. Majestic and Fearless are on their way, ETA under two hours—”

“Good old ma'am,” Niner said.

“—but you'll probably have help sooner, because Delta Squad are in transit.”

“Oh, we'll never hear the last of this …”

“You haven't met them yet, son.”

“Heard enough.”

“Rough, rude boys,” Fi said. “And rather full of themselves.”

“Yes, but they have oxygen, a functioning drive, and they're just gagging to get to you first. So play nicely with them.” Skirata moved into the hololink's visual range and sat down on Ordo's desk, swinging one leg, his injured one. He looked the way he always looked on training exercises: grim, focused, and constantly chewing something. “Oh, and don't open fire. They're driving a Sep ship.”

“How did they get hold of that? Not that the cannon on this crate is working now anyway.”

“Well, I don't think the Sep pilot was keen to part with it, but maybe they promised that they'd bring it back when they were finished.”

Fi cut in again. “Anyone looking for Sicko, Sarge? Our TIV pilot?”

“Yes. We'll keep you posted.” Skirata glanced at Ordo as if he'd said something. “Atin, son, you know Vau's back, don't you?”

Atin paused for a second and then carried on tapping a probe on the entrails of a dismantled datapad. He nodded to himself. “Yes, Sarge. I noted that.”

“You're coming back to Brigade HQ when we get you out of there, but you steer clear of him, okay? You hear me?”