It turned out that Xanadu was perfectly willing to kill the unconscious officers, which made Nick sad. I don't wish unhappiness on anyone, but I hope she learns to feel sorry that this had to happen someday.

It was actually frightening how quick and easy it was. Once Petra, Jenkins and Xanadu had discussed how she could open a hatch with the power off, she just walked in there and started distributing head shots.

Nick felt unclean as he helped the fuakalas figure out which of the unconscious Goldaskians were the officers. He pleaded for the doctor in Sickbay to be spared, and ended up arguing that they could save her as a bargaining chip, to which Geh!kin reluctantly agreed. Zaa!nu grumbled so much that Nick was glad that he was sitting in Sickbay, guarding the doctor's unconscious body.

Finally he called Engineering back. "Hello, this is Nick, human of Earth. Kohz Malash, are you there? Are you ready to negotiate?"

"What have you done?"

"Out of your 22 officers, three are still breathing, including your boss in there."

There was a pause. "Who else is alive?"

"The doctor in Sickbay, and the leader of the shuttle expedition, but everyone on that expedition needs to die."

"You are savages!"

"No, we've been through that already. You've demonstrated that you are the savages, and you don't like it when other people treat you the way you treat them. Tough. Members of my species generally learn this lesson when they are two years old. Apparently your race is slower to grow up, but I will still work with you towards a resolution here."

"We will blow this ship up!"

"Really? When you can still save, what, about 130 of your people? They don't have to die."

"You must give us the Petra."

"No, I really don't. And I won't. And I certainly can't if you blow up the ship with me in it."

"We cannot give you the ship."

"See, that's where you're still confused. We have taken the ship. It's ours now. The only reason I'm bothering to talk to you is because my race is more civilized than yours. I'm giving you a chance to save yourselves. The fuakalas are already getting mad at me, even after I let them kill your officers. I'm not going to be able to stop them from killing more if you don't give me something soon."

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There was a long pause, and some muttered conversation at the far end. Nick waited, keeping an eye on the time. Finally, Kohz Malash spoke up again. "If...if...we were to abandon ship, we would need all of our rations, gear and supplies."

Nick smiled. "I might be able to make half of that happen."

"We need to be able to survive!"

"So do we. You just destroyed all our food."

"If we...exchanged...the ship for the Petra..."

"Now, that is the most reasonable option you've presented yet. Unfortunately, Petra is not on the table."

"That last did not translate."

"I will not give up Petra. Not now, not ever."

"Not even to save your fuakalas and get the ship?"

Nick sighed. "I admit, the offer is tempting. But you are bad people. I don't think I could live with myself if I gave you Petra. Tell me, how many people have already died in order to keep Petra away from you? No. You cannot have Petra. You will not have Petra."

"I am being extremely generous for even discussing this option."

"Well, you'd better find some more generosity fast. If we get this over with while your assault team is still on the ground, we can just shoot the shuttle and strand them. That would save most of their lives. But once they take off, we'll have to kill them all to keep them from retaking the ship."

"You will find that difficult with no power to the weapons."

"My friends are very clever, and we have Petra. Look, I'd rather not kill another ten or twenty of your crew onboard here just to get you past your stubbornness, but I will if I have to. Stalling is not going to help you."

"We'll see."

Nick sighed. "Anyone else in Engineering want to be more reasonable?" Silence. "All right. Time to kill more Goldaskians then." Nick was about to end the call, but got an idea. "In case it matters to you, the next batch to die will be those in...let's see...the compartment just to the starboard of Sickbay has a good dozen. I'll wait five minutes, and if you don't turn the power back on by then, I'm going to starting shooting them in the head one by one. Think it over. Goodbye." Nick ended the call, feeling ill.

"Petra, start a five minute timer."

"Yes, Nick."

"Jenkins, please talk me through the procedure for opening a hatch without power."

"That didn't all translate, but do you want help opening the hatch?"

"Yes."

The part of the process that took the longest was finding a Goldaskian toolbox. While he hunted, Nick asked, "So, Jenkins, Jenn-ana, have you got any ideas on how to shoot down the shuttle if we don't get the power back on?"

"We're already working on it. Zaa!nu is hunting for power cables. She suggested killing all the Goldaskians in the shuttle bay so that we can clear the air and the rest of us can get out of this shuttle."

"Hm, I already threatened this compartment, but if we have to do it again, that... makes sense." Nick felt vaguely sick at the topic of conversation, or maybe that was his injury. No, it was the conversation, he admitted. He distracted himself when he found a toolbox at last. Nick was wondering whether he would miss his own deadline by the time he got back to the hatch he was trying to get open. "Time left, Petra?"

"One minute, four seconds."

Nick followed the instructions and got the hatch to unlock with a clunking sound. He took a few breaths, bracing himself for the pain he expected when he tried to manually open the hatch. He was just about to try, when the lights came back on. Nick sagged against the wall in relief that he would not have to commit a crime against his soul.

Thank God.

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