“Are you sure you can trust them?” Taya asked in a worried voice. The girl had come in after Junebug had called the all clear. She had one of the mercenaries pistol in one hand, it was a good instance to arm yourself but Sayeeda privately wished the girl hadn’t. Thy had spent some time training but the girl needed to work on her barrel control. She had a tendency to gesture with the weapon which would likely end in her accidentally shooting someone if it wasn’t curbed.

“Within certain parameters,” Junebug responded as she watched them strip the wounded woman’s armor from her body with a series of emergency release catches. Blood sicked the inside of the ceramic/polymer armor. The mercenary was a dark woman, and the blood stained her ebony skin with a grotesque sheen. One of her companions cut away her clothing with a power knife and then helped lift her into the medicomp.

Most starships had an automated medical unit which was capable of everything from treating radiation exposure to minor surgical tasks. The Highlander’s was an industrial gray unit the size of a large coffin. It could be configured to leave the head uncovered but they mercenaries were not taking any chances. It closed around the stricken soldier with a hiss of compressed gas. A series of clicks and whirs sounded as various IV lines and bio sensors were inserted.  The large display on the side of the unit began to scroll data against a red background. After a moment the red shifted to yellow. That was a good sign. Sayeeda wasn’t a medic but she seen more than her share of wounded over the years. She judged that the woman would live.

“If they break faith after surrendering, their own organisation would probably shoot them rather than risk official censure,” Sayeeda explained. The mercenary community, the larger and better equipped ones, recognised a value to obeying the terms of a contract and in honoring surrenders. It was bad for business to shoot surrendering combatants just like it as bad for business for troops to turn on their captors once paroled. Everyone recognized the value in following the rules and if they didn’t, they were taught a very brief and very permanent lesson.

“We are responsible for feeding them and repatriating them to their own outfit. Their organisation will pay us a premium to cover it,” she explaine. Kagan was directing his men, sliding tubes of stim gel into the machine as the read reserve was expended. Taya straightend suddendly.

“Junebug, there are a bunch of those media drones on the way. I riged a sensor watch with Lonney.”

Sayeeda didn’t know what the reaction to a half dozen slaughtered men in the hangar would be but she was willing to bet it wasn’t going to be anything good.
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