"That's General Lang, one of the most powerful warlords among the Tirillo. He commanded the invasion of the Ecamia Federation three years ago, and he was involved in several of the Raiders' earlier campaigns as well..." The staff officer responsible for the Raiders' affairs quietly recited some information beside Ostana. Three minutes later, all of it had reached Brunhilde.
By then, General Lang had laid out the terms of his deal. "We've occupied all three cities and twelve towns on Farhome. There are six hundred thousand civilians there! The elderly, women, and children. I don't want them thrown into that automatic food compactor I seized and turned into protein bricks. I'm sure you don't want that either, do you?"
He spoke in a thoroughly casual tone, as though there were no hint of a threat in his words. But the mere thought of what he was describing was enough to send a chill down anyone's spine. Yu Lian furrowed his brow slightly and discreetly scanned the bridge. A few of the younger officers wore unmistakably troubled expressions.
Some might have thought the troll was just making an empty threat. But Yu Lian knew the Raiders really were capable of doing such a thing. In the Silver Core, where food was perpetually scarce, laborers who could no longer work—and even wounded soldiers who could no longer fight—might genuinely be tossed into a compactor and turned into protein bricks on the spot.
"If you really do that, troll..." Admiral Farrell said gravely, "I'll cram every one of you into a derelict spaceship, strip out all its life-support systems, and send it hurtling into deep space."
"We're Tirillo!" the troll general couldn't help shouting in correction.
He insisted that his people, the Tirillo, were a respectable spacefaring warrior race, civilized through and through,