I blinked. “A golf ball? Forget bombs. If the Marauders could mass-produce a power core in that size, they’d be able to power their automechs from now until forever. With that kind of power…they could depopulate the entire world.”

“Well, it’s a boring world anyway,” Jiana said.

I mentally rewound the conversation a couple of minutes. “Speaking of which, what the hell was a Marauder delegation doing on your ship? And for that matter, who are you people?”

Jiana shrugged. “They were the first ones to make contact with us. They claimed to represent earth’s ruling power, and by the time we learned they were lying, they’d made off with our primary power core. We need it back or we can’t leave this podunk mudhole system. Our stardrive won’t work. And worse, we’ll have to land here before our life-support gives out, won’t that be fun.”

I shuddered, envisioning the media circus that would spring up. It could blow the whole secret war wide open. “We have to get that core back.”

She snorted. “Ya think?”