Page 138 of Red Scale Daddy
“You speak as if you have leverage,” he says.
“I have value.”
“Explain.”
I shift my stance, allowing a slight imbalance to show, just enough vulnerability to make the calculation believable.
“You disabled my ship with precision,” I say. “Not brute force. Not overwhelming firepower. You targeted structural weaknesses, system dependencies, and control pathways. That requires detailed analysis in real time. That requires engineering sophistication.”
He watches me carefully.
“And?” he prompts.
“And you still required external devices to complete the disablement,” I continue. “Your systems are efficient, but they are not optimized for adaptive integration with foreign architecture. You compensate with force where you could achieve greater efficiency with understanding.”
His eyes sharpen.
“You presume a great deal,” he says.
“I observe a great deal,” I reply.
Silence stretches again, heavier this time.
The Reapers remain still behind me.
Throgg studies my face, searching for hesitation, for weakness, for anything that would indicate bluff or desperation.
I give him neither.
“You are suggesting,” he says slowly, “that you are more useful to me as a technician than as… something else.”
“Yes.”
“And if I disagree?”
“Then you waste a resource you went to considerable effort to capture.”
He takes another step closer.
Close enough now that I can see the fine details of his expression, the controlled tension in his jaw, the way his eyes track micro-movements in my posture.
“You assume I value efficiency above other considerations,” he says.
“I assume you did not build that ship by indulging inefficiency.”
That lands.
I see it in the slight shift of his expression.
Not offense.
Recognition.
“You are bold,” he says.
“I am correct.”
Another pause.
