Prisoner of War

Marten is the first human ever taken alive by the Flesso. With Earth locked in a desperate war against these aliens, his capture should be a disaster. Instead, it becomes an opportunity. Stranded in the heart of enemy territory with nothing but his wits and stubborn refusal to break, Marten must do what no human has done before: survive captivity among an alien species that has never encountered a prisoner like him. The Flesso expect a broken captive. They expect information. What they get is a man who studies them as intently as they study him, looking for any advantage, any weakness, any chance to turn his imprisonment into something far more dangerous for his captors. This is a cold war thriller wrapped in speculative fiction, where the deadliest battles are fought in conversations and the sharpest weapon is a mind that refuses to surrender. Randall Garrett writes with the taut precision of a writer who understands that the most compelling science fiction has always been about human ingenuity under impossible pressure.