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prisoner outprocessing center, a bleak room filled with a large contingent of grim-faced fleet police in Fed shipsuits. One of them stepped forward, a dour-looking woman sporting a warrant officer’s badges.
    “I’m Warrant Officer Yamazaki, Federated Worlds Space Fleet. I have orders to return you to Terranova planet, Lieutenant.”
    “Show me,” Michael demanded.
    Yamazaki held out a single sheet of paper. Michael took it and read through the dense legalese. He wasn’t left much the wiser. He had no idea whether what he was looking at was valid, but he was determined not to give the Feds any more slack than he had to.
    “Looks okay,” he conceded, handing the orders back to Yamazaki.
    “It is. Now, your hands, sir.”
    “Is that necessary? There are hundreds of you bastards, you’re all bigger than me, and we’re inside a planetary defense base. How far do you think I’d get?”
    “Just do it, sir,” the woman said, her voice flat and cold.
    “Why are you such an officious asshole, Warrant Officer Yamazaki?” Michael snapped.
    “Now!”
    With reluctance, Michael held out his hands. He was cuffed by the largest spacer in the escort. The man ran a thin plasfiber cord from the cuffs to a band on his own wrist. “Oh, come on!” Michael protested. “That’s not necessary either.”
    “Not your call, sir. Let’s go.”
    “No kidding,” Michael muttered as he was led out of the cell, with the rest of Yamazaki’s team of fleet police falling in around him.
    Flanked by his escort, Michael stepped out into a hot Jamuda morning. The sun hammered down. It turned the ceramcrete apron into a blazing sea of heat and light that brought Michael to an abrupt halt, his eyes flooded with sudden tears. “Shit,” he hissed, wiping his eyes with the back of a plasticuffed hand.
    “Come on, sir,” Yamazaki said. “Keep moving.”
    The warrant officer looked anxious.
As well you should
, Michael thought. The Hammers might deny any responsibility for the abortive attempt to kidnap him, but that had not stopped them from jacking up the rhetoric, with their embassy demanding that he be extradited back to Commitment to face Hammer justice. And Yamazaki would have known every bit as well as Michael did that the Hammers would stop at nothing to get their hands on him.
    “Okay, okay,” Michael said as they set off again. They had gone a few meters when Michael stopped again. His mouth dropped open. In front of him was the Federated Worlds Space Fleet assault lander waiting to take him back to Terranova.
    His heart sank. He was about to come face to face with the very people whom he had betrayed, whose code of honor he had despoiled, whose reputation his actions had so traduced.
    • • •
    The cell door opened to admit a young spacer carrying a tray. “Lunch,” the man said.
    “Thanks,” Michael said, getting to his feet.
    The spacer leaned forward. With great care he spit into the food. “Enjoy,” he whispered, holding the tray out.
    In an instant, rage consumed every part of Michael’s being, and he erupted into violence. He smashed the tray aside. His hands lunged for the spacer’s throat. He rammed the man back against the bulkhead with a sickening thud that drove the air from his lungs in an explosive
woof
. Michael spun the man around and pulled him back and down to the deck, one fist clubbing his tormentor’s face in a brutal, frenzied attack that gave the spacer no chance to protect himself.
    Within seconds the cell filled with bodies, and Michael was dragged off. His chest heaved, and his heart pounded. He was still consumed by anger, and his arms and fists lashed out until sheer weight of numbers pinned him down. A soft
pffftt
and stinging pain from a gas gun ended his fight. “Tell that little fuck I’ll kill him next time I see him,” Michael screamed as blackness closed in. “You tell that … little …”
    The marine corporal sitting on Michael’s unconscious body eased himself off. He stood