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air-van back into place, he would be on equal footing with these two.
    Neither of the m shouted his name or took a shot. Likely, they scanned with their helmet HUDs in the darkness.
    Maddox glided through the hall. His normal coolness evaporated. The senior Nerva had acted with speed, sending hunters after him. Did that mean the tycoon had already struck at Sergeant Riker?
    New Men, Methuselah People—how much corruption could a planet take? With all these bribes changing hands, everyone should be rich.
    P anic thrummed in Maddox’s brain. He wasn’t sure who he was anymore. Did he belong in Star Watch Intelligence or not? This was like the day his mother had told him they’d adopted him.
    “What? ” he’d asked her. “You mean I’m not your son?”
    “Of course you are, dear. I love you. Your father loves you.”
    His world had turned upside down. “Do you mean my real father?” he’d asked.
    A hurt look had crossed his adopted mother’s face. He remembered that. It had helped him realize she did love him. He also knew that something had departed his heart that day. His famous cool had begun to assert itself from that time forward. Maybe he’d had to operate that way to protect himself.
    Behind him, a rmored footfalls told Maddox the man-hunters knew where he was. A repulse-packed whined. It would push the hunter, giving the man speed. Maddox knew he wasn’t going to reach the heavy rifle in his bedroom in time.
    He darted into the bathroom since he was already at the door. With a lunge, he lifted the porcelain cover off the toilet’s water tank. Whirling, he charged back.
    The first hunter poked in his tangler barrel and helmeted head. Maddox swung. The porcelain cover smashed into pieces against the helmet. The tangler made a popping sound. A golf ball-sized capsule struck the wall, exploding into strands, immediately tightening. If a capsule had hit him, he’d have been tangled in an unbreakable web. At the same time as the shot hit the wall, the hunter catapulted backward, striking his partner with his repulse-pack. The two hit the far hall wall, bouncing off and tumbling forward.
    Like a lynx, Maddox was on the first attacker, his legs straddling the fallen man’s shoulders. The captain clutched the head with one hand under the chin, the other on the back of the helmet. With a savage twist, Maddox snapped the vertebrae, killing the man.
    The other must not have realized what had happened yet. The man shouted, and a knockout mist hissed from a small cylinder on his chest.
    Maddox recognized the danger. They had masks. He didn’t. Holding his breath, he squirmed away, rolled on the tiled floor with his shoulders and slithered around the corner into his bedroom. Another pop sounded. Another capsule splatted against a wall, this time in his bedroom.
    “Claude!” the hunter said.
    Frenchmen or French Canadians , Maddox thought.
    “I kill you,” the hunter shouted.
    Maddox didn’t think so. Reaching into the closet, he pulled down a heavy rifle, a Khislack .370. A flick of a switch turned on the targeting computer. On silent feet, Maddox backed up, climbing over his bed and moving onto the far side. He aimed at the wall. The computer gave him an image of a man in body armor tiptoeing toward the bedroom door, holding a tangler in one hand and a force blade in the other.
    With the barrel aimed at the wall, Maddox fired three times, each shot making the Khislack buck in his hands. The targeting computer told him the story as the heavy bullets blew through the wall. The home invader staggered, made a gurgling sound and slumped onto the tiles. They were both dead now.
    What about the driver in his van?
    Had Octavian Nerva just sent Maddox a message with this attack?
    The panic in Maddox’s brain changed to rage. If he’d been thinking with his normal cool ness, he might have reconsidered his actions. The captain sprinted for the living room. A frozen snarl spoke of his resolve. The Khislack felt good in