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the gangs so normal people could live in peace were
beyond counting but he had to pick his war carefully.
    There were Order and
Regent Galactic forces slowly edging towards Rega Gain, testing their
perimeter, and finding that they could come a little closer to the
solar system each day. The Triton was ready, and in one week three
mid-sized ships would be ready to accompany the carrier when Oz
guided it towards Regent Galactic territory with the purpose of
pushing back. That was the war he chose, and everyone in the Rega
Gain solar system – gangster and citizen alike – would benefit if
they managed to hold.
    He was a military man,
trained to be a problem solver, and he still enjoyed that kind of
problem. The kind of problem where there were only one or two enemy
flags to watch for, and the objective was to force the people
carrying them to retreat or surrender. That was the kind of problem
he enjoyed, not the kind of complicated situation that awaited him in
the Triton’s Medical Centre under heavy guard.
    ‘ They
are deeply traumatized, I’m helping to keep them calm,” remarked
the Triton’s overseer, a being created in the Sol System to serve
as the ship’s heart and advisor. Oz had come to depend on the
telepathic link they shared. Thank
you, Geist, I’m going to have to take it from here. I want to hear
the interview in their words before you play back any of their
memories for me. Oz thought in response.
    ‘ You
don’t want these mental images, I do not want to do that to you,’ Geist replied.
    The guards standing in
front of the male victim’s room parted and Oz stepped inside. He
was thankful that the man was covered by the medical support bed,
because the chart behind him marked that half of one arm, the better
part of a leg, and his entire other arm had been removed. Oz assumed
that they had frozen unevenly while he was stuck in the storage
compartment aboard the spaceliner. The fellow was awake though, and
noticed Oz right away.
    “You look important,”
he said. “I’m Dom, short for Dominick.”
    Oz pulled a rolling
stool to the man’s bedside and smiled. “Hello, Dom, short for
Dominick. I’m Admiral Terry Ozark McPatrick, you can call me Oz.
How are you doing here? They treating you well?”
    “Well, just got a new
nose, they fixed my chin and cheeks, and I barely felt a thing.
Things are good. Well, except for a few other missing parts, but they
tell me they’re growing those for me, and I’ll be getting them
for free?” His question revealed uncertainty and doubt.
    “You are, but if it
makes you feel better, you do have something you can trade for our
services. I need you to tell me what happened to you and your
partner.”
    “The woman that
Wheeler person put me with?” Dom asked. “I only know her name,
Antonia Chandler. We never met before he put us together. Is she
going to be all right? No one will tell me.”
    “She’s going to be
fine, but she got the worst of the injuries, even though, from the
looks of how you were found, it seems like you were trying to keep
her warm.”
    “When we woke up in
that closet, she said that Wheeler cut off her legs so we would both
fit in that emergency bag together. I still don’t get that though,
that closet had dozens of bags and suits for decompression. The seats
even had decompression safety features built in.”
    “Okay, can you start
at the beginning? From when the trouble started to happen.” Oz
would never forget the name, Wheeler. It belonged to a man who did
not care who he betrayed, as long as he did what he wanted and got
what he wanted.
    “Okay, I was having a
great flight to the Rega Gain system. I wanted to apply to join
whatever fleet was forming behind the Warlord. I’m a structural
engineer, but I thought I could make my experience work for them, and
the British Alliance wouldn’t have me because I got caught stealing
a shuttle when I was fifteen. I didn’t think the Warlord staff
would care. The guy sitting beside