Pluck finished welding the door shut, satisfied it would at least slow down a determined effort to break in. It wasn't powerful enough to completely seal the door, but Pluck did as much as he could to carry out his captain's orders. The blowtorch retracted itself into the armor on his right forearm.

Pluck winced and covered the hole in his leg with his hand as he glided away from the shelter's entrance. He wasn't putting any weight on it, but he'd run out of painkillers already and could feel the air passing through, a biting cold against his burned flesh. The laser bored a one-inch hole straight through the meat of his thigh but missed his vital bits. Pluck lived on a few ounces lighter.

Gruce had already checked the immediate area inside the door, but Pluck gave it another sweep. Empty except for several tables and chairs thrown haphazardly together in a corner, the room couldn't hide much. Pluck twisted his helmet off, eager to see things with his own eyes instead of through the visor. He trusted his own senses better than the suit's and he knew Lee preferred the same. Better to see as Jensen saw.

Pluck inspected the room with keen eyes that scoured every detail. He quickly turned his attention to the group of tables and chairs, the only anomaly in the entryway. He lowered himself to the ground with his boots, taking care to land tenderly, and started separating everything. He turned tables over, checked them for drawers, but found nothing.

As he stepped away from the tables he kicked something on the ground and heard the chime of metal against metal as it bounced across the floor. A blur was all he saw—when it stopped moving he lost it. Pluck dropped to his knees, forgetting his injury, and let out a strangled wail as the force sent shocks of agony into his leg.

After several moments of frenzied groping he felt it underneath his fingers. Carefully, Pluck picked it up. A ring? He couldn't see it but as he turned it in his palm he noticed a shimmering in the air, a subtle bend in the light. Cloaking. Giddiness overtook Pluck as he realized what it was and opened the comms channel to Gruce.

"I've found it, dearest. Come back and see."

"Found what?" Gruce asked.

Pluck bared his teeth in a victorious smile. "One of Jensen's rings."

Gruce, ecstatic at Pluck's fortune, pumped a fist in the air and roared with laughter. "I knew it! Jensen always left himself a back door!"

Two-Gut Gruce returned to his teammate, zooming through the shelter's corridors. This was exactly the kind of out he'd been looking for. With Jensen's rings they could escape the shelter—that must have been his backup plan. If Starhawk's extraction failed Jensen would have to get out of the city somehow, and what better way than by making the enemy think he was still inside the shelter? Misdirect, evade, escape. Too bad he got stupid—things would have gone a lot smoother with Lee still alive.

#

Clean and refreshed after a long shower, Hargrove dressed himself once more in the white Volunteer Core Militia jumpsuit. When he returned to the bedroom he found Robert626 sitting in front of the hotel room's only screen.

"Tower sent us down the video records they've got of Buttercup on the orbital station," said Robert626 without turning. "I watched everything already."

"Show me."

Hargrove leaned over Robert626's shoulder to see the screen. The camera angles changed as Buttercup progressed, hopping from shot to shot as she followed signs to the docking bays. It brought Hargrove great relief to see her alive even if it wasn't in person.

"She got up there just before we all realized what was happening with Orpheus. A few minutes later and they would have turned her away on Surface."

"Do you know anything else about Slack Dog?" Hargrove asked. "Buttercup told me he used to be a privateer captain."

"A fabrication," said Robert626. "He was neither a privateer nor a captain. His arrival at your hotel was his first time on a Core planet, in fact. Slack Dog was released from the L5 Atla Prison Cube two months ago."

Onscreen Buttercup approached an airlock in docking bay B. It opened for her after a few seconds and she spoke to someone inside.

"Who's she talking to?"

"Records show the shuttle docked at airlock B46 at that time belonged to the privateer frigate Wanderlust. A very reputable craft."

"What do you mean?"

"Wanderlust is captained by Victor Anson."

"Who's that?"

Robert626 turned to stare at Hargrove. "You run a hotel in the middle of Capitol City. How is it you don't know the name of the man who brought in Dreadstar?"

Hargrove ignored the recruiter's remark, continuing to watch the screen. "I don't care about any of that propagandized barbarism."

"Barbarism? The Record is quite clear on the whole debacle."

"Believe what you want," Hargrove said with a wave of his hand. "I'll trust my own memories, not some whitewashed collection of handpicked material. What about everything that didn't make it on the Record?"

"I'd like to know which events you take issue with. The Record is an archive of verifiable data, not a comprehensive history. It's only meant to give an overview."

Two figures appeared at the airlock Buttercup had just entered.

"Who are they?" Hargrove asked.

"Unknown," said Robert626. He tapped the screen to pause it and pointed to their faces, which upon closer inspection Hargrove saw were blurred beyond recognition. "Tower censored them before he sent it down to us. Privacy protection. Since you're Buttercup's legal guardian we can see her, but everyone else is kept anonymous."

"What if we need to know who they are? What are they doing?"

"Just watch."

Robert626 resumed the video and the two newcomers entered the ship. Hargrove's heartbeat picked up. What was Buttercup doing? Based on the amount she'd been paid his mind jumped to conclusions he refused to entertain. The video jumped forward, she came back out into the hallway, and relief once again surged through him.

Buttercup tucked something into her waistline and covered it with her shirt. She walked back the way she came and was followed before long by a large man with a red bandanna on his head. His face was similarly blurred and as he stalked toward Buttercup Hargrove had to restrain himself from crying out in warning. He gasped when the man reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder.

"He's hurting her!"

They shouted back and forth as the man searched her pack. Finding nothing, he shoved her into a corner. Hargrove bristled. She reached into her pack, rummaged around, and flinched when the lights started going crazy.

"This is when Orpheus changed trajectory," Robert626 explained. "Everyone had to evacuate the station, get back down to Surface."

"Then why isn't she here?" demanded Hargrove.

More shouting with the attacker. He advanced on her—and she slashed with a knife she produced from her pack. Hargrove stiffened, alarmed, but as if fed up with her the man abruptly threw his arms up in the air and left. Hargrove beamed with pride at her for defending herself, but Buttercup immediately took off after him.

"What's she doing?" he asked.

"She's leaving with them," Robert626 said.

"What!" he cried.

Hargrove watched in disbelief as she followed the man onto the shuttle.

"Wanderlust is well on its way to Optima now. No one was sure if the comet would come near the station or not, so I think she made the right choice going with them."

"I have to get there," Hargrove said.

"Nonsense," said Robert626. "More than likely they're dropping her off on Optima and sending her straight back here."

"Why hasn't she contacted me?"

"Maybe she's tried. The network's been all over the place with most of our satellites out of commission. I can try to send something to her now if you'd like, but mostly everything in orbit has already been retasked for military use."

"Yes, of course. Just tell her—"

"No, I meant you can make a recording and send it. I'll give you some privacy," Robert626 said as he rose and left Hargrove alone in the room.

#

Gruce took the ring from Pluck and held it up against the light, turning it back and forth. Barely even a shimmer. He could hear the pounding on the shelter's door as Capitol City police officers announced their presence.

"How did you find it?" Gruce asked.

Pluck winked. "Got good eyes, dearest."

"Let's open it."

"Careful, careful. The other end could be anyplace."

"No time to waste on caution. Luck's our only way out of this."

Pluck took the ring back from Gruce and pulled on both ends with his fingers, lengthening it until it was a few feet across. As it widened the ring's band thinned and before long Pluck held a flat ring big enough for a man to fit through. He set it on the ground.

"They never found this one, so it's pretty likely the other one's gone unnoticed too," said Gruce. "With any luck Jensen put it somewhere close to the edge of the city. If that's the case maybe we'll actually get out of this alive. These bumpkins will think we're still in here."

"Time to find out," Pluck said as he accessed his hardlight screen.

After he pecked in several commands the area inside the ring instantly changed from smooth metal plating to a view from the floor up of a darkened room. Light from the shelter's entrance spilled through the hole, revealing it as a vacant hotel room. Pluck crouched and peered inside.

"Empty."

"Let's go," said Gruce. "Fast, fast. Silence once we're through."

Pluck pulled himself through the hole and emerged in the hotel room. Gruce followed and Pluck terminated the link after he was through. The longer it was active the easier it was to notice. Both of their suits were low on juice so they ran dark, using minimal power—as close to cloaked as they could get. No filters, no HUD, limited computer assistance.

Captain Gruce took the lead, shouldering his laser rifle as they approached the room's door. Pluck drifted behind, still avoiding putting any pressure on his wounded leg, taking the same stance with his own weapon to cover his superior. The door slid aside and Gruce peeked into the hallway. Clear. He stepped out.

Room number 133. First floor, thank the stars. Time to find an exit. Just a little more luck and they'd be out of the city. Maybe one of Starhawk's birds could drop in for extraction. Gruce advanced down the hallway, ready to put a beam inside anyone who got in his way. At the end of the hall an exit sign hung from the ceiling.

They were almost to the corner when a white-armored Volunteer Core Militia trooper came around it. He froze for a heartbeat and Gruce dropped to one knee, firing for the head. A white-hot beam of light lanced forward and melted the trooper's helmet like plastic, burning through and leaving a streak of fire on the wall behind him. He crumpled and fell forward, twitching.

Gruce wasted no time, launching forward and careening off the wall in his haste to get to the exit. As he rounded the corner another VCM trooper came crashing out of a room with his rifle up, already priming with deadly power. The trooper's beam went high and Gruce ducked to avoid it, firing from the hip in response. He scored a graze on the trooper's shoulder and Pluck finished him off with a few short bursts to the chest.

The exit to the city streets was just down the hall. They were so close. So, so close. But these casualties would not go unnoticed. More would come, and this time they had no back door to slip out of. Gruce had almost resigned himself to death when another figure in white blundered out into the hall. He brought up his rifle to fire—

At the last second Gruce changed his aim and fired a shot at the man's legs. No armor, no weapon. Another VCM judging by the clothing, but not a soldier—an unarmed civilian would make a good hostage. Gruce approached his quarry and did a double take when he saw the man's face.

"It's you," Gruce said, incredulous. "You bagged Jensen Lee!"

#

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