As they left the second site they had investigated, Lieutenant Johnson had almost given up hope that they would ever find the bomb. Once again, the sensors had detected radiation, but this time, the readings had led them to a dumpster in a back alley behind the Physics Department of the University of Kerrma-non, where someone had carelessly thrown out a bottle of radium. Once again, they had lost hours chasing a lead that didn’t exist.

However, as they traveled aboard one of the Wałęsa’s shuttles toward the third site, they had a lucky break. Orbital surveillance had been monitoring the area for the past hour, and now they had footage of Namir All entering the building. It was indisputable evidence that the Jerrassian Liberation Front had a presence there. Still, it might just be the site where the terrorists had prepared their weapon, contaminating the building in the process. But it was the best lead they had had all day, and Johnson began to feel hope again.

The building was an old apartment complex, abandoned before it had even been finished. In front of the team, its skeleton of steel and concrete rose like a titanic scarecrow against the backdrop of the city. As they looked, a flock of birds—or something very similar to birds, at least—shrieked as they took to the air from the roof of the building.

There were no guards outside, no one to stop them from entering. But Special Agent Oliveira and Lieutenant Johnson didn’t dare take anything for granted. Chances were, there were JLF members watching the neighborhood from the windows on the upper floors.

“Random, give me a rendering of the view frustums from the windows facing the yard, and where they intersect the ground,” Oliveira asked the intelligent computer running support for the operation from the Wałęsa.

It took less than a second for the computer to respond. The graphics were transferred to their headsets, which in turn used a neural writer to overlay them wirelessly onto the Sunguard soldiers' vision, by inducing well-regulated currents in their optical nerves. Wherever they now looked, their reality was augmented with the information the intelligent computer provided—in this case, the locations on the ground where they would be spotted if they walked.

“Captain Montval,” Special Agent Oliveira said, addressing the CJS liaison officer. “Take your men and form a rear guard for us. Stay twelve tom-bar behind us, and most importantly, make sure your men only walk in our footsteps.”

“Yes, sir,” the Jerrassian replied, then walked over to his men to relay the order.

Together, Oliveira and Lieutenant Johnson scurried across the open yard, careful to follow the directions Random provided them. The ground had once been covered with asphalt; now, grass was growing from the cracks in the pavement. When they finally entered the building, Johnson allowed himself to breathe again. They weren’t exactly safe, but the part of the breach he had felt most nervous about was now done. From here on out, they’d be able to spot the terrorists instead of having to avoid an unseen enemy.

He brought up the wall-penetrating radar he was carrying, pointing it in different directions to map the floor they were standing on. At the opposite end of the room, two radar echoes indicated the presence of terrorists. But the JLF wouldn’t guard the bomb with just two men. It was far more likely that these two were just on patrol. The bomb—and its army of defenders—would probably be found on one of the upper floors. Ignoring the guards meant risking that they’d come running when the firefight started, but that would be a problem for later. Apprehending them now would most likely alert the terrorists guarding the bomb.

Silently, the team ascended the stairs. When they reached the top, the second floor turned out to be empty. Johnson pointed the radar upward, trying to see through the ceiling into the third floor, but he found it difficult to make sense of the image.

“Random,” he whispered, “do you have building plans for the apartment complex?”

“Yes, sir,” the intelligent computer answered. “The Committee for Jerrassian Security just provided us with a set of drawings for the building. I have scanned them and mapped them in three dimensions.”

As it told him about the map, it added a wireframe view of it to his vision while simultaneously explaining what he now saw.

“The entrance from the stairway into the third floor opens into a large room, with windows facing the outside on the opposite side of the building. To the sides, left and right, are several smaller rooms. This is the only entrance,” it explained.

“Thank you,” Lieutenant Johnson replied. With the wireframe now overlaid on his vision, it was much easier to make sense of the radar images. Except for one of the rooms to the side, all of the small rooms were empty of guards. The remaining terrorists, eight of them, were all gathered in the main hall. Although he couldn’t prove it, it seemed a reasonable assumption to make that this was where the bomb was.

They walked up the second set of stairs, careful not to make any sounds, with the two Sunguard men in front and the CJS agents behind. Outside the large double doors to what was likely the bomb room, the team stopped. Special Agent Oliveira brought up his high-powered gaser rifle, adjusted the wall-penetrating radar strapped to it, and swept it across the wall. Up here, the images were much clearer. He counted his targets, memorized their positions, and opened fire. One, two, three shots echoed through the room as the coherent beam of gamma radiation pierced through first the wall, and then the flesh of the terrorists inside the room.

The second the final shot had been fired, both soldiers flung themselves through the doors and into the room. They landed on the dusty concrete floor and immediately rolled to the side, trying to find cover. Special Agent Oliveira ended up next to a large wooden table, which he quickly knocked over and then proceeded to hide behind.

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Lieutenant Johnson found himself in a more precarious situation. On his side of the door, there was no furniture nearby. He quickly scurried back toward the wall, then followed it to the right, further into the room, where a large green sofa was sitting, its dirty cover ripped open by time and neglect. He jumped over it to hide behind its large frame.

Once the two Sunguard men had breached the room, the CJS agents behind them took up positions on the sides of the doorway, firing into the room. The ensuing firefight lasted only seconds, but to Johnson, it felt like an eternity. He was an expert marksman, and although he missed his first shot, the second hit its target. One more Jerrassian terrorist went down, screaming in agony. Hopefully, he wouldn’t die from the wound—any prisoners they could take would make it easier for the Committee for Jerrassian Security to dismantle the terror organization in the future.

At that moment, a burning pain spread through his left shoulder. He looked down to see blood starting to seep through his uniform. But the shot had not come from the terrorists in front of him—it had come from the side. With fear stemming from the realization that Oliveira had been right all along not to trust the CJS agents, he turned toward the door, only to see Captain Montval point his weapon at one of his fellow agents and then proceed to shoot him.

In the pandemonium of the firefight, it took Lieutenant Johnson several seconds to realize what had happened. When he did, he gave Captain Montval a curt nod of thanks and turned back toward the remaining terrorists—two of them, now. Despite the chaos of the situation, Special Agent Oliveira had managed to take down one more, and the team of CJS agents had done the same.

The pain in his shoulder was agonizing, and he had to bite his lip to push through it. He would need treatment as soon as he got back to the Wałęsa. But he was right-handed, and for a few more minutes, he should have the strength to continue the fight.

As he tried to pierce through the smoke and dust, Lieutenant Johnson saw the remaining CJS agents enter the room, shouting orders. There was a flurry of activity, and one more shot rang out. Then, only the whimpering of wounded men could be heard over the silence that had finally entered the room. The last terrorist knelt, his hands crossed behind his neck, as Captain Montval apprehended him.

That left only the large bomb, sitting in the middle of the room, to be dealt with.

A movement at the edge of his vision made Lieutenant Johnson turn his head. Too late, he realized what he should have remembered all along. There had been eight terrorists in the bomb room.

But there had also been one in the side room.

Namir All stepped out of the shadows, holding the remote detonator for the dirty bomb in his right hand, outstretched above his head.

Lieutenant Johnson caught his breath. “Random…,” he whispered, fearful he’d alert the terrorist to the tactical advantage the computer aboard the Wałęsa provided.

“I hear you, sir,” the intelligent computer responded in a low voice, understanding what the Sunguard soldier was about to ask. “I’m looking at it now. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think it has a dead man’s switch.”

The final decision was his, and his alone. If he waited too long, Namir would have time to press the button, and it would all be over. If he destroyed the detonator and Random was wrong, the bomb would explode, too.

That left him with no choice. He positioned his hand gaser so it pointed at the detonator. With a press of a finger on the grip of the gun, he turned on the built-in laser sight, which painted a small red dot on the target, making sure he wouldn’t miss. Then, he pressed the trigger and hoped for the best.

Random had been right. The detonator exploded in a shower of metal and plastic, filling the air with the stench of burnt electronics, but the bomb stayed intact. Namir shouted in surprise and stared at his wounded hand. As he did, a second shot rang out, this time from Captain Montval. It hit the terrorist leader in his left leg, causing him to topple over and fall to the ground.

Now began the process of sorting the wounded from the dead. The Sunguard team went from body to body, turning them over to check for signs of life, and giving first aid to those who had survived the assault. Meanwhile, the CJS agents were downstairs, engaged in a fight with the terrorists they had passed on the first floor while on their way to locate the bomb, having intercepted them as they rushed to help their comrades at the first sound of gunfire. Luckily, they had not reached the bomb room before the fight was already over.

But when Lieutenant Johnson came to check on Namir All’s body, he was gone.

Johnson stood up and looked around. At first, he couldn’t see anything in the chaos of the room. There were broken pieces of wood everywhere and blood on the floor. The air was thick with dust, swirling like a fog, making it difficult to see clearly. His ears were still ringing from the shots fired.

And in the middle of the room, there was Namir All’s broken and bleeding body, crawling on the floor toward the dirty bomb like a caterpillar from hell—toward the second detonator, built directly into the bomb.

With Namir’s hand raised, ready to strike the detonator button, Lieutenant Johnson screamed into his microphone, “Now, Wałęsa!”

In less than a moment, the bomb suddenly disappeared. There was a loud boom, as the air in the room rushed in to fill the vacuum that had replaced it. Namir All stared in dumbfounded silence at the empty space in front of him, realizing it was all over.

As soon as the Sunguard agents had spotted the bomb when first entering the room, the coordinates for it had been sent to the Wałęsa. The hyperspace navigator onboard the Sunguard Command Ship had programmed their field generator to make a jump. But not a jump volume encompassing the ship, as they usually did, but rather one enclosing the bomb. At that moment, a spherical volume around the bomb had been exchanged with one identical volume in space outside the atmosphere of Jerr. They had been lucky. Although the volume to be shifted had been small, and thus its coordinates had taken very little time to upload to the spacetime bus, had it not been ready in time, things could have gone very differently. With both luck and skill on their side, the threat had finally been neutralized.

But Namir All, who had only a week ago admired and welcomed the aliens, had now found a new target for his hatred: the Terran Federation—and the Sunguard—which had foiled his plot. For the duration of his life, he would not forget.