"Well, if they're here, so be it," said Armstrong. "You know as well as I do that nobody can attack one of us without taking on the whole company. We're covering you, Harry. Anybody who thinks they can waltz in and take you has another think coming."

"Well, I sure appreciate that, Lieutenant," said Chocolate Harry. "Can't blame a fella for taking a few precautions himself, though, can you? These Renegades are mean mothers."

"Yes, I suppose I can't blame you-you'll have to make it a bit easier for the company to get its supplies, though. I'm sure the captain will help you figure something out. Still, there's one thing I don't understand."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"What in space did you do to the Renegades to make them pursue you halfway across the galaxy, years later, to get their revenge?"

"What did I do? Man, I did the worst thing anybody could have done. There's not a biker alive who wouldn't feel the same way, if you told 'em."

"And what was that?"

"I messed with their bikes," said Chocolate Harry, and his voice was like the sound of doom.

Phule burst into the Command and Communications Center like a man pursued by wolves-which, metaphorically at least, he was. "All right," he said, "I want to find out what's going on. Mother, how's the search for Sushi going?"

"mgdkjgisd," said Rose, mumbling almost inaudibly. Brazen as she was over the comm, she went into shrinking violet mode when faced with the necessity for face-to-face communication. She scrunched down, as if to make herself invisible behind the communications console.

"Oh, sorry, I almost forgot," said Phule, preparing to return to the hallway and resume the conversation via wrist communicator.

"I can answer that, sir," said Beeker, rising from a desk to one side of the room, where he'd been using his Port-a-Brain pocket computer. "I've been monitoring the situation since we learned of it. To put it briefly, security has reason to believe that Sushi and the man he ran off with remained within the hotel-casino complex."

"I heard the recording," said Phule. "It sounds as if the Yakuza have come to settle accounts with him. Somebody must have figured out that those tattoos he got aren't the real thing, and told the Japanese mob he was an impostor."

"Yes, that's the impression I get," said Beeker. "In which case he may be in very bad trouble. Those people take their secret protocols very seriously, and it's no laughing matter for an outsider to impersonate one of them. That makes it even more imperative to find him."

"They've checked Sushi's quarters, I assume? What about the other man's room?"

"Sushi's quarters are empty, sir," said Beeker. "As for the other man, we've tried to match the images of him from the blackjack room surveillance cameras against the registration desk surveillance records-as you know, every guest's face is recorded as they are issued a room key. I fear there were no matches. Either he is a master of disguise-not impossible, if he is a Yakuza-or he is not a hotel guest."

"Was the woman with him carrying any ID?"

"Nothing traceable, sir," said Beeker, with a disappointed expression. "Lieutenant Rembrandt supervised the search, and she says she's never seen anyone so clean. You wouldn't think somebody in this day and age could have bought clothes, jewelry, accessories, and a purse full of odds and ends, without leaving any traces in the vendors' computer systems, or buying anything that would give away her origins. If necessary, security can run a more thorough search, and perhaps we'll find something then."

"It'll be a waste of time," said Phule, shaking his head. "If she's gone to that length to conceal her identity, she's probably got the other bases covered. We'll do what we have to, though."

"I agree, sir," said Beeker. "But we can safely leave those details to the experts. For now, I believe there's at least one piece of good news to report."

"Well, it's about time-I was starting to think the day was going straight downhill," said Phule. "What's the good word?"

"We have identified the unknown intruder, who turns out not to be an intruder at all, but a military observer. You will recall Flight Leftenant Qual, sir?"

Phule's forehead wrinkled for a moment. "Qual, Qual-oh, yes, the Zenobian. General Blitzkrieg said Qual was going to be assigned to us as-say, that's right! You mean he's here? Where?"

"Brandy and one of the Gambolts finally caught him, down by the front desk," said Beeker. "He was observing our readiness by pretending to infiltrate. Some of our people took that amiss-as I think you'll understand, sir. They're saying he's some kind of spy."

"Well, no worry about that," said Phule. "The general sent him, so there's no question at all about his bona fides. Once our people know that, there won't be any problem."

"Yes, sir," said Beeker, but he did not look convinced. "There's one other problem, sir. When Brandy was trying to place the female Gambolt in a private room, there seemed to be a question about your credit."

"That can't be," said Phule. "We own the hotel, you know. They don't tell the owner his credit's no good-especially not when he's covering his account with a Dilithium Express card."

"That's precisely what the difficulty is," said Beeker.

"It looks as if there is a problem with your Dilithium Express card. And unless something very unusual has happened to the financial markets while we weren't looking, that is impossible."

Journal #294

"The very rich, " someone once said, "are not like you and me. " Someone wiser than he knew replied to this, "Yes, they have more money. " My employer was very rich, and in that fact lies much of the secret of his success.

Where other commanding officers might have had many of the ideas that allowed Captain Phule to turn his Legionnaire company into an elite unit-housing them in first-class accommodations, giving them training facilities of the newest and finest quality, serving them meals of which a four-star restaurant would not be ashamed-only a very rich man would have had the ability to put those ideas into action without concerning himself with the military bean counters' objections. A man who can wave a Dilithium Express card and say "Put it on my account" can accomplish many extraordinary things.

So when a junior hotel clerk, making a routine charge against the card, was told that there was a problem with the credit, it threatened to bring down the entire structure my employer had so carefully erected. Worse yet, it suggested that someone very powerful indeed had entered the field against him...

"To sabotage a Dilithium Express account is no small feat," said Nakadate. He and Sushi sat in a vacant cubicle in the Fat Chance Hotel's business annex, an amenity provided by the hotel but rarely used by the vacationing gamblers.

"You've seen merely the tip of the blade," said Sushi. He put down the vidphone set he had used to hack Phule's account. "Freezing the account is only the start. If I want to, I can transfer funds out, then leave the account so nobody can even tell it's been hacked, let alone how or by whom. Is this not a talent our families could make use of?"

"I have seen these things done before, but never so quickly. And never without much more elaborate hardware." The Yakuza man's face bore an expression of grudging respect. The two men spoke in low voices-though it was unlikely that anyone overhearing would understand Japanese.

"The kind of hardware you're talking about is bulky, and it is a red flag if the wrong people know you have it," said Sushi, leaning back in his chair. "Everyone's eyes are on the man with a sword, while the unarmed man draws no notice. The fools forget that bare hands are deadly, too."