He hesitated briefly, feeling his body tighten. Then, gritting his teeth, he pinched the fuze between his thumb and forefinger and gave it a hard pull.

A moment later he took a deep breath, and then another, thanking God that the bomb hadn't gone off in his hands, that he and everyone around him were still there, still there and not blown to bits.

Which did not yet mean they were in the clear, he quickly reminded himself.

"This one's out of commission, we better get on to the others!" he shouted. "Let's hurry!"

Back in the driver's seat of his chase car, Carlysle looked out his windshield at the fleeing group of invaders and swore aloud. Less than a minute ago, their jeep had sped through the gap in the perimeter fence and he had followed on their tail.

The problem was that he wasn't at all certain he ought to be doing that.

He tried to think it through even while gunning his engine, pushing to close the distance between them.

Having sent Newell for medical treatment and dispatched their prisoners to a holding area with one of the other units, his squad had been returning to their car when they saw the invaders hasten back into their own vehicle, pull it around in a screeching circle, and whip toward the fence. As the men who by chance were closest to them, Carlysle's team had launched off in pursuit... but the jeep had been passing through the fence before Carlysle even got behind the wheel, giving it a good head start.

What troubled him was a simple question of authority. UpLink's host government had sanctioned the emplacement of an independent security force on the ISS compound, period. It was not prepared to have that force move about at will, engaging in what amounted to a small war. Carlysle was sensitive to that, and because he was a disciplined professional, could not close his eyes to the boundaries of his license to operate. If there had been no prisoners taken on the compound to hopefully yield information about the motives and objectives behind their raid, he might have been inclined to push those bounds and carry on the pursuit, calling in the Skyhawks for aerial support. But there were, and it was hard to justify going forward knowing the repercussions that might be expected as a consequence.

He gripped the wheel, his eyes on the taillights ahead of him. Stop or go, what was it going to be? With Thibodeau not answering his radio, the decision was his to make.

Producing another string of curses, he shifted his foot to his brake pedal and eased it down. The chase car lurched to a halt over the bumpy road.

"Never mind that bunch, we're going back," he said to the man beside him. "There's a whole lot of pieces that need picking up at the facility, and nobody but us to do it."

Its engine throbbing, Kuhl's jeep shot through the gap in the fence at full horsepower, reversing the path it had taken into the compound.