One of my escorts turned the handle, opened the door, and shoved me inside. I stumbled into a well-appointed room. And standing in the corner was—

“Benny.”

He toyed with the standard hospital-issue hand brace that had replaced his weaponized homemade one, but when he heard my voice he looked up and his lips went thin. Such a look. It stopped me like a brick wall.

There were two other people in the finely-appointed room with us, both strangers to me. The woman sitting backwards on one of the fine leather chairs was wearing the same rough prison clothing as me and Benny. She looked like a dirty knife thrown in with the silver. I liked her immediately. Later, I would learn that her name was Leah.

The other woman was skinny, with a short, fussy haircut. She stood behind a polished wooden desk, beneath blacked-out windows, arms crossed over her narrow chest so that her tailored jacket buckled under the arms. Her name, as I would learn, was Quint.

The three of them had arranged themselves according to the fundamental law of mob bosses meeting for a parlay: each of them with their back to a different wall. Thoughtfully, they’d left the fourth wall—the one with the door— open for me.

There was a chair in front of Quint’s desk, near the dead center of the room. I shuffled over to that chair and sat down on its generous leather cushions.

Quint eyed me down the line of her narrow nose, then said, “The three of you have committed very serious crimes. Murder,” and for a heart-stopping moment I thought that meant the boy had died, but she nodded at Leah when she said it, “or attempted murder of a very important personage,” and this time she glanced at Benny and me.

So I wasn’t a murderer. Not now, not ever. I exhaled relief and glanced at Benny, only to find he wasn’t looking at me.

“We haven’t committed anything.” Leah dug her fingernails into the fine leather back of her chair like she intended to split it. “Haven’t been to trial yet.”

“But you’ll be convicted,” Quint said. “The evidence against all of you is overwhelming. After your convictions, you’ll be given a choice: life in prison, or sentence commutation through voluntary military service.”

So, life in prison or a violent death at the hands of the Ministers on some isolated planetoid. And they said the Republic had eliminated the death penalty. ‘Voluntary.’

There was an antique clock on Quint’s desk, shiny bronze and ticking audibly and altogether better to contemplate than imagining facing down the Ministers again. I picked it up to hide the way my hands shook.

“This isn’t some corrupt Minister court in Maria Nova.” Leah’s voice was clipped. “Talk to our lawyers.”

“Benny and I are stateless citizens. I’m not even sure we get lawyers,” I said, and flipped the clock over to examine the back rather than see the way Benny was looking at me. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him this mad before.