Khar Men drove along the eastern coast,  never pausing to rest until he reached his intended destination. Mikhail Johnson followed his progress on a large screen in his office at Reagan Base. Eventually, the terrorist pulled into a quaint fishing village called Kerfa-ember, nestled at the base of the towering, white chalk cliffs of the Tober Coast.

He was not just tracked via the highway grid; as soon as he veered off the main road, orbital surveillance continued to monitor him. Four hundred kilometers above the ground, a Sunguard cruiser hovered in a pseudogeostationary orbit. Unlike a true geostationary orbit - 50,000 kilometers out in space - the pseudogeostationary orbit was maintained by the cruiser’s field generator, which modified the local gravity field around the spaceship. From a true geostationary orbit, no telescopic lens, no matter how sophisticated, would have been able to detect Khar Men. Yet, from 400 kilometers away, the computers onboard the Sunguard cruiser could read the headlines of his newspaper. But when you look at a piece of paper, you lose track of the rest of the world. Orbital surveillance was only practical when you knew where to look. And now they did. 

As soon as Johnson was certain that this was indeed Khar Men’s final destination, rather than just another stop on the way, he swiftly assembled his team and boarded a waiting Sunguard shuttle. The vessel was roughly cylindrical, with harsh, boxy protrusions extending from its sides. It lifted off in complete silence, elevated by the invisible forces of the inverted gravity field its own field generator created. Once it reached an altitude high enough for air drag to become negligible, it proceeded at high speed to a designated landing area just outside Kerfa-ember.  It descended abruptly into a vast field, where tall strands of yellow kaftor-mat grass swayed and billowed in the wind.

The Sunguard squad fanned out in silence, creeping along leafy hedges toward the small house where Kham Men had holed up. The cottage, a red wooden structure with white corners, stood perched on a slight rise overlooking the harbor, no more than fifty meters from the shoreline. On the side facing the sea, there was a large, weather-beaten patio with a wooden table, a couple of chairs, a rusted grill, and a faded, yellow parasol that leaned on the railing. Khar Men sat at the table, fiddling with something hidden inside a silvery case in front of him - the same case he had gotten from the Kelar in the alley. What was in it, Johnson didn’t know. The angle wasn’t quite right for the orbital surveillance to see its contents.

Johnson would never know what tipped the terrorist off to the Sunguard’s presence. Perhaps it was the faint crack of a twig snapping underfoot as the soldiers crept toward the cottage. Maybe it was the subtle scent of Terran sweat carried on the breeze, or a sudden glint of sunlight reflecting off the optics of a sniper’s gaser rifle. The Jerrassians had senses that far surpassed those of a Terran, and unless the Sunguard found a way to augment their agents, Johnson thought, they would always be at a disadvantage.

Whatever the reason, Kham Men abruptly looked up, then swiftly grabbed something from inside the case and bolted over the railing. With the lid no longer obstructing the view, Special Agent Johnson could finally see what the Jerrassian had retrieved from the Kelar in the alley.

A bomb. Just like the one used in the café. So Larb-eff-tour-mat, the Kelar, had escalated from firearms possession to arms dealing.

No matter - the Kelar was dead now. What mattered was the crowd into which Kham Men had fled: fishermen preparing their nets for the day, a few Jerrassian families who looked very much like tourists, and the harbormaster standing near his shed, casting a watchful eye on the pier. Kham Men had slipped into the crowd, bomb in hand, ready to use them as human shields.

Knowing he had already been spotted, Johnson threw caution to the wind and sprinted after the terrorist, his hand gaser raised, tracking the figure of Kham Men as he weaved through the unsuspecting crowd. But with people milling about in all directions, he never had a clear shot.

“Kham Men! Stop where you are! Now!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, trying to sound as intimidating as possible.

The Jerrassian turned around to face him.

“Stay where you are, Sunguard!” Kham snapped, his deep voice resonating. He held up the small, yellow bomb, making it clear what would happen if the Sunguard Special Agent dared to move any closer.

Johnson’s team was scattered out there, likely setting up sniper positions to take down the Jerrassian on his command. But at the moment they weren’t ready - they hadn’t radioed in yet - and in this tense standoff, things could spiral out of control in a heartbeat. There was no time to wait for the snipers.

From where he stood, Johnson now had a direct line of sight to the terrorist. He could make the shot. But the risks were too high. The slightest mistake, and an innocent bystander could get hurt. As a Special Agent, Johnson was a highly skilled marksman, but he just didn’t possess the reflexes needed to guarantee, beyond any doubt, that he could take out Kham Men without someone else getting hurt.

At that moment, a huge, dark shadow erupted from behind the harbormaster’s shed. With an ear-piercing roar, one of the Jerrassian soldiers from Johnson’s squad launched himself at the terrorist.

“Luss-ker take you, cub killer!” he hissed between hard lips, his voice dripping with disgust. The soldier's powerful body slammed into Kham Men with full force. The two Jerrassians tumbled to the ground in a chaotic tangle of arms and legs. As they crashed down, the bomb slipped from Kham Men’s grasp. Johnson lunged forward, fear in his heart, and snatched it before the terrorist had a chance to take it back - should the soldier fail to subdue him.

But while Kham Men was a fighter in mind, he was not a fighter in body. Within a few seconds, it was all over. The soldier had him in an iron grip, his forearm pressed against the other man’s neck, threatening to break it if he resisted further.

“Kham Men, this is a Sunguard arrest!” Johnson declared loudly.

“You are found guilty of six counts of murder, domestic terrorism, possession of explosive materials, endangering the public, and treason against the Terran Federation. By the authority vested in me as a Sunguard Special Agent, I hereby sentence you to five years of hard labor, followed by a lifetime of monitoring.”

Johnson knew the first part of the sentence would not faze the Jerrassian. But the second part… for a freedom fighter to have to live the rest of his days under constant Sunguard surveillance, watched day and night as the weeks blurred into months and years, would be a punishment worse than death.

Mikhail Johnson did not look away.