Julian's face was flushed with rage. The lazy, all-seeing indifference in the fat man's eyes was more insulting than any curse.

  "Don't get smart with me," he said coldly. "If you're smart, you walk out of here. If you're not, you crawl. Do you believe me?"

  The old Jack would have caved. But the new Jack, the one who had survived the front lines, was afraid of death, not a spoiled rich kid. He just shook his head, his face a mask of dumb innocence.

  "Nope."

  The commotion had already drawn the attention of the hotel manager. He rushed over, his face pale with anxiety, and immediately took his employer's side.

  "Sir," he said, addressing Jack sternly, "I am the manager of this hotel. I must ask you to leave. Immediately."

  Seeing the manager so blatantly disregard them, Jack's own anger began to rise. He stood up, picked up his dinner fork, and with a sharp, violent motion, stabbed it deep into the expensive mahogany tabletop. The tine struck with such force that the holo-grain shimmered, static rippling across the wood as if it were rejecting the impact.

  "Leave?" he roared. His voice cracked like a weapon discharge. "I'm staying right here. I'm not going anywhere."

  Adrenaline surged. His hands began their familiar, combat-stress tremor—the same tremor that always came just before the battlefield went red. His HUD lens flickered for a heartbeat, trying to read the room, tagging vague outlines in his vision with pale threat markers before fading.

  Julian saw him shaking and mistook it for fear. He laughed out loud.

  "Don't be scared now, after talking so tough. Look at you, you're shaking like a leaf." He turned to the manager. "Get security! Throw these two pieces of trash out!"

  A dozen large, well-built security guards swarmed forward. The hotel's biometric lockbars hissed as their stun-batons armed, blue arcs crackling faintly in the plush air.

  Jack stepped in front of Nova, shielding her with his body. His bulk was steady, his voice a low growl.

  "I'd advise you not to do anything stupid. You piss me off. I don't know what I'll do."

  The guards, of course, ignored him. The first two rushed him from either side, their hands reaching out to grab him.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But they were dealing with a monster—cornered, carrying the reflexes of someone fresh from a slaughterhouse. The following two moves happened inside a single, ragged breath.

  Jack sidestepped their clumsy grabs. A backhand slap connected with the first guard's face with the sound of a thunderclap, and the man went flying like a broken sandbag, landing in a heap, spitting blood and teeth. Jack spun, and a high, turning side-kick slammed into the second guard's temple. The man flew backward, crashing through several tables before collapsing into an unconscious heap.

  "Who the fuck else wants to come?" Jack roared.

  Utter, absolute silence. The holo-light painted him in stark relief, sweat running down his brow. He was a force of nature.

  Nova was seeing this side of Jack for the first time in a "civilized" setting. She had never known that this seemingly harmless man possessed such terrifying power. The face that she could bully at will, when angered, became so fierce it was hard to look at. She remembered the feeling of that same body pinning her to the floor with effortless strength, and her face went red, a hot, tingling sensation spreading from her spine. She instinctively moved closer, finding a strange sense of security behind his broad, solid back.

  Just then, a man in his fifties pushed through the crowd.

  "What is all this commotion?" he demanded, before spotting Julian. He strode forward and slapped his son hard across the face. "You idiot! I told you to stay home!"

  It was, without a doubt, Joseph Vance, the owner of the hotel.

  Julian, seeing his father, immediately started spinning a sob story. Joseph Vance turned to Jack, his face a mask of cold fury.

  "Are you going to walk out of here, or do I have my men throw you out?"

  "After your son? What a piece of work." Jack laughed, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't much feel like walking. I think you'll have to have them throw me out."

  Joseph Vance's face went pale with rage. He signaled to his two personal bodyguards, both former special forces soldiers.

  But just as they were about to move, the holoscreen in the center of the room switched to a new segment.

  "…and the miracle of this rescue," the reporter's voice filled the silent room, full of reverence, "was all made possible by one man. A mysterious Special Reconnaissance Lieutenant who has refused to be named. It was his strategic simulation that saved Operation Thunder from disaster, and his personal bravery that led over two hundred POWs out of the heart of Imperial territory, through a river of blood and fire…"

  Every eye in the restaurant slowly, incredibly, turned from the blurry, furtive figure of the fat man on the screen, to the very real, hazardous fat man standing in the middle of their dining room.

  The holoscreen was telling the story of a nameless hero.

  And in the real world, that nameless hero was standing there, looking awkward and out of place, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  It was into this dead, surreal silence that a new voice, filled with authority and rage, boomed from the grand entrance.

  "What in the goddamn hell is going on in here?!"

  General Carrick, the supreme commander of Epsilon Prime and the guest of honor for the evening's main event, had arrived. He stared at the wreckage, then at the fat Lieutenant he had personally exiled to the front lines, and his brows furrowed into a thunderous scowl.