Chapter 3, The Neutronium Alchemist: Conflict Summary

On Villeneuve's Revenge, Erick Thakrar has found the hidden bomb. Carefully, he manages to detach it and casts it out of the ship. There is now nothing stopping Duchamp and his crew from fleeing Capone's grasp. Duchamp faces Capone's representative, Kingsley, and informs him that they will be leaving. Kingsley immediately datavises to Erick that he knows Erick is an undercover CNIS or Navy intelligence officer and threatens to tell Duchamp and the crew. He also points out that as an associate of Capone he is more valuable to the Confederation alive than dead. Erick is forced to persuade Duchamp not to kill him.

Meanwhile Cherri Barnes, a crew member of Meyer's blackhawk Udat that Alkad Mzu destroyed in the last book, has just been released from the beyond into a new body. She tells...