Klingon Marine Captain Ketrick knew that something was wrong the moment he stepped out the door of the transport and onto the ramp leading down to the dock of the battle station. The security officer who had been his escort stopped at the top of the ramp and motioned to the platform below.
      There was a squad of Star Fleet Marines there to greet him, along with a Marine officer and someone wearing a civilian suit that might as well have been a diplomatic uniform.
      "They're here for you," was all the man said.
      Ketrick walked down the ramp, ignored the diplomat who tried to greet him, and walked up to the Marine officer, stopping at the prescribed one-meter distance and coming to attention.

      Ketrick rendered a salute. It was not a Klingon or Federation salute, but what was called an "international salute," one recognized by both the Federation and the Klingons, as well as other empires. An international salute, properly rendered, might have been seen by some as a sloppy version of the correct Klingon or Federation salute, or a cross between them. The Marine officer, without missing a beat, returned a formal Federation salute.
      A non-military person watching the two might not have noticed the difference, but both officers knew it and knew what it meant. Ketrick, being a prisoner, had rendered the international salute, rather than showing defiance with a Klingon one or submission with a Federation one. The Federation Marine had returned a Federation salute, showing that this was his ground and he was in control. A psychologist might have evaluated it as two wolves, strangers to each other, establishing who was top dog.
      Saluting had roots deep in warrior cultures, sometimes as a means of showing the hand was empty of weapons, other times as a remnant of an ancient custom of removing headgear or opening an armored faceplate in the presence of a senior officer. In modern terms, it meant not just respect, but recognition. Rendering a salute meant "I see you're the one I need to talk to" and returning it meant "I see you're there and let's talk."
      "Greetings, Captain," said the Marine officer. Ketrick recognized his insignia as that of a major and his combat awards marked him as infantry. "If you will come this way, please?"
      Ketrick understood the Major's language because of the translator in his ear. He noted the Federation word "please" (there was no Klingon version) which was a signal that while Ketrick was a prisoner and the Marine was his jailer, the Federation intended to be civil about the situation. The two warriors turned and began to walk. The squad of Marines formed around them, two ahead of them and three behind. Their carbines were at port arms, rather than slung over their shoulders, ready for instant combat. The diplomat, who had tried to say something before the two had turned and walked away, followed helplessly in their wake.
      "Quite a reception for a mere captain," Ketrick said. "And here I am, not even in uniform."
      "Just doing things properly," the major replied. "You are an officer, after all, Captain Ketrick. I'd presume that you are used to having warriors around you."
      "You have the advantage of me, Sir," Ketrick said, remembering the social convention.
      "Major Kahelski," the officer said, "Third Marine Regiment. We have received a summary of your file from your government. You've had an honorable career."
      An honorable one, Ketrick noted. Not a distinguished one. The Klingon government, asked for information and identification on Marine Captain Ketrick would have sent only a scrubbed file, one that failed to mention that the same individual was also Navy Commodore Ketrick. Flag officers would be handled very differently, Ketrick could only assume. Few of Ketrick's medals were Marine decorations, and with the naval awards missing, his career would have been undistinguished, even unimpressive. The major was showing that he knew he was dealing with a lesser officer, one who (in a decade of war) had somehow survived without having distinguished himself. Ketrick's age belied his modest rank. His file would show that he had been a mere captain for 12 years without being promoted. For a warrior culture, that practically marked him a slacker.       The major, on the other hand, was much younger, and had obviously been promoted rapidly after gaining a commission only a half-decade ago.
      Ketrick had read the decorations on the Federation Marine's jacket as well as he could. He did not recognize most of the campaign ribbons, but he did observe that the man had a silver star, a relatively high decoration for combat heroics, as well as a special forces badge, infantry combat badge, and a wound badge. The major also wore a black-white-black ribbon with a star in the center, indicating he had fought with some distinction against the Klingons in the recent conflict.

      "Perhaps we have been at some of the same places, Major?" Ketrick asked. "Were you at Shiloh?"
      "I was," the major said, "but you weren't." Ketrick had only a second to think about that one. Shiloh was a planet in Federation space near the Klingon and Kzinti borders. It had been the subject of years of battles, and then-Captain Ketrick had in fact been there for a few months in command of the Thunderchild. It was a good guess that thousands of Federation officers had been there at some point. But, obviously, that part of his file had been changed by his government before the file had been handed over to the Federation as part of processing his release as a prisoner of war. Why? Normally when a naval file was scrubbed leaving only Marine records, the locations were left in place but the assignments were changed. Had Shiloh been entirely deleted? Why?
      "I know you weren't there because you're alive. The only Klingon troops who landed were all killed or captured."
      "I was on a ship, and never landed," Ketrick said. The major grunted and Ketrick wondered just what was going on. Just how much of a summary had the government sent the Federation? Ketrick almost decided to stop the conversation before he made another "mistake" that the Federation would notice.
      "We were both at Kzintarish-3," the Major said without inflection, "although I was there a year after you left."
      "Well, we have something in common, at least," Ketrick said. He began to wonder if Major Kahelski was really a major or really a Marine. It would not be surprising if he was an intelligence officer. "I am surprised that you served in Kzinti space."
      "Not many of us did," the Major said. "Here we are."
      Major Kahelski opened a door in the corridor, ushering Ketrick inside an office and toward another door in the opposite wall. Two of the Marines posted themselves to either side of the second door, and two more followed him inside. The Marine Major, the diplomat (still insulted he had not been included), and the squad sergeant remained in the outer office.
      "Make yourself comfortable," Major Kahelski said, then shut the door from the outside.
      The room contained a table with a chair on either side of it. Ketrick took the farther chair, the one facing the door. He looked at the two Marines, who had assumed a stand-easy posture, but their weapons were clearly at the ready.
      "I can assure you," he said to them both, "I just want to go home and I'm not going to do anything dangerous." Neither man said a word or made any expression. "Ah, of course, they didn't give you translator devices," he said, pointing to his ear.
      It was half an hour before anything happened. A middle-aged civilian woman entered the room, placing on the table some food, a mug of coffee, and a datapad. "If you need anything else, Captain, please just ask." She left it unsaid that she would hear the request by the monitors that continually scanned the room.
      "All right, Joan, you met him," the intelligence agent said. "Is that him? Who do we have, some nondescript captain, or..."
      "I cannot be certain," Joan said. "That man looks like the photos. Facial recognition is only 80% certain. Listen, Agent, it's not like I met him at a cocktail party. I have never met this man, but if that isn't him, it's his first cousin with a strong family resemblance."
      "What are the odds of that?" the agent asked.
      "More than they would be if he were a human," Joan said. "He's a Klingon and they're different from us. Facial patterns run in families, it's just the way their DNA works. Even if that is him, he probably has a cousin who could pass for him, and maybe more than one."
      "And now you're the expert on Klingon DNA?" the agent snarled. "Just like you were the expert on Klingons with similar names?"
      "That was bad data in the translation program," Joan said. "I used what Star Fleet gave me to use. It wasn't my fault and when I discovered it, I reported it as soon as I could confirm it."
      "So what now?" the agent asked.
      "Ask me after he reads that datapad," Joan said. "I'll track his reading patterns. That will give us a strong indicator."

      Ketrick took a drink of coffee, wrinkling his nose at the taste, and picked up the sandwich. It was just as he liked it, with lettuce and pickles and no tomatoes. He had come to like the Earther vegetables in the last two weeks. Obviously, the transport crew had been forwarding reports.
Ketrick's journey to this point had been varied. His few days on the colony had been stressful, as he tried to be on his best behavior. The country folks who had found him had never been uncomfortable in the presence of a Klingon, but the townsfolk had been far different. Other than his "attorney" he had never had a comfortable conversation with anyone. The civilians treated him with a mixture of fear and loathing. Klingon warriors had, after all, spent the previous 14 years trying to kill Federation civilians, at least in the minds of Federation civilians.
      Ketrick's trip on the freighter from the colony to the commercial station had lasted half of a tenday. For the first day he had remained in his cabin with his attorney, learning that the word meant advocate or defender. Boredom soon drove him to explore the ship. The accessible parts were small, as the cargo pod was packed with bulk grain and ore and was useless except as a jogging track, a use to which Ketrick put it.             Ketrick found that the crew had a couple of exercise machines in a small compartment and easily gained permission to use them. It was good to complete a workout every day, keeping his muscles in shape. Sooner or later, he knew he would meet other Klingons and would need to be presentable.
      While on one of the exercise machines he had befriended a member of the ship's crew, and within hours, the entire crew considered him a friend, at least of the casual drinking variety. The crew had a carefully monitored daily ration of grog and Ketrick welcomed an evening mug of the alcoholic drink as much as any soldier. He had been invited to the bridge and had gotten involved in a shooting competition using the simulator program for the freighter's one small phaser. Being a warrior, Ketrick easily won every time and the competition quickly became a demonstration as the crew tried to program difficult targets for him. While the ship was only a small freighter, Ketrick virtually became a member of the crew, helping with the communication system and even navigation. His attorney had asked about that.
      "You're a Marine," the attorney asked. "How do you know stellar navigation?"
      "I know it because I am a Marine," Ketrick said. "I served on a starship, and Marine officers were cross-trained in naval skills, both for emergencies and for closer cooperation with the naval service. I knew enough of their jobs to understand the difficulties they had in supporting my landing actions, and of course, to understand ... foreign ... technology during boarding actions."
      Their arrival at the commercial station was not very formal. The ship docked and his attorney walked him to the security office. A security officer there had walked him two docks over to an armed transport and the two were quartered together in a compartment that the Klingon considered luxurious. The captain of the ship, a military officer of the same equivalent rank (a naval reserve lieutenant), interviewed him briefly and gave him the freedom to walk about, but told him not to touch any controls or computers other than the library and entertainment consoles in the lounge. Members of the crew quickly approached Ketrick and engaged him in conversation. Ketrick was sure most of them were just curious, but academically he was certain at least one of these crewmen was an intelligence officer set to watch him. Ketrick excelled in the "first-person combat games" and read a history book, but could not get access to any current news.
      "How did you end up way over there?" was the most common question and Ketrick had a truthful if incomplete answer.
      "My ship was wrecked in a battle," he would say, leaving it for the listener to assume it was with the Federation, not the WYN Defense Force.       "I was picked up by someone with uncertain purposes and nationality, and accompanied him on his journey for some months. I have no idea the route we took. He tried to convince me to remain with him, but I said I wanted to go home, so he left me on a Federation colony planet in a remote area. Why he picked that spot, I have no idea. I walked until I found some of your people and they took me to the authorities, who arrested me and processed me for release as a prisoner of war. Now, here I am, hopefully on my way home."

      And now, Ketrick thought to himself, here I am in yet another interrogation room, this time with real military and intelligence people. Am I on my way home or to prison or to the executioner's chamber? Time will tell.
      Ketrick finished reading the datapad, which contained copies of the Klingon newspaper distributed to civilians. He had carefully scanned them for any actual military news, but the Klingon government made sure what little of that was there was as devoid of useful information as it was full of heroic blather.
      The door opened and the previously ignored diplomat appeared, along with an older and obviously more senior member of the same profession. A Marine brought in a third chair and the two sat down facing Ketrick.
      "Captain Ketrick," the older man began, "I have read your statement and we are expediting the protocols for your return. You'll be placed on another transport, a faster one this time, and in perhaps a month you'll be handed over to the Organians, who will get you the rest of the way home. Before that, I am obliged to ask you if the statements you have given to date are accurate."
      "Certainly," Ketrick said. "I have nothing to gain by subterfuge. I knew the war was over and that there would be some procedure to repatriate me. That cannot happen soon enough."
      "Would you mind," the younger man said, "going over the facts one more time?"
      "Not at all," Ketrick said. "My ship was wrecked in a battle..."
      "Again with this story," the GIA agent said, slapping his forehead with his hand. "He's memorized the script. How did he get there?"
      "Orions, obviously," the Marine Major said.
      "Really?" the agent said. "He's never said that, but he's clever enough to let us think that. Just like he's never said where his ship was destroyed or what ship he was on."
      "He's under no obligation to tell you the ship he was on," the FCLU lawyer said. "The ceasefire protocol covers that. Somewhere in Klingon space some lost Federation officer is protected by the same protocol. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."
      "Another question," the Marine Major asked. "I've been through all of that 'camping gear' he had on the colony planet. It's all of Klingon manufacture and by the manufacturing marks, some of it is only a few months old."
      "The Orions have access to all of that stuff," the GIA agent said. "They buy, sell, and trade stuff all over. I don't doubt for a minute that they could easily have moved that tent and sleeping bag halfway across the Federation in a month without even having a specific reason for doing so. When the pirates decided to drop him off, they no doubt gave him whatever supplies they had readily at hand."
      "None of which happened to be manufactured inside the Federation," the Marine Major noted, "even though that would have been far easier to come by?"
      "What did your analysis tell you?" the agent asked the analyst.
      "That he's a military officer with no interest in recipes for stew," Joan said. "That he's a space officer, not a ground officer, which is a good but not definitive indicator that this is Commodore Ketrick of the Deep Space Fleet, but the information we have from the Kzintis is that Commodore Ketrick died nearly four years ago in an attack on the WYN Cluster. The logical conclusion is that this is a Marine Captain who is a cousin of Commodore Ketrick, but I cannot rule out that this is Commodore Ketrick."
      "Thank you, Joan, that was absolutely useless," the GIA agent said. "I say you let me take a run at him. Tell him we know he's the Commodore, and tell him that because he lied to us about his identity we can hold him for a full investigation. Then we put him through the full interrogation progress, including sleep deprivation."
      "I cannot support torture," the FCLU lawyer said.
      "Who said sleep deprivation is torture?" the Marine Major asked.
      "I did," the FCLU lawyer said. "And by the way, Klingon space officers have dual ranks, so he didn't lie, and you cannot hold him for lying. Check your file. Commodore Ketrick just happens to also be Marine Captain Ketrick. We're going to follow the law here, gentlemen and lady, or I'm going to have you all facing charges."

      "And the law says what?" the Marine Major asked. "That we bake him a cake and give him a tour of the Cydonian Caverns on his way home, while he has free run of our latest X-cruiser?"
      "Sarcasm is not helpful," Joan said to the major, then turned to the FCLU lawyer, "and neither are threats. Let me talk to him."
      "Hello again," Joan said as she entered the room with supper for the Klingon and for herself. "Do you mind if I join you?"
      She sat down in response to the vague wave of his hand. They chatted for more than a few minutes about the food and about his journey to the battle station while the drugs kicked in.
      "You have no idea how much work you're causing," she said with a wink. "We can process a whole boatload of Klingons with the same amount of effort we need just for you, what with where you were found and how you got there."
      "My apologies for being a problem," Ketrick said.
      "I'm sure you're used to it," she said with a smile. "You had how many people under your command, something over five thousand? Surely there were always special cases causing trouble."
      "Closer to ten thousand," Ketrick said, "including logistics..."
      "Their eyes met and he knew she had caught him.
      "A Marine captain commanding ten thousand men," she said with a clucking noise. "Sounds more like a fleet commodore."
      "I meant I did staff work for that many men..."
      "Don't start lying now," she hissed. "I've known who you are since I brought you lunch four hours ago. You don't remember meeting me on that freighter 20 years ago, do you?" she lied.
      'I look a lot like my cousins," Ketrick said.
      "Look, Commodore," Joan said, "you know very well that I'm not some secretary sent to fetch your meals. The treaty says we have to send you home, but if we aren't sure who you are, maybe we need to keep you for a year or two while we ask the Klingons for better identification. After all, you might not be a military officer at all, but some pirate who had a falling out with his fellow criminals and wants a free ride out of the legal jurisdiction that can prosecute and imprison you. Now, who are you?"
      "Very well," Ketrick said, "I am Marine Captain Targis Ketrick, but I am also Commodore Targis Ketrick. What are your intentions? Am I to disappear into some off-the-books prison where people who are not government employees will torture me?"
      "Nothing so melodramatic as that," Joan said. "I have a bargain for you. Give me a week to ask you questions about your career. You can answer them or not, but either way you get to go home next Friday." She smiled when he agreed.