The first story follows Colonel Hammer himself, as well as introducing Joachim Steuben, his right-hand man and bodyguard. It opens with a conversation between Secretary Tromp, a powerful politician from the wealthy planet Friesland, and a Friesland Guards armored regiment officer, in Tromp's office at the spaceport hotel on the Friesland colony world of Melpomene. The officer has just returned from traveling with Hammer and Steuben in a convoy of armored vehicles from one of Hammer's firebases to the spaceport. Hammer had used the convoy as bait to trick the remaining Melpomene rebels into attempting an ambush on the convoy, by leaking false information that Secretary Tromp was traveling in it.
