<Talk to me? Who? Are they from the Accord?>

<No, Meg, theyre our own people.>

<So, why come here just to talk to me?> she replied, unable to hide her exasperation. <Why not wait until Im back on the ground?>

<Just hang on until we get there, and then theyll explain everything. Shouldnt be more than another few minutes before were with you.>

He broke the connection, and she stared beyond the coloured nodes of information arrayed in deep stacks all around her, projected against the interior of the petals. Bash was the Beauregards co-pilot as well as her closest friend, and two days earlier he had departed the Beauregard for what shed believed was the last time. There had been no hint of any furtive plans for him to come sneaking back on board.

Lets have one last drink before I abandon ship, hed said to her as he stood in the door to her quarters, gripping a bottle of some brown liquid in one hand. Before I take the dropship down and try to figure out just what in hell Im going to do with the rest of my life.

She now severed her connection to the Beauregards AI, and sat there in the silent darkness for a few moments before ordering the petals to unfold.

As she gazed around the command deck, it finally hit her that she would never pilot the Beauregard again.

She tried not to feel bitter about it. Just days before, Otto Schelling and other senior members of the Three Star Alliances ruling First Families had signed a treaty handing over full control of the nova-class fleets of all three worlds of the Alliance Kjregrnnested, Al-Jahar and Alyeska to the Accord. And, as an accord of civilized species, they had much more power to bring to bear than the weaker Alliance. This agreement had followed years of intense bargaining, a trade and communications embargo, and the arrival of a number of heavy Accord cruisers filled with troops ready to occupy the Alliances major cities, should they fail to accept the proposed terms. The whole business had struck Megan as immense overkill.

She fired a message off to Bash, to let him know shed be waiting in the ships lounge. Then she exited the command deck without allowing herself a backward glance.

She had just got settled in, after grabbing a second squeeze-bulb of Irish coffee from the lounge bar, when Bash entered, accompanied by two other men. The first she didnt recognize but the second was immediately familiar, even if she couldnt quite place him straight away. He was broad-chested and not a little handsome, and he carried himself with a confidence just shy of arrogance. His companion, by contrast, was as thin as a rail, his hair a dense tangle of blond-brown hair above a goatee beard. Whenever he moved, it was in a slightly jerky, bird-like fashion.

Megan Jacinth? asked the moderately familiar one in a loud voice.