She raised her squeeze-bulb in an ironic salute. Thats me.

She watched as the three of them made their way towards the circle of couches where she was sprawled. From the ease with which the two strangers navigated in the zero gravity, she could tell that they had both spent a lot of time off-world.

Thanks for agreeing to wait for us here, said Mr Vaguely Familiar, pulling himself into a seat across from her and sliding an arm through a nearby loop to keep himself from floating away. His skinny companion pulled himself down next to him, while Bash took his seat right opposite Megan. My name, said the more attractive one, is Gregor Tarrant.

Gregor Tarrant. Megan sat up straight, suddenly embarrassed at her casual slouching. I thought I recognized you from somewhere. Youre famous.

Tarrant smiled self-deprecatingly, with a dismissive gesture. Not really.

No, she said, you are. Bash I mean, Pilot Bashir told me all about what happened. What you did was incredible.

Tarrant and his goateed companion both chuckled and grinned. I was just doing my job, said Tarrant.

Tarrant had been a junior officer on the Beauregards sister ship, the Chesapeake, on an exploratory expedition to a white-dwarf system sixteen light years from Al-Jahar. There the Chesapeake had come under assault from automated attack systems left dormant since the ShoalEmissary war of a few centuries earlier.

That attack had taken the expedition completely by surprise. As a result, the Chesapeake had suffered a devastating breach that vented its atmosphere and killed a full quarter of its complement, including its captain, most of its senior staff and one of its two machine-head pilots. Bash was the fortunate one who had survived.

Tarrant, despite his relative inexperience, had somehow rallied the survivors and, regardless of repeated attacks, he had managed to keep them alive inside a hastily pressurized cavern located on an airless moon, until rescue arrived nearly two months later. It was an extraordinary story, made all the more remarkable by the fact that Tarrant had been only twenty-four standard years old at the time.

I think youre being coy, Megan replied. But Ill say no more about it if youd rather I didnt.

Just as long as you dont have any unrealistic expectations of me, he said, and then gestured to his companion. This is Anil Sifra, and hes here in an advisory capacity, as a representative of the First Families.

Sifra. Of course. He was from the same bracket as the Schellings and the Beauvoirs who along with the Sifra Clan were the most powerful of the Alliances founding families.

Sifra nodded to her politely. I know you must be wondering what the hell were doing here.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Megan replied, then regretted sounding so flippant.