She now stepped a little closer to Tarrant, not even trying to hide her contempt. That was a mistake on your part, Gregor, thinking I wouldnt dig deep enough actually to translate the Meridian records myself. I could hardly believe what I discovered, but the real breakthrough came when I cracked the encryption on those low-energy transmissions youve been secretly sending back to the Three Star Alliance.

Tarrants eyes widened, his cheeks flushing with anger.

<Megan, what the hell is going on?>

<Not now, Bash. Just let me talk.>

You had no right to intercept our communications, said Tarrant. He hadnt moved from where he sat, but he held himself totally rigid.

Megan smiled humourlessly. We do have a right to know how much danger were putting ourselves in, Gregor. Even though each of your messages consisted of no more than a few kilobytes of data, the energy cost of sending them through the tach-net array all the way back to Kjregrnnested was enough to catch my attention. You covered your tracks, but not quite well enough. I dug around until I found older messages buried in a systems cache, full of all kinds of surprising little details youve been keeping from us. Imagine my surprise when I discovered we werent the first ship from out of Kjregrnnested to encounter the Wanderer.

Tarrants expression was unreadable, but Sifra glared at her with undiluted hatred. Bash, meanwhile, simply looked appalled.

Tarrant started to say something, but Bash put up a hand, cutting him off.

What ship? asked Bash.

A deep-space research vessel from Al-Jahar, said Megan, called the Kelvin. It was ordered to divert from its course more than a year and a half before we set out. Alliance researchers had located the Wanderer with their probes, and since the Kelvin was already on a deep-space exploratory mission, and the only ship available at short notice, it got sent to investigate. But after it arrived, the Wanderer nearly tore it apart before its crew managed to jump it back out of range.

Bash stood up, his expression thunderstruck, and stared at Tarrant. Is this true? he demanded.

And, according to those records I translated, said Megan, the same thing happened to the Shoal. They approached the Wanderer and it attacked their ships except they called it the Marauder, and with good reason. It was powerful enough all on its own that they were forced to retreat, and it refused to negotiate with them except on its own terms ones that were apparently unacceptable to the Shoal.

But what about the Meridians? asked Bash. And the Atn? They encountered the Wanderer long before the Shoal did, and it didnt attack them. Doubt flickered across his face. Did it?