“Usually,” Egan said. “DiNovo was doing me a favor, actually. For every one like him who is stupid enough to open his mouth, there’s about fifty of these people who keep their traps shut and plan to ignore what I have to say. This way I get to drive the message home to all of them. Marginally more of them will listen to me this way.”

“You think they really are all mediocrities, then,” Rigney said.

“Not all of them,” Egan said. “Most of them. And certainly the ones I have to deal with.” She waved at the empty theater. “These people are cogs. They’re stationed here, pushing the proverbial paper. If they were any good at what they did, they’d be out there in the universe. The ones out there are the A-teams. Hell, they’re the B-teams, too. The ones here are teams C through K.”

“Then you’re not going to like this,” Rigney said. “One of your A-teams has gone missing.”

Egan frowned. “Which one?” she asked.

“Ambassador Bair’s team,” Rigney said. “Along with, I should add, one of our frigates, the Polk.”

Egan was silent for a moment, processing the news. “When did this happen?” she finally asked.

“It’s been two days since there’s been a skip drone sent back from the Polk,” Rigney said.

“And you’re only telling me this now?” Egan said.

“I would have told you sooner, but you wanted me to see you scare the children,” Rigney said. “And two days without drone contact is our standard alarm raiser. Particularly with missions like this one, which are supposed to be secret. I came to find you as soon as we confirmed two days of dead air.”

“What did your recovery mission find?” Egan asked.

“No recovery mission,” Rigney said, and caught Egan’s look. “We had a hard enough time negotiating a military frigate for the mission. If the Utche show up and see several military ships in the area, none of them with diplomats on them, everything blows up.”

“Recon drones, then,” Egan said.

“Of course,” Rigney said. “Everything’s preliminary because the drones have just arrived, but they’re not finding anything.”

“You sent the drones to the correct system,” Egan said.

“Come on, Liz,” Rigney said.

“Doesn’t hurt to ask,” Egan said.

“We sent the drones to the right system,” Rigney said. “We sent the Polk to the right system. The Danavar system is where the Utche wanted to meet.”

Egan nodded. “A system with nothing but gas giants and airless moons. No one will think to look for you there. Perfect for secret negotiations.”

“Apparently not so secret after all,” Rigney said.

“You’re presuming the Polk met with a bad end,” Egan said.

“Our frigates don’t have a history of randomly vaporizing,” Rigney said. “But whatever or whoever did this isn’t in the Danavar system now. There’s nothing there but planets and moons and a big yellow star.”

“Have we told the Utche about this?” Egan asked.

“We haven’t told anyone about it,” Rigney said. “Outside of command, you’re the first person to know. We haven’t even told your boss that her team is missing. We figured we’d let you do that yourself.”