Sydney Chambers: Senior Station Officer

Sydney has been replaced as Military Attaché, and is now the Senior Officer on Station. The new Military Attaché, Commander Horace Justin, is from Frontier Fleet — and under the jurisdiction of Admiral Lady Chelsea Alexander, wife of Sydney's boss, Admiral Lord Stephen Alexander. The child of the admirals, Susan Alexander, is a lieutenant and Ship Captain of the Werewolf-class vessel  TSM Wolf … which is aasigned to 16 Cygni and to the command of Sydney Chambers. Susan is Sydney's mentee. Unfortunately the Wolf is a prototype and thus due to be returned to its manufacturer for  diagnosis at a date not yet determined.

Meanwhile, Sydney sets Susan and Wolf on a case: find two missing civilians, Krista Sperry and Chloe O'Shaygnassey, who set out on the initial trading run for their new shipping company CK Hauling, in the freighter Kierkegaard. Unknown to either TSM officer Kierkegaard has been commandeered by pirates under the direction of Hermann Sakhoff, a former employee of Hans Vattermann, a pirate Sydney took down ahortly after she was first named a Captain. Sakhoff and his crew soon capture the TSM Wolf as well, giving them a potent advantage against Sydney and the Confederacy.

However, Sydney wasn't made captain because of her looks. Soon enough and despite interference from what has to be Military Attaché Justin, she finds Wolf and Kierkegaard and traps them, destroying Kierkegaard and arresting Sakhoff and one other as the last pirates operating at 16 Cygni.