ir input?"

"Adari is your navigator. She knows both Regions
like the palm of her hand, and her record shows
she's well versed in nav for the entire system. She
got drunk on duty and borrowed the ship's recreation
funds without permission to have a gambling holiday
on Luna's Station Vegas. She returned broke as well
as hung over. To add to her problems, some joker on
Vegas gave her a whiff of Titan's deep strata gas.
Almost blew her mind, but she's OK now. Spent
a year in hospital on Guardian 18. No permanent
damage. Now, she's doing time on the funds charge.
Excellent navigator and gutsy."

"Kumiko?"

"Ah, little Kumiko," Ram smiled. "Last, but far
from least. Kumiko is a former officer of the UIPS
Space Force and an expert in space armaments.
She can break down entire systems, and repair and
reassemble them, blindfolded, from micro-miniatures
to the big stuff. For some reason, her talent
made her rather defiant of authority. Took
manual control of her ship's guns when her patrol's
sensors tagged unknowns inbound across no-mans-land
sunside of the Jovian orbit. The unknowns were
under a heavy screen and wouldn't cooperate with
the Space Guard's self-identification requirements.
Her Commander told her to punch a tiny hole in the
screens, just enough to identify.

"Instead, she not only blew the screens away, she
scorched the bow of a UIPS cruiser on a classified
mission. The cruiser was out-of-line, of course;
they should have responded to the query; protocols
call for them to do so. But Kumiko went too far.
She was forced to resign from the Service, and
offered a choice to either join a penetration team
to the Outer Region or work in an arsenal under
tight supervision. She made her choice."

"Quite a group."

"All different, yet six of a kind," he said. "None
of you, by far, are hardened offenders of the law.
The crimes you were convicted of were, how shall
I put it, less than deliberately malicious."

"Hah!" Brad's bitter snort curdled in his gullet.

Xindral shrugged. His manner changed; tightened.
He motioned toward the view tank.

"Let's get on with it, Brad," he said. "There's a
lot we need to cover."

Chapter SIX

Brad leaned back, drew his legs in and stretched
them straight, heels to the deck. His eyes followed
Ram to the dais and as he turned to face him.

"You and your crew will start intensive training in
intelligence operations using our most advanced
methods. It will