ERS Cassiopeia is a glorious silver enigma, and the military wants nothing better than to capture her and keep her from going rogue, or even worse, being captured by their enemies and used to transport enemy weapons and troops.
The Cassiopeia is docked at Research One, and Cassie has been quiet, mostly, watching, helping, suggesting as needed. But she's bored. A beauty like her should be out strutting her stuff! Showing what she can do!
When the call comes in for a political escort mission, while disappointed about the hum drum routine of it all, Cassie gets excited! Where will we go? What will we do? It’s something other than test flights, and there will be someone other than her crew to talk to.
An intelligence operative named Plackard is assigned to play advisor to a diplomat in order to learn all he can about the Cassiopeia, with plans to take over her computer systems when the opportunity arises.
The tension at the diplomatic conference on Station 967M complicates their plans, however, and one of the delegates has another agenda that will change the path of Plackard's career forever.
Cassie is the ship’s exceptional artificial intelligence, and her abilities during the drama that unfolds are more than anyone could imagine possible.
Steve was born in South Dakota and raised in upstate New York loved reading when he was younger and would read most anything he got my hands on. Steve still reads whenever he get the chance. Though, once into a book not much else gets done. Both he and his wife were in the Air Force when they met. Steve introduced his wife, D.A. Swem to the DragonRiders of Pern and their courtship began with many reading sessions. It worked for them. Now they collaborate on writing books.