Prologue

Secrets are not my concern. Keeping them is.

"I am Major Pepper Siamendes, Special Investigations Unit, Alliance Military, Zenobia"

That is how I introduce myself these days. It wasn't always the case of course. Name, rank, identity ... these are such fluid things.

I was born in a simple village in the Northern Provinces of Zenobia, a place of lush green fields and gardens of fresh vegetables and fruits. In the summer, the air was heavy with the scent of herbs and the buzzing of the bees. In the winter, the cold wind from the mountains quicken the breath and stung the eyes.


Visitors to my world, when visitors were permitted, were always struck by the contrasts: glorious space stations and mighty ships capable of travelling far into space against an almost feudal way of life on the surface.

However, ask a native Zenobian what she sees and she will say "I see a world with her roots deep in the traditions of the past, her eyes looking to the future, and her hands reaching up into the stars."

But this story does not begin with fields or corn, with ships or stars ... it begins with the bones of a dead man.