Stirring space adventure from master storytellers Sharon Lee and Steve Miller – #5 in the award-winning Liaden Universe® saga. Space ships, action, adventure – all tied together with a strong dollop of romance and intrigue – make this a compelling series for a wide range of readers, from romance to military SF lovers. <P> First Class courier pilot Theo Waitley was already known as a nexus of violence – and then she inherited the precarious captaincy of a mysterious self-aware ship designed to serve a long dead trader. Now she has a trade route to run for Clan Korval while she convinces the near mythic ghost ship <I>Bechimo</i> – and herself – that she wants to commit herself as the human side to their immensely powerful symbiosis. While her former lover battles a nano-virus that's eating him alive, she's challenged to rescue hundreds of stranded pilots and crewmen from an explosive situation in near orbit around a suddenly hostile planet. Lovers, enemies, an ex-roomie, and a jealous spaceship are all in peril as Theo wields power that no one in the universe is sure of, especially her.