Pike stood in the main conference room of the Dread Omen. He surveyed the others in the room as he flicked through the reports on the holoterminal built into the table. Hayter, his Clawdite agent who he has inserted into Kuat a few days before, was lounging with his feet up on the table. He was leaning back in the chair and was having a jovial conversation with Malcolm Starfall in the chair beside him. Starfall, or Reverend as some of his crew were starting to call him, looked confident and relaxed. The Alliance's files on Starfall were limited but alluded to him being a reckless and self-centered egotist. Everything Pike had seen demonstrated the opposite. The was an aura of command about the man. The others looked to him for guidance and respected his authority. He knew that Starfall was allegedly responsible for the Demeter  massacre but he never agreed with that assessment. That vessel had been lost and presumed destroyed. Only when it turned up with a have dead crew did the ...