In the bubble of space known as the Cogal, seven sentient races co-exist uneasily. Peace is always short lived. Commander Megan Moroney, Intelligence Officer for the New Amran Republic, is delivering an AI of unknown powers to her superiors in HighFleet. Her last port of call is the penal colony on Longmire's Planet. There, accompanied by the mysterious castaway, John Nine, a rebel cyborg and a powerful young mind-rider, Moroney will come to question everything she holds true. What is the relevence of a war fought three hundred years ago? And where should she place her allegiance, when even what it means to be human is cast into doubt? In the Cogal, the truth is never quite what it seems.