The opening steps back to near the ending of Change of Command; the loyalists in the weapons lab on Copper Mountain (which planet has just been taken over by mutineers) have finished sending out their radio transmission, which unbeknownst to them will indeed be picked by an escaping loyalist Fleet warship, and are wondering what to do next.
They stage a series of movements and radio transmissions intended to convince the mutineers that the weapons labs are being progressively taken over by their own.
He had unfortunately been close to Lepescu when he was a younger officer, and fears every day that the investigation into the Lepescu-inspired mutineers will damn him as well; he is further compromised by the fact that his closest friend Jules had been a Benignity deep agent, who had solely manipulated him into breaking rules and then through blackmail into becoming a Benignity agent.
Suiza follows in her Rascal, and is hidden by Koutsoudas foxing the scans aboard Livadhi's cruiser.
Publishers Weekly wrote that while Moon's "description of a deeply layered political and military culture provides an engaging touchstone for the far-flung skirmishes taking place therein", there is a lack of a "similar attention to contextual details such as scenery, geography and dates", although readers will still "delight in the twisting, thorny adventure in the compelling continuation to this popular series.