Jenny and Keiko walked up the stairs, and wandered down the hall to room 209. Inside, smartly dressed in their military uniforms, were two women and a man. All of them stood and bowed as Keiko walked in. "Lady Takeda. Miss Doolittle. Please be seated," the man began. "To my left is Lieutenant Harris, to my right is Lieutenant Marcus. I'm Lieutenant Commander Foster. Let's begin, shall we?"

Keiko pulled out Jenny's chair for her to be seated, and then pulled her chair up close to Jenny's and seated herself. Under the table, Keiko took Jenny's hand in hers and gently squeezed it. Jenny nodded to her that she understood. "This interview is being recorded," Foster continued. He touched a pad on his keypad. A tone sounded. "We're on the record. Please raise your right hands."

After they were sworn, Foster continued. "Miss Doolittle, we've already examined the data from your Flight Data Recorder and your Cockpit Media Recorder. We also examined your preflight checklist. Were there any anomalies with your craft that you didn't enter into the record?"

"No." Jenny replied tersely. Foster turned to Harris, who took up the questioning. "I examined the wreck of your dinghy," Harris began. She laid a crumpled piece of hardware on the table. "Do you recognize this?" Jenny examined it without touching it. "It's an output shaft," Jenny said dryly.

Harris sighed. "In fact, it's the output shaft for your dinghy's port side canarderon. When you did your preflight check, did you notice this?" She pointed to the jagged, broken end of the shaft just below its servo arm.

"It wasn't like that during my preflight check." Jenny retorted, stating it as if it was obvious. Harris turned the component so that its edge pointed at Jenny. "I mean this." She pointed to what appeared to be cutting marks that extended a little more than half way across the shaft's cross section. Jenny flinched. Keiko could feel it. "I didn't see this…" Jenny trailed off, going over her preflight inspection in the hangar on Calmwind. She tried to imagine where this would be visible, but as she could see her dinghy in her mind's eye, she suddenly blurted, "No, there's no way to see this part of the shaft, unless you disassemble the outer cowling and pull the inspection escutcheon off the outer pressure hull…"

Harris smiled. The girl knew her ship. "When was the last time you worked on that part of the dinghy?" "I've only done maintenance on the avionics," Jenny replied. "The seniors usually do the mechanical work, usually with the club advisor overseeing." "Right," Harris looked at the maintenance logs on her screen. "So dinghy tail number VK207, your dinghy, has most of it's inspections signed off by 'B.D.' and 'A.C.' Do you know who they are?" Jenny didn't have to even think about it. "Bethany Devereaux and Amy Cromwell. It was Beth's dinghy until I bumped her out of the qualifying trials…" Jenny suddenly was overcome with the horrible thought that not only had her ship been tampered with, but that someone she considered to be a friend might have done it. Her hand was shaking in Keiko's. Keiko looked at the marks as well. "Those marks look like they've been there a while," she observed. "There's rust and burn marks around them."

Harris was surprised. "You have a good eye, Lady Takeda," she said with admiration. To think that the daughter of a nobleman would even know what she was looking at was impressive enough, but to have a metallurgical opinion, was amazing. "The corrosion and burn marks are superficial. Calmwind's upper atmosphere is highly corrosive, and the burn marks are just from reentry burn. No, this ship was sabotaged. We're here to find out why, and when, and especially, by whom."

Lt. Marcus then spoke. "Yours was the only ship in the competition that broke up in the air, Miss Doolittle. Some of our best pilots were given your situation in the simulator. Seven out of ten of them crashed severely, 4 of them being likely fatal. That was some impressive flying, for a thirteen year old to keep it together at a thousand meters up, and still get down in one piece."

Foster held up a holopad, and from it emerged an image of the race course, superimposed on a grid globe semitransparent image of Calmwind. "Take a look at this." He pushed the holopad across the table, and Jenny, her hands still shaking, picked it up and examined it. "That's the race course for the Nebula Cup race." Foster noted. "It's not," Jenny protested, examining the checkpoints and landmarks. "This is completely wrong. You must have the wrong file." "No," Foster said resolutely. "That was the course that was originally submitted to the Stellar Military for approval, and that's the flight plan that was cleared. That's also the flight plan that was hacked from a Stellar Military database. Now," he tapped a button on his control pad, and the image in Jenny's hands changed, "This is the race course as you flew it. This was created by moving the check points around so that they intersected with the planet's heavy weather face. Recognize it?" "Yes," Jenny said quietly. "This is the course that appeared on my nav console…"

"We traced the FTL comm lines that carried out this act of piracy," Foster turned his screen so that Jenny and Keiko could see. A series of lines traced a path from the FTL transmitter at the relay station, down to the local hub, and to an aerial view of Hakuoh Academy, and then directly to the yacht club's secure comm room. "It's said that if anyone needs anything illegal or on the sly around here, the Hakuoh yacht club is the place to go," Harris chimed in. "As a member of the yacht club, you must know who the hackers are." Keiko squeezed Jenny's hand hard. "Objection," Keiko blurted. "Calls for speculation." Foster leaned across the table at Jenny. "Miss Doolittle, someone dangerously altered the race course and sabotaged YOUR ship! Out of a hundred and forty two entrants, only two pilots finished the race. Someone seriously wanted to harm you! Perhaps even kill you, and make it look like a mishap. Whoever did this is still running around, possibly planning some other way to eliminate you. We don't have time for this legal wrangling and nonsense!"

Jenny's whole body was shaking. She wanted to throw up. She looked over at Keiko, her emerald eyes frightened and filling with tears. Keiko rose from her chair, pulling Jenny up with her. "My client and I need a break from this," Keiko said firmly, and before any of the officers could object, ushered her from the room, down the hall and into another empty conference room. She pulled out a small hand scanner and aimed it around. "It's clear, we can talk," she said gently, but Jenny slumped into a chair, put her head in her hands and started sobbing. Keiko pulled up a chair beside her, and gently pulled the teen into her arms. She held her in silence for many minutes, allowing the girl to let it all out. Jenny finally looked up into Keiko's eyes, tears still spilling from her own. "…why…?" she cried. "Why would anyone want to hurt me? …what've I done…?"

Keiko gently caressed Jenny's face, wiping the tears from her eyes and gently running her fingers through Jenny's blond tresses. "Shhh…" Keiko spoke to her gently. "Coming from a wealthy or high-born family sometimes puts one in danger. You wouldn't believe how many times someone has tried to get back at my father by trying to harm me or my brothers. And my mother's death wasn't an accident, as it was reported. She was assassinated by thugs in one of the Orion syndicates, as a warning to my father. I hate to say it, sweetie, but it comes with the territory."