"Zolan. As he said, a communicator and, I might add, from way back. As a child, he was classified 'gifted' and treated accordingly by the system. At the age of twelve, he came up with design refinements for spunnel cracking and transmission that raised eyebrows among the top pros in the field. His skill caused his downfall: he was convicted of illegally penetrating and modifying a database that was integrating a highly sensitive project. Just enjoying the challenge, he claimed. The project engineer didn't get wise until too late. During the trial he told off his former bosses; called them incompetent and not qualified to pass judgment on him or his work. Anyhow, he got a couple of years to cool off." "Does this job call for his kind of communications expertise?" "Yes, and more. Zolan is an extremely important asset for your mission. You'll agree, I think, when we get to your orders and the operation. I should add that, when your training is over, you will all be good communicators. But Zolan is at the hub." "That leaves Adari and Kumiko. What's their input?" "Adari is your navigator. She knows both Regions like the palm of her hand, and her record shows she's well versed in nav for the entire system. She got drunk on duty and borrowed the ship's recreation funds without permission to have a gambling holiday on Luna's Station Vegas. She returned broke as well as hung over. To add to her problems, some joker on Vegas gave her a whiff of Titan's deep strata gas. Almost blew her mind, but she's OK now. Spent a year in hospital on Guardian 18. No permanent damage. Now, she's doing time on the funds charge. Excellent navigator and gutsy." "Kumiko?" "Ah, little Kumiko," Ram smiled. "Last, but far from least. Kumiko is a former officer of the UIPS Space Force and an expert in space armaments. She can break down entire systems, and repair and reassemble them, blindfolded, from micro-miniatures to the big stuff. For some reason, her talent made her rather defiant of authority. Took manual control of her ship's guns when her patrol's sensors tagged unknowns inbound across no-mans-land sunside of the Jovian orbit. The unknowns were under a heavy screen and wouldn't cooperate with the Space Guard's self-identification requirements. Her Commander told her to punch a tiny hole in the screens, just enough to identify. "Instead, she not only blew the screens away, she scorched the bow of a UIPS cruiser on a classified mission. The cruiser was out-of-line, of course; they should have responded to the query; protocols call for them to do so. But Kumiko went too far. She was forced to resign from the Service, and offered a choice to either join a penetration team to the Outer Region or work in an arsenal under tight supervision. She made her choice." "Quite a group."