Sydney Chambers

Sydney Chambers must be Court Martialed after being assigned to the piratic TSM vessel Tecumseh!Sydney Chambers newly promoted to Commander is assigned by Navy Personnel as First Officer of the Frontier Fleet frigate TSM Tecumseh. The assignment not only removes her from the auspices of her long-time mentor Admiral Stephen Alexander is also puts her under the thumb of Captain Horace Steubing ... a man with a dodgy reputation for fielty to the Confederacy. Sydney is immediately disavowed by Steubing — he can’t refuse her apppointment but has no interest in dealing with an officer who is so ... honest. Sydney is left to find her own way as well as finding the corruption aboard the Tecumseh with only her wits and what few allies she can recruit.Meanwhile Admiral Alexander has his own problems: the 16 Cygni system which has no Naval presence at all because it has refused to pay for it now pleads for as many ships as Alexander can supply. The reason? Pirates. Without the navy present pirates have begun to run rampant.Alexander though has no ships to deploy to 16 Cygni. Except ...When he spies notice of Sydney’s promotion a plan begins to hatch. Searching through his fleet registry he finds that he does have an unassigned ship though one scheduled to retire to the scrap yards: TSM Cahan Morrigan. Morrigan’s captain Francis Furling is also scheduled to retire but Morrigan’s First Officer Steve Garvey is willing to remain with Morrigan under a new captain if Cahan Morrigan is refit and once more made able to withstand combat.Alexander jumps at the option. He has plenty of maintenance money for a refit. As for a new captain ... well he has to somehow get Sydney out of Steubing’s clutches or a decade of nurturing her career will have been wasted.The only hitch in the plan is that for it to succeed Sydney Chambers must undergo a Court Martial to officially clear her name from the “stench” of working with Steubing ...