In Defender, Bren comes to realize he’s been left out of the loop on some extremely delicate negotiations between Tabini and Ramirez, the executive captain of the Phoenix. He discovers this after having to attend a mysterious memorial held in honor of Tabini’s father. (The memorial is mysterious because Bren cannot quite figure out what the political purpose of the memorial was. The general theme of the memorial gives us just enough information to be extremely alarmed when we find out what is happening.)