Atira Malkaanen is a police officer serving on a mining colony. She works closely with her partner Caleb and is still learning the ropes when they are involved in an altercation with a pirate. The altercation results in the murder of the pirate. Atira disposes of his body in the colony's incinerator. Although she tells Caleb she will dissolve the pirate's dog tags, she instead adds them to a growing collection which she keeps hidden in a box in her closet. When Johan Serris visits her quarters looking for the source of a water leak, Atira blames the bloody clothes in her shower on her period being early.