A fleet for hire. A mysterious client. A weapon of mass destruction. No longer a commander, Turner Boone will come to the rescue of any fleet that will pay him. However, he has done his job too well, and his clients have no need to call. His fleet-for-hire is running out of funds—and options. Things look up when he is hired to retrieve the wreckage of an ancient terraforming machine. He soon realizes the device can be turned into a devastating weapon, and he has no idea who his well-paying client is. Caught between delivering the artifact to the client, whose methods to collect it are ruthless, and hiding his fleet from the Coalition Navy, who hunts him as a traitor, Boone faces the most difficult decision of his life. In discovering the client's secret, his investigation goes too deep, propelling himself and the assassin, Elyon, into a Coalition trap—one that will require untenable...

Play the game. Murder the innocent. Don't let them see you sweat. Turner Boone lives a duplicitous life under a vengeful warlord, who employs Boone's tactical genius in his galactic conquest. Boone wants out. As a quintessential planner, he's aiming for the long-game to free himself. But when the warlord assigns him to handle a teenage weapon with elemental powers, all his plans go to hell. As Boone grows attached to his ward, he realizes they both need to escape. His new plan is a gambit that may make things worse before they get better—if he even lives to execute it. A dark, character-driven adventure in the far reaches of our galaxy, this novel features epic space battles, biological magic, and the discovery of friendship between two young killers. May contain content unsuitable for sensitive readers (explicit violence, self-harm or suicide).