"Growing up, Travis Uriah Long yearned for order and discipline in his life...two things his neglectful mother couldn't or wouldn't provide. So when Travis enlists in the Royal Manticoran Navy, he thought he'd finally found the structure he'd always wanted so desperately. But life in the RMN isn't exactly as expected. Boot camp is rough; his first ship assignment lax and disorderly; and with the Star Kingdom of Manticore still recovering from a devastating...

Having made him look the fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her. Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station. The aborigines of the system's only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens. Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling; the merchant cartels want her...

As the slavenmasters of Mesa plot against the Star Empire of Manticore and the newly liberated slave planet of Torch, Anton Zilwicki and the notorious Heavenite secret agent Victor Cachat set off on a dangerous mission to uncover the truth concerning a wave of mysterious assassinations that have been launched against Manticore and Torch.

Twelve-year-old Stephanie Harrington, a genetically-enhanced girl on the pioneer planet of Sphinx, bonds with a treecat, a telepathic and fully sentient animal, putting her in danger from highly placed enemies who want to ensure that the planet remains entirely in human hands.