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Chapters (44)
  1. The Crimson Worlds Series
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  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Epilogue

Her eyes darted back to the main screen. Junus’s fighters were almost to the station. The enemy batteries had opened up, and her suspicions were confirmed. They were light lasers, with effective ranges under one hundred thousand kilometers.

“Activate engines, Optiomagis. One-eighth thrust. Bring us to one hundred fifty thousand kilometers from the station.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“And maintain full jamming.”

It was bad enough the border patrols got off some kind of warning…she didn’t need to add a distress call from Santis. The intelligence reports maintained that the Confeds had no heavy ships based anywhere near the Rim, but Kat’s opinion of the shadow services had not improved. She wasn’t about to bet the lives of her people on the wild guesses of a pack of political appointees who considered themselves master spies.

It was bad enough she had to bet their lives on her own wild guesses…

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

The Starfire Hotel

Archa City

Archellia, Cassiopolis III

307 AC

Barron sat on the plush sofa, staring out at the skyline of Archa City. At least that’s what the locals called it, though the three dozen or so buildings that formed its downtown cluster topped out not much above one hundred meters. Dauntless’s captain was from Corellia, one of the Confederation’s seven core worlds. Corellia’s soaring metropolises and kilometers-high towers made Archa seem like a quaint little village with a few farm stands and a general store by comparison. Barron knew that wasn’t entirely fair, but he still thought the urban pretensions of the place were amusing.

He couldn’t complain about the Starfire Suite, though he wasn’t sure he had any use for the hulking grand piano or the three extra bedrooms. He wondered who rented the suite normally, what magnates or visiting dignitaries with money to burn ever found themselves on Archellia.

Most of the suite’s comforts were wasted on him. Though his family was wealthy, he’d always had simple tastes. He’d hidden in the suite as much as possible trying to avoid the fawning of the locals, far preferring to sit and read rather than smile and carry the Barron flag through endless dinners and receptions. He hadn’t been able to avoid them all, but he did what he could…and now he found himself about halfway through the history text he’d been reading.