—and Devious the Line of Duty

Lieutenant Dale Hunter is a Space Patrol officer who's never questioned his duty, until he meets George Rockford. The old Strategic Service agent seems like exactly what Hunter despises: a condescending, beer-swilling bureaucrat who fumbles through his work while young men do the dangerous stuff. But on Vesta, where Hunter is sent to assist crucial negotiations between the Terran Republic and the key world of Jardeen, he discovers that Rockford's apparent incompetence hides something far more dangerous. As political intrigue spirals into assassination attempts, Hunter must navigate a web of manipulation where the people he trusts least might be the only ones keeping him alive, and the fate of a hundred light-years of human civilization out of Verdam hands. There's also Princess Lyla, which complicates everything. This is midcentury space opera at its purest: a tale of shifting loyalties, the difference between duty and heroism, and learning that the universe doesn't reward the naive.