Latest entry in a hot space opera series with a huge and active base of fans. Maverick pilot Theo Waitley takes to space in a new AI-driven ship to save her lover (a powerful trading clan leader) from a creeping nano-virus that’s eating him alive.

Stirring space adventure from master storytellers Sharon Lee and Steve Miller – #5 in the award-winning Liaden Universe® saga. Space ships, action, adventure – all tied together with a strong dollop of romance and intrigue – make this a compelling series for a wide range of readers, from romance to military SF lovers.
First Class courier pilot Theo Waitley was already known as a nexus of violence – and then she inherited the precarious captaincy of a mysterious self-aware ship designed to serve a long dead trader. Now she has a trade route to run for Clan Korval while she convinces the near mythic ghost ship Bechimo – and herself – that she wants to commit herself as the human side to their immensely powerful symbiosis. While her former lover battles a nano-virus that's eating him alive, she's challenged to rescue hundreds of stranded pilots and crewmen from an explosive situation in near orbit around a suddenly hostile planet. Lovers, enemies, an ex-roomie, and a jealous spaceship are all in peril as Theo wields power that no one in the universe is sure of, especially her.

About The Authors

Sharon Lee

Steve Miller

Maine-based writers Sharon Lee and Steve Miller teamed up in the late 1980s to bring the world the story of Kinzel, an inept wizard with a love of cats, a thirst for justice, and a staff of true power.

In the decades since, until Steve's death in 2024, the Lee-and-Miller writing team published over 100 works of fantastic fiction, the majority set in their genre-bending Liaden Universe®, and reflecting on their shared philosophy that fiction ought to be fun—both the reading and the writing of it.

During their long and storied career, Steve and Sharon were celebrated as guests of honor at more than two dozen science fiction conventions across the country and were also frequent panelist and featured speakers.

Their awards include the Prizm for Best Futuristic Romance, The Golden Duck for Best YA SF, the Reader’s Choice Award for the Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF of 2017, and the Edward E. Smith Memoria Award for Imaginative Fiction (the Skylark).

Sharon is continuing to work in the universe she and Steve built together.

For more information about the Liaden Universe®, including reading orders, go to httpz://korval.com.