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Daniel Leary is a lieutenant in the Cinnabar Navy with no money and no prospects. Adele Mundy is a scholar whose family was massacred by the government of Cinnabar. In a few hours, diplomacy is going to fail on the planet Kostroma. Daniel, Adele, and the scratch crew they gather aren't much to stand in the way of a powerful invasion fleet, but just possibly they're enough.

Lieutenant Daniel Leary of the Republic of Cinnabar Navy commands the corvette Princess Cecile; his friend Signals Officer Adele Mundy has the latest in spy apparatus and the skill to prowl the most tightly guarded database. All they lack are enemies, and fate is about to supply that need in abundance!

A hostage uses the Princess Cecile to regain his freedom-and his throne!

An ally intrigues with enemies of Cinnabar-knowing the plot can only be safeguarded by destroying the Princess Cecile!

A pirate chief joins in a cutthroat battle with a rival-and the Princess Cecile is a pawn!

While the Republic of Cinnabar is at peace with the Alliance, warriors like Lt. Daniel Leary and Signals Officer Adele Mundy must find other work--like escorting a pair of wealthy nobles on an expedition to the back of beyond!

The Princess Cecile, the corvette in which they carved their reputations in letters of fire, has been sold as a private yacht, but she still has her guns, her missiles, and her veteran crew. Daniel and Adele will need all of those things as they face winged dragons, an Alliance auxiliary cruiser, jealous lovers, and a mysterious oracle which really does foresee the future.

That won't be enough, though, when they penetrate a secret Alliance base and find a hostile fleet ready for a war that will sweep Cinnabar out of a strategically crucial arm of the galaxy. Preventing that will involve skill, courage, and more luck than a sane man could even pray for; and it will require a space battle on a scale that a tiny corvette like the Princess Cecile has no business being involved in. But she'll be in the middle of it anyway, because Daniel, Adele, and their Cinnabar crew would never turn their backs on a fight!

Violence racks Cinnabar. The fleets of the tyrannical Alliance are on the move, and at home class riots threaten to rip apart not only society but the Republic of Cinnabar Navy. Lt. Daniel Leary has earned promotion, but the needs of the Republic and the RCN require that he serve under an officer whose paranoia has already led him to execute crewmen out of hand.

Signals Officer Adele Mundy has repeatedly proved her skills and loyalty as Cinnabar's most accomplished intelligence agent, but now elements within the Republic want to draw her into a conspiracy like the one that led to her parent's massacre. Leary and Mundy battle their way from riot-torn streets to spies in an outlying base and an anarchic planet where violence is the only law, but if they succeed at every stage, one test still remains: a space battle against an overwhelming Alliance force.

Even for Daniel Leary it will be a difficult fight to win... and almost impossible to survive.

The tyrannical Alliance continues its war against the Republic of Cinnabar, and Daniel Leary, newly promoted to Commander, and his crew have a new mission: Stop Dunbar’s World from falling to an invasion by the planet Pellegrino. Nataniel Arruns, son of the dictator of Pellegrino, has landed with a large contingent, intending to set himself up as the ruling warlord, with the planet’s population becoming workers—serfs—of the Pellegrinian overlords. And Dunbar’s world has no more than their local police force to oppose him.

Leary again commands the corvette Princess Cecile, but on this mission her missile tubes are empty. Only one man is in a position to aid Leary, but the rich and powerful would rather see him fail than succeed in stopping the invasion. Leary must somehow overcome a large entrenched force on an island defended by powerful plasma cannon and shipkilling missiles and backed up by a heavily armed warship in orbit, all while commanding only a small and virtually unarmed spacecraft.

But Leary again has the help of Signals Officer Adele Mundy, who can make computer networks do the apparently impossible. Leary, Mundy and the crew of the Princess Cecile have gone up against impossible odds before . . . and their opponents in those victorious missions are still wondering just what hit them.

When the Republic of Cinnabar doesn't have enough battleships to deal with all the crises in its war with the Alliance, it sends the next best thing: Commander Daniel Leary and his friend, the spy Adele Mundy. This time they're off to help the Bagarian cluster in its rebellion against the Alliance, but they'll quickly find that the worst threats to the rebels are the treacherous politicians.

Leary and Mundy use electronic espionage, sub-machine guns, and shipkilling missiles to outwit political rivals, put down mutiny, and capture an Alliance fortress. When all else fails, they'll strike for the heart of the Alliance--and then throw their tiny corvette into a major fleet action.

A cascade of non-stop action as vivid as only David Drake can write it!

Daniel Leary is Cinnabar's most successful space captain; his friend, Lady Adele Mundy, is its most efficient spy—but they've got their hands full this time as they face:

A Cinnabar Senator furious at losing an election—and still powerful enough to make her anger deadly.

The boy ruler of a star cluster who thinks he's a god—and who can sign the death warrants of even Cinnabar officials if a mad whimsy tells him to.

A world of slaves and escaped slaves, where the most savage beasts in the jungle used to be human.

An enemy base that could shrug off attack by powerful battlefleets—but which must fall to a single cruiser if Cinnabar is to survive.

From palace to reeking jungle, from gunfights in grimy hangars to the flagship's bridge during a sprawling space battle, Leary and Mundy are in the thick of it again. Watch the galaxy explode — IN THE STORMY RED SKY!

NO REST FOR THE WEARY

Captain Daniel Leary and his friend, the spy Adele Mundy, have been in the front lines of Cinnabar's struggle against the totalitarian Alliance. Now these galactic superpowers have signed a peace of mutual exhaustion--

But the jackals are moving in!

The Republic of Cinnabar was on the verge of collapse under the weight of taxes, casualties, and war's disruption of trade. That the Alliance of Free Stars was in even worse condition helped only because it has made peace possible.

Years of war have been hard on Daniel and harder still on Adele, whose life outside information-gathering is a tightrope between despair and deadly violence. Their masters in the RCN and the Republic's intelligence service have sent them to the fringes of human space to relax away from danger.

But the barbarians of the outer reaches have their own plans, plans which will bring down both Cinnabar and the Alliance. The enemies of peace include traitors, giant reptiles, and barbarian pirates whose ships can outsail even Daniel Leary's splendid corvette, the Princess Cecile.

Unless Daniel, Adele, and their unlikely allies succeed, galactic civilization will disintegrate into blood and chaos.

So they will succeed—or they'll die trying!