Flashpoint

With the frontier worlds going down before the Zunshu and the DeepSky Fleet headed out with orders to extinguish the Colonial Wars, the board is set, the pieces are positioned. Neil Travers and Curtis Marin are in Freespace, hunting for old enemies. The rogue industrialist behind the near destruction of Omaru is hiding on Halfway in the fortified heights of a lawless space city where anything goes, from the dark, violent underbelly to a dazzling place called Xanadu. The data trail leading to Zwerner takes Richard Vaurien’s crew through the muck trodden by slave dealers. They’re after the survivors of the super-carrier Shanghai who made it through the Battle of Ulrand only to be snatched by unscrupulous traders, sold in hellish colonies on the wrong side of the frontier. Harrison Shapiro wants them back, and the trail sends the Wastrel to an open-pit mine of a world. The slaves are just part of the treasure that might be seized – and perhaps another clue to the secrets of the Zunshu will be uncovered.