The Blacksword Regiment

For many, the dying part is hard. For some, the living part is harder. At 16 years of age, Mathius’ life is focused on scrounging bits of food in the midst of a five-way civil war on the planet Novalis III. Two government factions and three rebel factions are all hell-bent on killing one another, and the civilian population is caught in the middle. If Mathius doesn’t find food, he and his father, mother, and sister will go hungry for the day, a not-so-unusual occurrence.

Nikaela Vreekande joins Kristdokar's clandestine operation to identify those responsible for the tragedy on Novalis III and the incident on Reisenar. Lieutenant Colonel Katrine Primatov meets with Thordahl and Brynjar on Norandyne to establish covert lines of communication between the Kelk Supremacy and the Commonwealth. John Mathius travels to Trafalgar to attend O-School. All seems well, but there are those in the Commonwealth and the Supremacy who would prefer that John and Nikaela fail, or barring that, they would see them dead.

After John and Nikaela are rescued from the rogue warship Sycorax, Katrine Primatov has only a lone hunter-killer to back her in the remote Sarkovie system, and she is faced with a Kelk force of overwhelming firepower superiority. The Kelk decide to take John and Nikaela back to Viktorkinde, whether Katrine likes it or not, and everyone is pretending they're not prisoners. But the Kelk are quietly at war among themselves, fighting their own battle against superstition and irrationality. John and Katrine begin to learn the roots of the Kelk hatred of the Blacksword.

The diplomatic mission has arrived at Viktorkinde. Palmutter is getting more unstable and unreliable each day. On Sarkovie, Anders Eindride learns that the people responsible for the tragedy on Novalis III are planning something big, a real game changer. He's unable to warn his Commonwealth contacts before being put on a ship back to Viktorkinde, where the factions among the Kelk are splintering.