For the children of Admiral Alexader York, perfection wasn't just
expected, it was guaranteed--written into their DNA before they were
born.
But while Samantha grew into the physical and mental marvel their father
had bought and paid for, her twin brother Edward proved a
disappointment. Genetic tinkering had raised Sam above the common herd,
but Edward's faultless body housed a faulty brain.
It took all the Admiral's influence to get Edward commissioned in the
Outward Fleet Explorer Corps--a fiercely independent band of misfits who
referred to themselves proudly as Expendables. Accompanying Sam on a
mission to the troubled planet of Troyen, home to the alien Mandasar,
Edward found himself in the midst of a civil war. There, in an instant
of horrifying insanity, Sam was killed, along with the alien hive-queen.
For the next 20 years, Edward was exiled to a lonely outpost on one of
Troyen's moons, blamed by the Admiral for Sam's death--and blaming
himself as well. But when escalating violence forces the evacuation of
the system, Edward embarks on a perilous journey home that will lead hin
into a forgotten past--and, with the assistance of another
ex-Expendable, the greatest Explorere of them all, the legendary Admiral
Festina Ramos, into a future thick with conspiracy and betrayal. For
there lurks a dark secret powerful enough to bury the hopes of human and
Mandasar alike...or give them a new and brighter beginning.
