The story begins with the eponymous space pirate and his partner Isis Lagato working to sabotage the sensors of the Durendal, a destroyer of the Solar Navy captained by Hadron's former friend and current nemesis Elgar Humboldt, only to happen upon a secret document concerning artifacts connected to the downfall of the Sagittarian Empire and the legendary "Wargod's Tomb". Unable to resist getting involved, they soon find themselves journeying across space after these artifacts in search of the Tomb, but they're not the only ones: fellow space pirate and Laszlo's other nemesis Morgan Strannik is also after the artifacts, and the Solar Commonwealth is moving to secure the situation, fearing that fooling around with the Tomb could lead to disaster on a galactic scale.
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This novel includes examples of:
- Action Prologue: The story starts with Laszlo sneaking his way into the Durendal's systems... and fighting his way out again.
- A Dog Named "Dog": A Cat Girl named Isis Lagato?
- Alien Arts Are Appreciated: A lot of Areton Sarm's collection consists of artifacts from alien cultures, one of the Sagittarian artifacts being among them.
- The Alleged Car: Morgan Strannik's ship, the Corsair, is sixty years old and shows its age. The events of the story are also not kind to it.
- Antimatter: The starships in the novel are powered by antiproton reactors and the Wargod is crippled using a bomb containing "antithorium".
- Attack Drone: The security of Sel'Akis consists largely of these and the Wargod deploys a massive fleet of automated warships.
- Badass Cape: Laszlo wears one with sound-dampening tech over his spacesuit. Morgan doesn't like it nearly as much.
- Bad to the Last Drop: At one point, Laszlo wakes himself with a mug of a Navy blend called "fighter fuel". The first swig makes him grimace.
- Big Dumb Object: Mat's physical form is a sphere the size of a star.
- Bookcase Passage: Areton Sarm conceals the elevator to his treasure vault with one of these, much to Laszlo's delight.
- City on the Water: Terratropolis, the capital city of Earth and the Solar Commonwealth, sits in the Atlantic Ocean.
- Continuous Decompression: Opening the Durendal's hangar door and disabling its Containment Field results in this, until the crew can get things back under control.
- Collector of the Strange: Areton Sarm owns a vast trove of artifacts from various cultures and periods of history, ranging from old alien warships to a Tyrannosaurus skeleton.
- Cool Starship: The Wyvern is a military prototype modified from a civilian freighter, equipped with hidden weapons and a cloaking device.
- Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Laszlo is only too eager to stick his nose in the Sagittarian investigation once he learns about it.
- Cyborg: Numerous characters have cybernetic enhancements:
- Isis has neural and retinal implants to assist in hacking computer systems.
- Emara Larroe, the Durendal's chief engineer, has cybernetic arms.
- Lord Admiral Rigel's entire body is cybernetic.
- Dismantled Macguffin: The first half of the story is concerned with tracking down three shards of a larger Sagittarian artifact.
- Dramatic Space Drifting: Isis reaches Sel'Akis by jumping out of the Wyvern as it flies over the planetoid's surface, iving her a few moments of this.
- EMP: The Corsair carries a cargo of EMP mines, which it repeatedly uses to great effect.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Two methods seem to be in common use by the Commonwealth: one that sends ships through "metaspace", and another that generates a "nullspace manifold".
- Great Offscreen War: The Sagittarian Extinction is the one most relevant to the story, but also mentioned are the Solar War, the Imperial Wars, and the Interregnum.
- Government Agency of Fiction: The Department Of Operations plays a large role in the story, overseeing events and interceding from time to time with little in the way of explanation.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Captain Humboldt's general response to dealing with people he doesn't like.
- Intelligent Gerbil: Larroe is a "Suura", and is described as otter-like.
- Invisibility Cloak: Isis wears a stealth suit to infiltrate Sel'Akis.
- I Surrender, Suckers: When the Corsair is cornered by a Solar Navy battlegroup, the fight ends quickly. But by hooking their reactor ignition to emergency power, the crew can start up the ship quickly and capture the last of the artifacts before getting away.
- Legend Fades to Myth: The Sagittarians existed two million years ago, and the Extinction almost completely wiped out their empire. So little remains of them that both they and the Extinction "are as much myth as history".
- Lost Superweapon: The Wargod is assumed to be this, based on the name. It is, but it has a mind of its own.
- Mile-Long Ship: Plenty:
- The SNV Orion, flagship of the Solar Navy, is thirty kilometres long.
- The Ouroboros is a space station that completely encircles Earth.
- The Wargod dwarfs the Orion, at three hundred kilometres long.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The ominousness of the name "Wargod's Tomb" is repeatedly acknowledged."Now, I don't know what that might have meant to the Sagittarians, but to me it means trouble."
- Non-Human Non-Binary:
- Commnader Leurak of the Durendal and Ankerak of the Corsair are both Ylerakk, and are referred to with xe/xir pronouns.
- Mat is a star-sized megastructure, and is referred to as "they".
- Outrun the Fireball
- Precursors: The Sagittarian Empire.
- Ragnarök Proofing: Despite their age, what little survives of the Sagittarians is in remarkably good condition.
- Recruiting the Criminal: After being captured by the Commonwealth, Laszlo and Isis are cpntracted to steal one of the artifacts from Areton Sarm's collection.
- Secret Government Warehouse: Sel'Akis is one of these.
- Self-Healing Phlebotinum: The secret behind Sagittarian technology's Ragnarök Proofing. It also allows the Wargod and its ships to repair themselves very quickly.
- Space Fighter: Quite a few of these crop up. Laszlo's personal starfighter, the Eaglehawk, is of particular note.
- Space Mines: The Corsair uses a number of these.
- Space Pirates: Laszlo Hadron, Isis Lagato, and Morgan Strannik and his crew.
- Stealth in Space: The Wyvern is equipped with numerous devices to render it invisible and undetectable.
- Surveillance Drone: Mat uses one of these to join in on the adventure remotely, since their form is neither mobile nor portable.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Captain Humboldt is very much not happy about working with Laszlo and Isis.
- Time Abyss: The Sagittarian Empire existed two million years ago.
- Unrealistic Black Hole: The SNV Orion's Black Shield Device generates and fires artificial black holes, which it uses to finally take out the Wargod when the antithorium bomb doesn't do the job.
- We Used to Be Friends: Laszlo and Elgar used to be best friends in Naval Academy, until Laszlo decided that military life wasn't for him.
