Someone is lying.
Warning! Late Arrival Spoilers abound for previous books in the Starship's Mage series.
"I speak for Mars."
— Damien Montgomery
Damien Montgomery, Hand of the Mage-King, is called back to his home system of Sherwood in order to prevent a war between Sherwood and the neighboring system of Míngliàng. Both sides have anecdotal evidence that the other is engaged in piracy and murder, and are fighting over a rich mining system in the middle.
Damien fights to discover who to trust, but with every turn he finds proof of more atrocities perpetuated by both sides. He is forced to shuttle repeatedly between the systems, struggling to keep the first civil war in the history of the Protectorate from breaking out.
And throughout it all, the pirate ships have some very suspicious technological abilities...
This book provides examples of:
- Assassin Outclassin': An enemy attempts to assassinate Grace and Damien by planting explosives in the Commodore's space-station-based office, casting the two of them into deep space. Normal mages can't survive vacuum, but Damien as a Hand of the Mage-King is powerful enough to create a shield for their air supply while Grace recycles carbon dioxide into oxygen.
- Big Bad: Michael Wayne was the secret master of the pirates all the time. He was also working for a Ax-Crazy Legatus agent.
- Explosive Leash: All of the pirate officers have cranial implants that will explode if someone higher up decides they might be captured. Because they're all nihilist assholes, they tend to execute their subordinates before they die, just to make sure no one gets to live.
- False Flag Operation: The raids were organized by Legatus in order to drive two Protectorate systems into war in order to weaken the organization as a whole while also occupying the Martian fleet. It is but one of many such operations currently in place.
- Heroic Neutral: Damien keeps pointing out the Protectorate isn't about to let two member states go to war. Both are so used to thinking of themselves as sovereign nations that it doesn't really sink in.
- Honey Trap: Captain Wayne turns out to have been trying this with Grace McLaughlin. He never succeeded because he was her subordinate.
- It's Personal: Damien's home planet might be committing piracy and mass murder. Oh, and his college girlfriend is in charge of the force that's probably committing the attacks.
- Karma Houdini: The Agent who carried out all of these atrocities gets away scott free at the end.
- Mugging the Monster: The terrorists at the beginning think it's a good idea to take a Hand hostage.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Governor McLaughlin orders his granddaughter to go to war after the destruction of a colony. Against the wrong people.
- Rank Up: Commodore Grace has come a long way from being just another Jump Mage.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Damien attempts to be this and has even his considerable patience tried by the war hawks of both.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Damien repeatedly points out being a King's Hand overrules everything that the two governors think they have as precedent.
- Space Pirates: The two governments believe the other is using this as a cover story. They actually are space pirates that were recruited by Captain Wayne.
- Subspace Ansible: Neither Míngliàng or Sherwood have completed their Rune Transfer Arrays, so Damien has to relay orders either through couriers or in person, but every time he arrives in one of the systems, he discovers that something else has gone wrong. This is because Legatus has provided the pirates with "the Link," an apparently pure-technological instant communicator that can fit on a normal ship. This gives them an unmatched advantage over the Protectorate. Eventually, they overplay their hand, and Damien realizes they have this ability, though by that time their plans have already failed.
