Sten

Vulcan is a factory planet, centuries old, Company run, ugly as sin, and unfeeling as death. Vulcan breeds just two types of native - complacent or tough. Sten is tough.

Raised on the factory planet of Vulcan, Sten soon learns about the survival of the toughest. Now he wants more than survival. Sten's destiny is in his own hands.

Sten had fought his way up from slave labor on a factory world to commander of the Eternal Emperor's bodyguard, the Imperial Gurkhas. But during his first three months on Prime World, the most dangerous weapons Sten had encountered were the well–phrased lies of Court politicians. It seemed no place for an honest fighting man. But when a bomb destroys a local bar, Sten discovers the danger and corruption behind Court intrigue. Only quick work by Sten, Alex Kilgour, and a tough female detective can keep the Empire together and the Emperor alive.

The Eternal Emperor was dead, and the five members of the Privy Council ruled in his place. But they quickly discovered that their power would collapse around them if they didn't locate the Emperor's secret source of Anti-Matter Two, the economic keystone of the Empire. And so they sent a team of crack commandos to capture Sten, one of their late ruler's few surviving confidantes. But Sten, as usual, had his own agenda. For he knew something about the Eternal Emperor that would shake the Empire to its foundations. And to play his part, all Sten had to do was kill the five most powerful beings in the universe.

The once-great Imperial Navy has been shattered in battle and lies burning in space, driven by a civil war that threatens to engulf humanity's future. For the revered Eternal Emperor is not the man his subjects thought him to be-and may not even be human at all. And it is Sten-Imperial bodyguard, spy, assassin, renegade-who now leads humanity's fight for survival. Taking command of the last rebel fleet, he sets out on a desperate quest to seek and destroy the dark source of his former master's power. Denounced as a traitor, hunted by forces loyal to the Emperor, Sten must risk everything to annihilate the Empire he vowed to protect.

Sten embarks on the ultimate treasure hunt: the search for the source of the Eternal Emperor's power. But his quest uncovers the dark secret of the emperor's past - and Sten finds himself questioning his loyalties - and whether the only way to save the human race is to destroy the Empire he vowed to protect.