Twenty-two years before the fall of Dakiti, a great conflict rages on the edge of populated space. Known throughout local systems as the Fringe War, the fight pits the superhuman natives of Haphez against the sly, semi-amphibious Sardons and their allies. The Sardons' goal? Gain control of a powerful Haphezian healing agent called caura...by force, if necessary.

Four years after the Resistance's plan for retribution was foiled, the galaxy as a whole is at peace. The people of Haphez remain independent and free of Federation scrutiny thanks to a major sacrifice by one of their own. Those affected by the loss have found new purpose. Life goes on. But when commissioned with hunting down a rogue Haphezian assassin, Aroska Tarbic, Skeet Duvo, and Zinni Vax find themselves caught in the midst of a war between two major players in the galactic underworld.

Two thousand years into the future, runaway pollution has made the earth uninhabitable except in giant biodomes. The society is an anarchy, with disputes mediated through the Machiavellian Committee for the Revolution. Mars, Venus, and the moon support flourishing colonies of various political stripes. On the fringes of the solar system, in the gas planets, a strange, new, violent kind of human has evolved.

When an ordinary flight spirals into a hostage crisis, Air Marshal Alex Hawkins is the plane’s sole protector against a deadly hijacking. With hundreds of lives at stake, he must outwit the terrorists and avert an international catastrophe—from 30,000 feet in the air. One wrong move, and they are all dead.

Daniel McEvoy has a problem. Well, really, he has several, but for this Irish ex-pat bouncer at a seedy, small-time casino, the fact that his girlfriend was just murdered in the parking lot is uppermost in his mind. That is until lots of people around him start dying, and not of natural causes. Suddenly, Daniel’s got half the New Jersey mob, dirty cops, and his man-crazy upstairs neighbor after him, and he still doesn't know what's going on.