Publisher's Synopsis
Avara Serros, Captain of the QS Excalibur, decorated Human war hero and famed Quorum Shield Operative, must lead her handpicked SpecOps team, Nova Squad, on a mission that will determine the future of the Quorum Aligned Systems: war or peace with the Karukai Imperium. Tasked to obtain critical intelligence that irrefutably proves Karukai mass military buildup in order to mobilize skeptical Quorum leaders to action, Captain Serros and Nova Squad navigate the dangerous center of organized crime of the Unaligned Systems, the planet Vhesper. Vhesper, governed by a Plutocracy, where anything imagined can be found for a price, and sentient life is the cheapest commodity of all. Yet time is rapidly slipping away. A historic Peace Conference between the Quorum and Imperium is scheduled to take place in two months' time on the Vosaia space station of R'sella, a Conference in which the militaristic intentions of the Karukai must be brought to light to ensure the safety not only of the Conference attendees, but the preservation of the Quorum itself. The demands of this mission will draw the crew of the QS Excalibur into the dark reaches of the unknown as they sift through a criminal empire to rival any planetary government and most perilous of all, are inextricably caught by a deadly clash of political maneuvering both within and outside of the Quorum. As the fragile status quo of the ongoing cold war between the Quorum and the Imperium is threatened on all sides, Captain Avara Serros and Nova Squad will be propelled beyond the very limit of physical and emotional endurance as the fragility of life is made manifest, secrets are revealed, and war in which the death and enslavement of trillions of people comes ever closer to reality. Will Avara and the Squad succeed in their mission and the Quorum triumph, or shatter along with galactic peace? Continuing the story of Nova, The Dark Reach Wars Vol. I, Shatter, The Dark Reach Wars Vol. II features complex and highly diverse characters in a gritty narrative that blends heart-racing firefights, suspense, romance, and tension-laden struggles for survival within the context of looming war. Set in the far future when Earth no longer exits and Humans are only one of a dozen sentient species, Shatter is epic cinema made page-turning literature set in a fully realized futuristic world.
