The future has arrived at Huntington Station. Within days the orbital colony will unveil Forge, the greatest technological breakthrough since the steam engine. Scientists, journalists, and heads of state have descended upon the station from all over Earth and the surrounding colonies, all eager to witness the birth of a new scientific era.

But someone wants Forge to fail. An explosion aboard a passenger shuttle nearly kills the director of UNLD Research and draws Lieutenant Michael Barrett of the Colonial Enforcement Group into a desperate race to uncover a hidden assassin -- and Forge's true purpose -- before time runs out.

Of Stars & Shadows by Mark W. Tiedemann

One year after the Great Sack, Protector General Ril Cowel took what remained of the fleet of Camrus and set out after the empire responsible for hammering his home into oblivion, the Empire of B'Nan. Cowel chased the mythic emperor for fifteen years. At last, fate seemed to hand him his chance, and in a swift strike Cowel damaged the imperial fleet and killed B'Nan. The terror now over, he intended to dismantle the empire, to take it apart so that it could no longer destroy worlds like his own.

But the more Ril Cowel tries, the harder it seems to be rid of the vast machinery B'Nan had constructed over a thousand years or more. For the emperor was reputed to have lived the entire time his empire grew. Cowel never gave credence to such stories...until he becomes emperor himself.