The Phoenix Initiative

On the African savanna, the male lion is the lord who watches over his family, while the females of the clan do the real work. Joel “The Lyon” Lyons thought that owning a mercenary company would be similar—he could sit back and allow the Lyoness to run the Pride. Everything would go well, money from successfully completed contracts would flow like water into his bank accounts, and everything would be as easy as it had been for him when he’d owned a chain of highly successful restaurants.

Tald is the first SalSha Peacemaker Candidate…ever. Some would say he’s not smart enough or good enough to be a Peacemaker, or that the uplift designed to make him a “Sha” failed in his case.

Captain Sunshine Luo, the last surviving member of the Kakata Korps, has overcome much in her young life. Once a slave, later a mercenary and company owner, she has become the epitome of the word “survivor.” Now, she needs to be something more.

Working together, Captain Sunshine Luo and Peacemaker Jessica Francis have tied the Crusaders, two different guilds, and the synthetic intelligences to the most heinous criminal acts in the history of the Galactic Union. Each of them knows what must be done, and they go their separate ways as friends—and allies—to right the wrongs.

Khatash has been retaken, but the price was steep, and Okeo, Dama of Clan Shadow Fury, and Zatohachi, her blind swordsman companion, are working to rebuild it. But when the father of Okeo’s kits goes missing on a mission to track down information on the illicit Malluma Songo trade on a pleasure planet, Okeo and Zato head out to investigate. What they don’t know is that her rebellious, sole remaining kit and the kit’s teenage companion are tagging along for the trip, and they have a much different approach to the search.

Nigel Shirazi, the Speaker of the Merc Guild, knows that war is coming and he’s not ready. He needs to build up the mercenary forces after years of war, and he’s proclaimed the Phoenix Initiative to give people who want to start new companies the opportunity to do so. CASPers are cheaper and financed at lower rates, and the government of Earth is offering bounties to take the mercs from alien races off the planet. Now is the time!

Rick Walker is a veteran, but he’s also the newest scout sniper with BRASS, Inc., the finest scout sniper company in the Mercenary Guild. They infiltrate undetected to identify and terminate targets, then exfiltrate after delivering surgical destruction. Assault troopers love to have them paving the way and clearing obstacles because BRASS gives them the edge. When Ben’s Bravos took on the mission to rescue a scientist held in a jungle fortress, therefore, there was only one company to call to scout the objective—BRASS, Inc.

Born into the Scarlet Rabbit's mercenary company, Sakura Ike learned the art of combat before she learned how to serve tea as a Geisha. For her, fighting in a CASPer mech suit is as natural as breathing. The job was simple: get down to the planet Wh'ton, retrieve the box, come home, and get paid. Easy. But then tragedy struck, and the only family she had left was her aunt Katsume and a mother that never loved her.

The Winged Hussars, the only one of the Four Horsemen mercenary organizations to specialize in space warfare, have succeeded in what is arguably the most difficult branch of the profession. Alexis Cromwell is now the longest-serving commander in Hussars’ history, and her long-term romance with Nigel Shirazi, commander of Asbaran Solutions, has finally resulted in a complicated marriage and two equally complicated children.

College graduate Danny Prescott is looking forward to rejoining the family’s mercenary unit, Prescott Defense Services, as a full-fledged member. He’s ready to prove himself and follow in the footsteps of his parents. When he gets home, though, things don’t seem right. His father, Jack, is less involved in the unit’s affairs, and nobody wants to talk about what’s wrong. A strike contract for the Merchant Guild seems like just the ticket to get PDS fired up, but Jack Prescott won’t bid on it.

After being saddled with a money-pit spaceship needing a long list of repairs, Jonathan Smith has bills to pay to keep the Sub Rosa Infiltration Company afloat, and when the perfect reconnaissance and retrieval contract falls into his lap, he snaps it up. But when he finds out what he’s supposed to snatch, it becomes obvious that there’s more in play than what their employer let on, and a second guild war could result from the research being conducted on the small planetoid.

Lieutenant Bree “Ducky” Alcuin returned from her first contract and learned her best friend was missing, along with her entire merc company. When a trio of Flatar showed up and delivered a message—Rebel was alive and a captive of the Science Guild—Ducky decided to do whatever it took to get her back. Including calling in a certain favor token.