Silent Service

It's a time of many changes, but Explorer ship Captain Kate Landay is about to have more than she expects. On her way home from what should be her final mission, she becomes caught up in a sector-wide coup. She's accused first of insubordination, and then of treason, for refusing to sacrifice her ship and her crew to cover up a superior officer's actions.

In the harsh regime of the Sovereignty, "Questioning" is a euphemism for torture. Afterward Landay's clinically dead body is transferred, in stasis, from the penal facility at New Brixton through an interplanetary Gateway to a world reserved for exiled criminals. Her closest friend and long-time ship's surgeon accompanies her, and once on the other side Dr. Amy Salter restores Landay to life and health.

Restoring her spirit may be a larger task. But Landay has little time for post-traumatic adjustments, because the world on the Gateway's other side harbors two earlier exiles she never expected to see again.