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The Emperor's daughter Mercedes is the first woman ever admitted to The High Ground, the elite training academy of the Solar League's Star Command, and she must graduate if she is to have any hope of taking the throne. Her classmate Tracy has more modest goals -- to defy his humble beginnings and rise to the rank of captain. But in a system rocked by political division, where women are governed by their husbands and fathers, the poor are kept in their place by a rigid class system, and the alien races have been conquered and subjugated, there are many who want them to fail.

A civil war is coming, and the political machinations of those who yearn for power threaten the young cadets. In a time of intrigue, class conflict, and alien invasion, they will be tested as they never thought possible...

Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor and the Infanta Mercedes de Arango have graduated from The High Ground and have become officers in the Orden de la Estrella. Tracy's posting aboard a battleship leads him to further doubt the intentions of the Solar League, as he and his comrades are required to "assimilate" the settlers of a Hidden World.

Meanwhile, Mercedes' own posting -- and her difficult marriage to Beauregard "Boho" Cullen, made to assure her succession of the throne -- divides her loyalties. In a society where most humans and all aliens are second-class citizens, the two young officers will have difficult choices to make...

Fourteen years have passed since he was framed for theft to cover up an imperial atrocity, and disgraced military officer Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor has built a new life for himself. Living under an assumed name as the captain of a small trading vessel crewed primarily by aliens, he and his crew engage in both legal and illegal deals just under the radar of the Solar League authorities.

At the other end of the social hierarchy, Princess Mercedes de Arango has her own problems -- the major one being the lack of an heir. Meanwhile her philandering husband Boho Cullen has ably proved the problem isn't him. With rumors of a coup swirling around the throne, Mercedes makes the desperate decision to undertake a military campaign and gain her people's allegiance through a victory. But when things go badly wrong and her future lies in the hands of the man she betrayed, Tracy has a choice to make -- can he ever forgive her?