Sten

Born on Vulcan, a factory planet where human life has less value than the lowliest machine, Sten rebels against The Company following the mysterious death of his parents. He harasses the Company from the mazelike warren of tunnels beneath the planet. He could have been just another "delinq" - but people like Sten never give up...

Set three thousand years in the future, the eight Sten novels tell the tale of a tough, street-wise orphan who escapes his fate as factory planet "delinq" to become the strong right-hand of the most powerful man in the Universe - a man hailed by his billons of subjects as "The Eternal Emperor." When the Emperor needs to pacify the Wolf Worlds, the planets of an insignificant cluster that have raised space piracy to a low art, he turns to Mantis Team and its small band of militant problem-solvers. Sten's destiny is in his own hands.

MUTINY! In the Eternal Emperor's Service, it is forbidden to even speak the word. To join an insurgency is a firing-squad offense. So, when the crewmembers of the Flame turn traitor and steal an entire space train of Imperium X - the second most valuable element in the Empire - and threaten to sell it to the Emperor's enemies, the Emperor only has one option ... to send in his best assassin and dirty trickster: Sten! This thrilling new Sten adventure builds on the classic 8-volume series created by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch.

With the Empire poised on the edge of war, Sten spearheads the Eternal Emperor's crackdown on the pirates and traitorous profiteers who are arming his enemies with vital war supplies. A trap is baited to lure the villains into a truel - a three-way duel. Only one thing stands in Sten's way: Venatora, the beautiful pirate queen he's grown to love. When it comes down to it, can he overcome loyalty and duty and pull the trigger?

Having fought his way from slave labor on a factory world to commander of the Eternal Emperor's bodyguard, the most dangerous weapons Sten has encountered in Prime World are the lies of Court politicians. When a bomb goes off, however, he discovers the danger and corruption behind Court intrigue.

Sten's luck seems to have deserted him. He had barely scraped through Imperial flight school when he was assigned a tacdivision in the Fringe Worlds. The enemy couldn't have picked a better time or place to launch their long-planned attack against the Empire. But Sten won't give up without a fight...

Sten fully expected to die in a blaze of glory, taking his Emperor's greatest foe with him. Instead, he is a slave laborer in a POW camp deep in the heart of enemy territory. But sitting out the action had never been Sten's style. And now that the war is building to a climax, the Eternal Emperor needs him more than ever. Not even the toughest prison in the known universe can keep Sten from his mission...

The Eternal Emperor was dead, and the five members of the Privy Council ruled in his place. But they quickly discovered that their power would collapse around them if they didn't locate the Emperor's secret source of Anti-Matter Two, the economic keystone of the Empire. And so they sent a team of crack commandos to capture Sten, one of their late ruler's few surviving confidantes. But Sten, as usual, had his own agenda. For he knew something about the Eternal Emperor that would shake the Empire to its foundations. And to play his part, all Sten had to do was kill the five most powerful beings in the universe!

The Eternal Emperor had returned at last from the dead, to pick up the pieces of his crumbling Empire. But even that great leader could not halt the Empire's decline alone. And so Sten - master spy, military strategist, and assassin - found himself appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Altaic Cluster, where a brewing civil war threatened the stability of the Empire itself. Quelling a civil war is nothing new for Sten, but as the war intensifies, he begins to suspect that he is up against more than a mere local disturbance. Someone - operating in deep-cover and seemingly backed by the highest authorities - is working behind the scenes to manipulate events and escalate disaster. And that someone wants nothing more than to see Sten dead...

The Empire is in chaos. The once-great Imperial Navy has been shattered in battle and lies burning in space, riven by a civil war that threatens to engulf humanity's future. For the revered Eternal Emperor is not the man his subjects thought him to be. And it is Sten - Imperial bodyguard, spy, assassin, renegade - who now leads humanity's fight for survival. Taking command of the last rebel fleet, he sets out on a desperate quest to seek and destroy the dark source of his former master's power. Denounced as a traitor, hunted by forces loyal to the Emperor, Sten must risk everything to annihilate the Empire he vowed to protect.