Remnants of Trust

Commander Shaw of the starship Galileo must thread the needle between justice and revenge in this sequel to The Cold Between.

Early in her Central Corps career, Elena Shaw, then assigned to the starship Exeter, was part of a botched evacuation of a dying colony planet. Eight years later, Galileo arrives too late to save Exeter from an attack by Syndicate raiders. Exeter is nearly destroyed in the attack, and Elena is left searching the devastated corridors of her old home for survivors, the ship she once knew now torn apart and left for scrap.

But when Elena begins piecing together clues about the attack, she learns the raiders weren't after the ship, but a disgraced officer Exeter was escorting to prison. Elena knows this officer, recently court-martialed for refusing what Elena believes was an illegal order. Uncertain of the prisoner's culpability in the attack, she's happy to focus on pursuing the attackers. She's less happy with Central's explicit statement that it'd be fortuitous if the prisoner died during retrieval.

When the prisoner's trail leads to the location of Elena's early, failed mission, she finds news of the colony's death has been greatly exaggerated-and begins to understand why Central wants the prisoner eliminated. Turns out exacting justice for Exeter might mean keeping alive a fugitive everyone else wants dead.