Embers of War

The Trouble Dog was born for war: a sentient Carnivore-class warship made to calculate violence with perfect grace. But after the horror of Pelapatarn, she could no longer bear the blood on her hull. She abandoned the fleet that shaped her and joined the House of Reclamation, carrying Captain Sal Konstanz and a crew devoted not to conquest, but to rescue. When a passenger vessel vanishes in a contested region of space, the Trouble Dog answers the distress call. Among the missing is Ona Sudak, a woman whose name is tangled with propaganda, guilt, and the old war’s deepest wounds. What begins as a mercy mission draws Sal, Ona, and the ship herself toward alien mysteries and human enemies alike, forcing the Trouble Dog to face the terrible question she has tried to outrun: whether a weapon can ever become something better.