Hex Thorn is a former soldier for the Dominion. He’s out on his own some five years after the War supposedly ended against the Union of Free Worlds. It’s not been easy for Thorn. He’s a conic gamblers who plays cards for a living and his living hasn’t been so great lately. At the beginning of this story he’s being roughed up by a ganger named Frokk. This is a Slith alien that, unfortunately, Thorn owes money to Frokk, lots of money. He has no way of paying it back right now so he’s in a particularly nasty bind.
Thorn finds himself in a conversation with a local pawn shop owner. Because of his war record, Thorn has a good collection of medals, many representing bravery and valor in combat. The pawn shop owner is reluctant to buy these medals, especially for the price Thorn is asking. The pawn shop clerk asks Thorn if he intends to take the money he gets and go gamble some more. That’s exactly what Thor had planned to do figuring he had just enough time to win enough to pay off Frokk if his luck held. The pawn shop owner tells Thorn to come to his office so they can discuss this purchase in more detail.
It turns out the pawn shop owner is actually Lieutenant Puulico Yin Sobsyg, Internal Special Security Division of the Dominion military. I didn’t make up these names, that’s the fault of the authors. The Lieutenant (Lt.) tells Thorn he has a job that needs to be done and is willing to pay-off all of Thorns gambling debts plus pay one year of rent to his landlord, which of course is way overdue. Thorn doesn’t want anything to do with the Dominion military. He swore he’d never go back into uniform again. The war that was supposed to be over is still going on, but no one talks about it any more. Dominion could be losing the war and that’s not going to be good for anyone.
But, the job Lt. Sobsyg has for Thorn involves the capture of one Doctor Attica Tharand, Chief Scientist at the Esperon Institute. The Lt. is even sweeting the deal by throwing in a Lancer, a small blockade runner displacing 200 tons. He’s also talking about paying Thorn 500 million credits once Doctor Tharand is delivered. That’s a lot of money and the Lancer will be signed over to Thorn while he’s using it and it will be his at the successful completion of the mission. The Lt. says he’ll provide the crew, but Thorn doesn’t want to take that part of the deal. He says he’ll provide his own crew which the Lt. agrees to on one condition, the Lt. will be part of that crew!
So, after Thorn finds out that Frokk isn’t waiting any longer for his money and that Frokk just as well wants Thorn dead, Thorn decides to accept the Lieutenant’s offer. He goes about collecting a few of the people he used to work with and those that still call him a friend. That comes to a crew of four plus the Lt. Then they set out to find the good/bad doctor.
The only problem is that Hex Thorn just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Even when his crew tells him not to go to a particular section of space, that’s where he heads. Once there he finds a luxury yacht being attacked by two pirate vessels. Noticing that the yacht belongs to the House Oreah, Thorn believes there could be a big reward if he can come to the vessels rescue. Again, his crew tell him that’s not their mission and to forget this little side venture. Of course Thorn doesn’t and because he’s the Captain of the Lancer, they go do what he says.
This is where all of their future problems begin. Thorn falls into one trap after another and winds up getting some of his crew and friends killed. He also gets thrown into a fighting arena, drugged up until he doesn’t know what’s going on and then gets accused of releasing a mysterious alien entities that had been locked behind quantum gates for almost ten-thousand years! These are the Kethurg and they will spell the doom of everything in the universe!
Not a bad book for the start of the series. The title hints to a mysterious group that comes to Thorn’s rescue at times. Yet, there isn’t much of a war with the Kethurg in this book. Maybe they’ll really show up in book 2, “Frontier Worlds”.