Prologue

**Winner of the Wattpad Bookshop Gauntlet, January 2019**
The M'Nean Ambassador is dead. Once tasked with his protection, Commander Neylan Haas of the Admiralty's Regulator Force now finds herself accused of his murder. On the run from her own people, Haas takes shelter in the Lazaretto, a plague ravaged sector of Orionid space.

Surrounded by the pirates and smugglers she once hunted, Haas must enlist the help of some unlikely allies to uncover the true reason for the M'Nean Ambassador's murder, but in doing so she will discover a long buried secret. One that has the power to plunge Orionid space in to all out war.