Book excerpt: Born into servitude, Jenna Riggs never knew what it was like to live a life of her choosing. When she is given the opportunity to do so, she learns a life of one's choosing is often a life paid for in blood. A soldier in the Great United Republic's space corps and trained to fight its most deadly adversaries, Riggs is now an ex-convict and wants nothing more than to put the past behind her. She finally, it seems, has the opportunity to do that; to live the life she only previously dreamed of living. There isn't much she wants, but for her, a woman created and raised to do the bidding of her government, that little bit is everything. Unfortunately, factions in the government believing she and her kind are a threat to their plans seek to rectify the situation and Riggs is forced to choose between a life lost and a life unwanted. Working for corporations in the de facto Commerce War, Riggs discovers that whatever decisions she makes only pulls her farther into an intergalactic intrigue where she is forced to question the very nature of her being while fighting for the survival of everything she cherishes.