Four hundred years in the future, the most dangerous criminals are kept in suspended animation aboard prison ships and "rehabilitated" in a shared virtual reality environment. But Miska Storrow, a thief and hacker with a background in black ops, has stolen one of these ships, the Hangman's Daughter, and made it her own. Controlled by explosive collars and trained in virtual reality by the electronic ghost of a dead marine sergeant, the thieves, gangsters, murderers, and worse are transformed into Miska's own private indentured army: the Bastard Legion. Are the mercenaries just for fun and profit, or does Miska have a hidden purpose connected to her covert past?

Four hundred years in the future, the most dangerous criminals are kept in suspended animation aboard prison ships and "rehabilitated" in a shared virtual reality environment. But Miska Storrow, a thief and hacker with a background in black ops, has stolen one of these ships, the Hangman's Daughter, and made it her own. Controlled by explosive collars and trained in virtual reality by the electronic ghost of a dead marine sergeant, the thieves, gangsters, murderers, and worse are transformed into Miska's own private indentured army: the Bastard Legion. In FRIENDLY FIRE, the Bastard Legion are hired to pull off a daring power-armoured heist of propriety tech. Getting the tech will be hard. Getting off the planet, deadly.

Dirty, gritty and action-packed adventure featuring the galaxy's deadliest mercenaries, THE BASTARD LEGIONMILITARY SCIENCE FICTION AT ITS BEST. 'High octane SF adventure with Smith's trademark twist' Jamie Sawyer, author of The Lazarus War It was the kind of dirty, violent work the Bastards were made for. Protect a bunch of colonists in the Epsilon Eridani system, whose moon had become a war zone as megacorp-backed mercenaries fought a brutal proxy war. Just the kind of fight the penal mercenary legion liked. But a hundred headless corpses are hard to explain, even for the Bastard Legion, and soon they are on the run, abandoned by their allies, and hunted by their most dangerous foe yet . . . but Miska's going to play them at her own game. The Bastard the galaxy's most dangerous criminals controlled by implanted explosives and trained by the electronic ghost of a dead marine. 'Gloriously action-packed and often brutal military SF adventure . . .' Publishers Weekly 'An exceptional talent' Peter F HamiltonA 'Dirty Dozen' or 'Suicide Squad' for lovers of 'Aliens', THE BASTARD LEGION series is a down and dirty military SF set in a world of mercenary actions and covert operations.