Upgraded to defend her world, Haru-vel is unsurprised to find herself fighting alongside the Kek. She’s shocked when she’s handed to them... permanently. When they faced an incoming invading force, the Myvik turned to the Kek—mercenaries who travelled the stars and fought your enemy... for a price. The arrival date was ten days after the invaders were due to arrive, so they needed to buy themselves time. Thirty years earlier, the Myvik had hired the Kek, and the defenders had left something behind. Children. Haru-vel was named for the father she had never met, and her mother was the planet’s greatest biologist, and she made sure that her daughter was trained and ready to defend her world, along with nineteen others who were treated to a genetic cocktail of unknown origin, except it wasn’t. Her mother knew very well where the material had come from. It had been left after a memorable night thirty years earlier.