A SalSha, a Veetanho, a Depik, and a Phidae walk into a case… Tald is the first SalSha Peacemaker Candidate… ever. Some would say he’s not smart enough or good enough to be a Peacemaker, or that the uplift designed to make him a “Sha” failed in his case. He’s determined to prove them wrong. But when he’s given the mission of finding the missing Veetanho Keesius ships—vessels that have the capability to destroy planets—it quickly becomes apparent that there are more forces at play in the galaxy than are obvious at first glance. Worse, most of them don’t expect him to succeed… and others don’t want him to. Tald has an ace up his sleeve, though. His father—who he’s lived in the shadow of, his entire life—has been a member of the Golden Horde mercenary organization for as long as there have been SalSha, and Tald knows Sansar Enkh, the head of the company. Tald thinks he knows what he’s doing—he’s worked hard and studied harder at the Academy, after all—but when he finds out that things aren’t quite the way they were portrayed in school, he rapidly finds himself in over his head, with deputies that seem more intent on killing each other than solving the case. Can Tald find the missing ships or will other factions use them to start the next Great Galactic War?