Exigence: Book Three of the Prison Ship Sheol Saga

The Bedlam Galaxy lies at the heart of the Laniakea Supercluster and is a focal point for all of the wormhole transits spanning that great expanse. Among the many races drawn to and inhabiting its 10,000+ stars, humanity is one of the most recent and longest anticipated additions. Once nearly driven to the brink of extinction by violent and irreconcilable divides within the dominant cultures of their homeworld, new technologies emerged to save the species from their own folly and helped propel them into a new age of interstellar exploration. Inevitably, that drive into the stars led to the discovery of their own wormhole transit at the edge of the solar system, and from there they ran straight into the waiting arms of Bedlam's ancient multi-species intergalactic trade and defense alliance, known colloquially as the Alliant. Having been coerced to board the all female maximum-security galactic prison ship known as the Sheol in order to perform one vital repair, Vahkis Greye has since survived attempts on his life by marauding aliens, homicidal inmates, out-of-control robots, a malfunctioning AI, and even his own government. He successfully stopped the dying ship from coming apart and destroying everyone on board, not to mention the star system around them, only to be rewarded with betrayal. In a bid to turn the Sheol and its devastating firepower into a weapon against humanity, the supremacist Cutter gang came out of hiding and attacked the survivors, killing many of his supporters and attempting to torture him into subservience. With the Cutters now little more than a series of stubborn stains left on the bulkheads of medium security block, those among the dwindling prison population that still remain must quickly pull together to salvage what they can from the fallout and turn to face the next in their long line of existential crises: Starvation. Less than three days of rations remain, and with hydroponics destroyed and the rest of the galaxy screaming for their blood, prospects for resupply look grim. But the vagaries of fate and the experimental Crossfold Drive have dropped them in the Caer Desdemona system, cradle of the semi-parasitic Eisheth people, and opportunity soon knocks in the form of an unexpected narrow beam transmission from Houska, their homeworld. Flowery words and other enticements aside, their demand is straight-forward. Come to dinner. We have business to discuss. Be forewarned! In addition to bawdy action-filled adventures, criminal hijinks, and the occasional exploration of dark and heavy topics, this series contains depictions of alien morality and cultural norms, as well as relationships that could be considered non-traditional... you know, for humans. View Less