Blood Enemies

Book excerpt: A NEW ENTRY IN THE LEGENDARY, CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED UNDER JURISDICTION SERIES! TO END A GENOCIDAL MENACE, A RETIRED TORTURER MUST AGAIN TAKE UP HIS HATED TRADE Andrej Koscuisko is a former Fleet Medical Officer for the enormous totalitarian star empire, the Jurisdiction. But when he served in the Fleet, Andrej’s real job was not medicine, at least not primarily medicine, but to act as a torturer of prisoners, whether they had information to give or not. To help him in his duties, Andrej was attended by “bond involuntaries”—slaves—men he’d come to look upon as friends and family. Finally, enough was enough. Andrej absconded with six of his Fleet-provided security slaves and sent them into the no-man’s land of Gonebeyond Space—beyond the reach of the Jurisdiction’s tyrannical Bench. Now The Angel of Death, a savage terrorist organization from Andrej’s system of origin, means to make Gonebeyond its own. But its ancestral enemy – the secret service of the Dolgorukij church, the Malcontent – has planted a double agent on the inside of the Angel of Death. Finally this interstellar menace might be destroyed forever. But there is trouble. Andrej Koscuisko wasn’t expected to escape from protective custody at Safehaven Medical Center and come looking for his freed bond involuntaries, and now the Malcontent faces Andrej’s unplanned intervention at the worst possible time. Now the only way to save the mission and bring down an organization that has slain whole systems of men, women, and children is for Andrej to embrace the savagery in his own heart and once again take on the role of Judicial torturer—a role that he had fought long and hard to escape. He must deploy every dirty trick and brutal stratagem he knows against the Malcontent agent whose secret he has unwittingly betrayed. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About Blood Enemies: "A very satisfying entry in a very scary series!"—Janis Ian "Starting with An Exchange of Hostages, I devoured Susan R. Matthews 'Koscuisko' novels—all six of them—when they first appeared. Books with this much courage, clarity, and empathy are rare. The Under Jurisdiction series is a remarkable and unprecedented accomplishment.”—Stephen R. Donaldson, New York Times best-selling author of the Thomas Covenant series. More praise for Susan R. Matthews: “[Matthews] brilliantly uses science fiction’s freedom of creation to make a world in which she can explore deep moral conflicts.”—Denver Post “. . . has a dark energy . . . an extremely compelling read.”—New York Review of Science Fiction “A chilling and engaging novel of false accusation and the power of personal responsibility.”—Booklist on Angel of Drestruction “A tightly woven space opera full of grand heroic gestures and characters strong enough to sustain all the action.”—Booklist on The Devil and Deep Space