A Roil of Stars

By Don Wismer

Ryne Sangre has always thought of himself as a coward. He tried to avoid danger and conflict as much as possible. Yet somehow he ended up as a frontline fighter pilot, training in the newest, best fighter the armed forces had developed.
Ryne is a citizen of the Polar Cloud, a group of planets inhabited by humans descended from an earlier group of pioneers from Earth. Left on their own for a very long time, they created their own government apart from their earthly origins. But now the rulers of the Wholeth Empire, powerful women with amazing ESP abilities, are set on gathering their lost tribes back into the fold. But the Polar Cloud is not going down without a fight.
Meanwhile, Ryne becomes entangled with a determined young woman who talks him into taking her aboard the new fighter ship in which he has been training. Turns out she isn't just curious, she hijacks the ship with Ryne aboard and sets out on an expedition to find her parents, lost years ago in a disturbed area of space called the Roil. But when they reach the Roil, they and the fighter ship fall into the clutches of the Wholeth Empire. Now not only is Ryne responsible for the theft of one of the Polar Cloud's most secret and valuable fighter craft, he has delivered it straight into the hands of the enemy. Looks like there is no going back for the Polar Cloud's biggest coward.

This book was OK. Ryne has lots of adventures and finds out somethings about himself. He does manage to scrape through somehow and eventually is able to help his people in their stand against the enemy. But the ending just kind of peters out with a brief explanation of how the critical lost data was recovered.