Conquerors' Pride

A long era of peace and prosperity in the interstellar Commonwealth has suddenly come to an end. Alien starships of unknown origin have attacked, without provocation, an eight-ship Peacekeeper task force, destroying it in six savage minutes. The authorities claim there were no survivors. But Lord Stewart Cavanagh, a former member of Parliament, has learned through back channels that one man might have survived alien captivity - his own son. Cavanagh recruits the Commonwealth's version of "top guns" - the Copperheads - to defy security and risk the most dangerous rescue mission imaginable: to snatch Pheylan Cavanagh from the Conquerors.