by Ann Aguirre
Part of Sirantha Jax, book 6
First published 2012
Sirantha Jax was built for grimspace. The J-gene in her DNA lets her navigate faster-than-light jumps through a dimension that kills most people who touch it. That rush is the only life she has known. But the star roads are behind her now. Her last mission lands her on La'heng, a planet that has been under foreign occupation since the moment outsiders made first contact. The La'hengrin never got a choice. Jax means to give them one. She joins a ground-level resistance movement with no military rank and no rulebook, learning on the fly how spies operate and how wars are fought street by street. She is better at flying through impossible space than she is at navigating political betrayal, and La'heng has plenty of both. The people she fights alongside become the people she fights for. Not all of them will survive. This is the mission she cannot jump away from, and the cost of winning may be higher than anything grimspace ever asked of her.
Genres: science-fiction, military-fiction, adventure, action, espionage, political-thriller
Vibes: character-driven, emotionally-intense, fast-paced, gritty, high-stakes, suspenseful
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family, reluctant-hero, sacrifice-and-duty
Setting: La'heng, grimspace
337 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Ace
Content warnings: death, violence, war