Publisher's Synopsis
In this the second novel of the Teasdale stories:
Tensy, having adjusted to life in the Kingdom Navy, finds herself dumped out of it. She's not quite on the beach on half pay, but it may prove even worse. For she's released from the Kingdom Navy and placed into the Royal Orclands Navy. The "navy" owned and operated by the Royal Orclands Trading Company, the private company that actually owns the Kingdom's possessions in the Orclands. As a midshipman, Tensy had found her career and her life put in danger by corruption, and now she's going to be working for a company so large as to act like a government. Where, from all reports, corruption is a job requirement.
For Peter Banyan it's even worse, because in a way it's his fault. He and the knowledge he brings from his life as Peter Bradley are the reason that they are being sent to the Orclands. The government wants that knowledge safe in the Orclands, far from the agents of Emperor Carlos Napalaltos of Parise.
Meanwhile, Tensy and Peter have to deal with a grandmaster wizard and the High Intercessor of the goddess of death. And the goddess of death wants to have a few words with Peter. Finally, with his memories from Peter Bradley, he's not at all sure he's on the right side in the conflict.
For the captain and crew of the Lenny, the issues are no more straightforward. They aren't in the Kingdom navy anymore, and they are having to add orcs to the crew, but their ship is a better and more comfortable place to work than it ever has been. Their chance of surviving battle is greater, which they will prove in their first mission after arriving in the Orclands.
A WarSpell multiverse series, in a world where war ships are just starting to make the change from ballistae to cannon that use a magically created gunpowder. We have a modern American introducing technology and concepts like freedom and individual rights, and a young lieutenant having to learn to understand those new concepts even as she learns to be the officer she has come to want to be.
