The Duchy of Terra

Earth is conquered. Sol is lost. One ship is tasked to free them. One Captain to save them all. When an alien armada destroys the United Earth Space Force and takes control of the human homeworld, newly reinstated Captain Annette Bond must take her experimental hyperspace cruiser Tornado into exile as Terra's only interstellar privateer. She has inferior technology, crude maps, and no concept of her enemy, but the seedy underbelly of galactic society welcomes her so long as she has prizes to sell and money to spend.

When Terra knelt to an alien Imperium, they guaranteed our safety and our future. But now their enemies are coming for us. To preserve humanity's survival and freedom in a hostile galaxy, Annette Bond tied her world to the A!Tol Imperium, taking on the mantle of Duchess of Terra to rule humanity in the Imperium's name. The A!Tol have provided technology, ships, and money to uplift the new Duchy of Terra, but those gifts come with strings attached. The Imperium has their own plan for Terra - but Bond has tricks of her own.

Humanity's first colony is a project neither the Duchy of Terra nor the A!Tol Imperium can allow to fail. The planet Hope in the Alpha Centauri system has been lavished with resources and attention - but when an unknown alien force attacks the system, all of that is in danger. An ancient alien artifact is the apparent target of the attack, an artifact older than known galactic civilization. Suddenly, the backwater colony of a second-rate power is the gathering point for a confrontation of the galaxy's greatest powers.

The A!Tol Imperium and their new human subjects have had 15 years of relative peace. New colonies have been founded, new worlds explored, new ships built. Formal and informal alliances have been built with the ancient powers of the Core, leaving humanity and the Imperium seemingly on the brink of a new dawn. The devastation of one of the newly-founded human colonies sends ripples of shock through the Imperium, and a battle fleet under Fleet Lord Harriet Tanaka is dispatched to the edge of the Imperium to find the culprits and bring them to justice.