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All’s fair in love and war!

Roland Tankowicz is not a complex man. After securing victory over The Brokerage, all he wants is to get back to work maintaining the balance of power in Dockside. He’s perfectly happy with an honest day’s work of busting heads followed by a quick jaunt over to his favorite bar for a beer. Too bad the universe has other pans.

A cryptic job offer from a good client hurls New Boston’s most infamous team of fixers hundreds of light-years from Earth. At first, the gig seems normal enough: Stop a rampaging android before it destroys a whole colony of unarmed scientists. Other than the obvious lies being told by the client and the addition of several competing mega-corporations, it’s pretty standard fare for Roland and his team.

But things take a turn for the bizarre when Pike’s Privateers show up with information that changes their corporate milk run into a quagmire of backroom deals, industrial espionage, and murder. How did a bunch of pacifist scientists get a combat android? What kind of deal are they working with OmniCorp? What does the death of one old farmer have to do with any of this? Roland, Lucia, and the rest of the crew have just a few days to find the answer to these questions.

One thing is clear: there’s a corporate war brewing. This one tiny colony perched on a faraway mudball looks to be the flashpoint that plunges the rest of the galaxy into fiscal and physical chaos. Can anyone stamp out the fire before it is too late? It will take more than technological might or overwhelming firepower to avert a catastrophe this time. It will take the kind of love that does not alter, and bears out all the way to—

THE EDGE OF DOOM

Roland Tankowicz prefers to stay out of corporate wars; however, some battles just can’t be avoided.

Racing back home after the encounter with the Prospectors, Roland and his team find themselves pulled off course when an old foe resurfaces to thwart their plan for a clean getaway. Things get worse when the chase leads them to Gethsemane. Dominated by a powerful religious order that is long on profit and short on salvation, the green and wealthy planet proves to be treacherous ground for those who don’t fit in.

If the corporations battling for supremacy were not enough, competing factions from Gethsemane stalk the fixers as well. Some want what the corporations are fighting over, others want something altogether more unseemly. Roland and the crew find themselves at odds with secret police, knights in shining armor, and more than a few spies and assassins while navigating this strange collision of interplanetary politics and religion.

What is clear is that Gethsemane is no place for ham-handed tactics or reckless brawling. The situation begs for discretion, subtlety, and sophistication. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Roland Tankowicz is on the job. He does not do subtlety and sophistication costs extra. Can Roland win a deadly game of hide-and-seek in the grimy underbelly of a garden paradise? What happens when faith collides with conviction in the mind of a madman?

On Gethsemane, the real battle is fought only when one truly understands the--
RITES OF THE RIGHTEOUS

Still hounded at every turn, Roland and his team limp home to find Dockside in turmoil.

Clandestine corporate operations have weakened the treaties between Dockside’s gangs just in time for a disaster at the docks to shut down Earth’s mightiest marketplace. On the verge of economic catastrophe, Gateways Inc. lands an army of corporate troops to seize control. Criminals and corpos make for a tense pairing, and it’s only a matter of time before something breaks and the shooting starts.

Not content to wait for that to happen, OmniCorp springs for a little extra muscle. The only surviving full-prosthesis cyborg in the galaxy shows up to have a go at New Boston’s most famous fixer, and a fair fight is not how this shooter likes to operate. It’s a full-metal slugfest as all the players collide on the streets of New Boston for one final bloody showdown.

But what is all the fuss really over? Lucia has her doubts about the corporate line, and even her father seems to be hiding important information from her. As their losses mount and total destruction inches ever closer, the fixers will have to uncover the real reason all these MegaCorps are brawling it out in their backyard.

The fires of corporate warfare are raging across New Boston, and only Roland Tankowicz and his group of misfits can stop it before all of Dockside burns to the ground. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, and New Boston’s least favorite army-surplus cyborg has brought his matches…

Time to light a BACKBURN.