AustLit

'A young woman is on the run, and on her own. She needs to find work and a place to live... she needs to feel like an ordinary human being. But she is no ordinary human being - and when she saves the life of Katia Neiland, President of Tanusha, the secret services discover just how special, just how lethal, she is. Who can she trust? Vanessa Rice, special forces, who wants to be her friend? The President? The Judiciary? Whoever it is she's better decide soon. Those she left behind want her back. The League's Dark Star is a ruthless organisation, and some people in the Federation wouldn't mind handing her over - or causing war... Will she ever find safety? Can she ever stop running?'

— Back cover

'Cassandra Kresnov is a highly advanced hunter-killer android. She has escaped the League and fled to Callay, a member of the Federation. At its heart is the enigma of Cassandra: Is she more human than human, or is she totally untrustworthy?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'As an enemy fleet prepares for attack, the Callayan Defense Force looks to its leaders Major Vanessa Rice and android Commander Cassandra (Sandy) Kresnov, but soon Sandy's lover, Special Agent Ari Ruben, discovers a plot to kill the android, forcing her to go underground to stay alive.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Cassandra Kresnov--a highly advanced hunter-killer android--returns to face down a rogue government's plot to eliminate free will. Commander Cassandra Kresnov has her hands full. She must lead an assault against the Federation world of Pyeongwha, where a terrible sociological phenomenon has unleashed hell against the civilian population. Then she faces the threat from a portion of League space known as New Torah, in which a ruthless regime of surviving corporations are building new synthetic soldiers but taking the technology in alarming directions. On the Torahn world of Pantala, Sandy encounters betrayal, crisis, and conspiracy on a scale previously unimaginable. Most challenging of all, she also meets three young street kids who stir emotions in her she didn't think she was capable of. Can the Federation's most lethal killer afford unexpected sentiment? What will be the cost if she is forced to choose between them and her mission, not only to her cause, but to her soul?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In 23 Years on Fire, Cassandra discovered that the technology that created her has been misused in her former home and now threatens all humanity with catastrophe. Returning home to Callay, she finds that Federation member worlds, exhausted by the previous thirty-year-war against the League, are unwilling to risk the confrontation that a solution may require. Some of these forces will go to any lengths to avoid a new conflict, including taking a sledgehammer to the Federation Constitution and threatening the removal by force of Cassandra's own branch of the Federal Security Agency.

'More frighteningly for Sandy, she has brought back to Callay three young children, whom she met on the mean streets of Droze, discovering maternal feelings she had not known she possessed. Can she reconcile her duty as a soldier, including what she must do as a tactician, with the dangers that those decisions will place upon her family--the one thing that has come to mean more to her than any cause she now believes in?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A quarter of a million people die in the destruction of the moon Cresta. The League civil war is accelerating out of control, but projections indicate that as their technologically induced sociological dysfunction continues, all of humanity may face a similar fate. In the aftermath of Cresta's destruction, Sandy Kresnov discovers the alien Talee operative Cai in Tanusha, there to learn just how far the technologically-induced insanity has gone. The Talee have seen this before, and they are terrified of anything threatening a recurrence.

'Meanwhile, Sandy's old nemesis Renaldo Takewashi, the self-proclaimed "father" of synthetic intelligence, comes to the Federation seeking asylum. Talewashi may even have a cure--previously unknown Talee technology implanted into a human child subject--Sandy's little boy, Kiril. But it is exactly this technology that the Talee fear, and they will exterminate anyone caught using it. Now, Sandy must fight to save her family from a terrible new threat, but doing so may plunge humanity into another destructive war between humans, or worse, against the massively-advanced Talee.

'And what final secret are the Talee protecting about the origins of synthetic humans like Sandy that could either liberate Sandy's fellow synthetics from bondage or spell disaster for all humanity?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.