Galactic Outlaws

***Galactic Outlaws*** is the second book in the Galaxy’s Edge series written by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole. It was released on July 13, 2017 and published by Galaxy's Edge Press, with the audiobook published by Podium Audio in 2018.

## Publisher's Summary

**A threat looms at the edge of the galaxy…**

Years have passed since the battle of Kublar, and Wraith is in deep cover for Legion Dark Ops, living a second life on the edge as an irreverent smuggler and bounty hunter under the alias of Captain Keel. As he fights off pirates and double-crossing rebels, Keel comes to realize that the old lines between right and wrong have blurred as the Legion sinks further under the corrupting influence of the House of Reason and its points.

When a lucrative night market contract is offered directly to Wraith to hunt down an enigmatic warlord, the former legionnaire winds up on a galactic-wide search that brings him face to face with the galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunter, a living legend known as Tyrus Rechs. The pair soon discover that the man they both hunt is more powerful than either imagined… and is poised to overthrow the Republic.

With a cloud of darkness growing and a planet pitched in war, Wraith must choose whether his true allegiances lie with himself… or with his brothers still in the Legion.

**Military sci-fi meets space opera in this world-spanning adventure. Start reading now to see how expansive Galaxy’s Edge is with this brief interlude in the ongoing story of the legionnaires of Victory Company!**

## Synopsis

The Battle of Kublar rages while Victory Company is extracted by the Mercutio.

7 years later…

Prisma Maydoon and her warbot/droid servant, KRS-88
(Crash) arrive on Ackabar aboard the Viridian Cyclops, a freighter piloted by
Captain Hogus and his Wobanki co-pilot, Skrizz. Ackabar is in the midst of a Republic
police action, but despite the obvious danger Prisma is focused on finding a
bounty hunter. During the fighting, Crash helps Prisma locate Tyrus Rechs, an
ill-reputed bounty hunter in the port city. Conflating reputation with
competence, Prisma and Crash head through the battle find Tyrus Rechs. Rechs
for his part is in the field hunting a pirate known as Junga Doobantu and
wondering about the choices he’s made in life.

Meanwhile Aeson Keel, captain of the Indelible VI and
his holographic co-pilot Ravi land on Bantam Prime. Keel intends to pose as the
bounty hunter Wraith to deliver a number of Mid-Core Rebel prisoners to the
local republic legion company. However, Keel isn’t entirely forthcoming with
the legionnaires: he is smuggling princess Leenah of Endura and her escort,
General Lem Parrish in the ship’s secure hold, both of whom are deeply involved
in the Mid-Core Rebellion against the Republic. Keel heads away from the ship to contact
the local legion and poses as Wraith to find the legionnaires only to kill them
when things go badly. The legion responds by sending reinforcements (including a
tank) after the Indelible VI.

After a brief firefight, Keel manages a parley with
legionnaire Lt. Lynne Pratell. He convinces her through clever misdirection to pay him (as Wraith)
for the prisoners who he actually releases (as Keel) and avoid
retribution for killing her legionnaires. Too late, one of the dying
legionnaires informs her about the double cross and she vows to destroy Keel,
one way or another. A flight of Preyhunter fighters pursue the freighter as it
tries to achieve orbit, and the freighter escapes with some damage.

Keel allows Leenah and Parrish the run of the ship
while in hyperspace. It turns out that Leenah is a skilled ship's mechanic and
she repairs the Indelible VI’s damaged shields. Arriving at Pellek, Keel
contacts local pirate king Lao Pak, but not before he kills several of Pak’s
men. Keel is surprised to learn that there’s no bounty or ransom for Leenah, as
everyone on Endura has the title of Prince or Princess due to a local custom. He’s less surprised to
learn that the Republic has a bounty on his head, courtesy of Lt. Pratell, for
his actions on Bantam Prime. Pak tells him about the real prize these days, a
250 million credit bounty on a warlord known as Goth Sullus, for killing the
Maydoon family. Keel keeps Leenah on board and abandons Parrish with Lao Pak,
who tells him where to find his pet hacker, Garret Glover.

Still on Ackabar, Prisma and Crash locate Rechs just
as another firefight breaks out between him and Junga’s crew Rechs grabs the
girl and escapes on his ship the Obsidian Crow, with Crash (and Skrizz) following.

 On Pellek, Keel heads to Tannespa spaceport and
convinces Garret to come along on his new mission. As they talk, Garret
recounts a job reprogramming a warbot for the wealthy and well-connected Maydoon
family. Keel does the math and puts Garret up to talking to his contact at
Trident Corp., the company which sponsored Maydoon’s reprogramming work, in
hopes of planning a next move, or lining up a new job. At the Trident offices
they meet Aldo Kimer (and his bodyguard/receptionist, Sentrella) who claims he
knows nothing and shoos them away. A short time later, Keel, posing as Wraith,
forces, Kimer to admit that he did reprogram the warbot for Maydoon’s child and
that the warbot can be tracked, and that he subsequently told Goth Sullus
everything to save his life. Keel gets Garret to track Crash across the
galaxy, as Leenah completes repairs Keel’s ship.

Rechs, with Skrizz, Prisma and Crash in tow, jump into hyperspace to escape a
fighter attack. During the lull, Prisma tells him about to her
vow to seek revenge against Goth Sullus, the warlord who recently had her father, Kael
Maydoon killed on the planet Wayste. She tells him about the
Maydoon family’s last days on Wayste, after Kael Maydoon took the post of
sector defense minister and how Sullus’s black armored mercenaries destroyed an
entire settlement to make sure he died. Rechs, convinced that the girl’s
intentions will literally ruin her life, decides on another path for her. Rechs
decides his next destination is En Shakar.

En Shakar is an ice world, the home of Mother Ree, who
Rechs (aka General Rex of the Republic Legion) rescued from the hands of the
Cybar and the Republic's political machine many years ago. It’s Rechs’s intention to
leave Prisma with Ree and her monastic disciples but the girl refuses to be
left behind. Rechs tries to describe the soul-killing evil of hunting people
for profit but she will not be dissuaded from the path she’s chosen.
Rechs accepts that hunting Goth Sullus will cement a relationship between them and rid the galaxy of a true evil.
The bounty on Sullus is real enough and Rechs figures he might as well go big
as he heads toward the end of his career (and probably his life). In their
parting moments on the planet, Mother Ree tells Rechs that the mercenaries who
work with Goth Sullus are from the Brotherhood of Vengeance and he can find
them on Telos, the site of a huge campaign toward the end of the Savage Wars.

Heading to Telos, Rechs picks up more resistance from
pirates and shows Prisma how to use the gun turrets in the Obsidian Crow to
shoot them down. From that point on, he takes her under his wing, teaching her
what he knows about tactics, equipment, and fighting.

Keel arrives on En Shakar after Rechs has gone, and
Mother Ree tell him where Rechs is headed, but also that Keel will eventually
have to choose whether to follow Wraith’s path or Aeson Keel’s. Finally she
tell him that the Maydoon girl is to be found on Tusca.

At Telos, Rechs contacts the Brotherhood and uses a
combination of psychology and extreme violence to convince several of the mercs
to tell him all they know about Goth Sullus and the troops who accompany him.
All Sullus’s shock troopers are former legionnaires, expert soldiers who kill without
remorse. It’s a mobile operation, but their last known base was on Andalore,
the site of another great battle that Rechs fought.

At Andalore, a Republic sector capitol, Rechs finds
that they’ve jumped into a tense battle between Republic legionnaires and Brotherhood
mercenaries. Rechs, Skrizz, Crash, and Prisma fight their way into the guarded
compound to find Wraith, Leenah, Garret, and Ravi heading them off. Rechs
orders Crash to shoot, but Garret’s remote programming prevents Crash from
carrying out the order and temporarily scatters the pursuing legionnaires.

Wraith/Keel and Rechs put their cards on the table and
exchange information. A Republic Admiral, Silas Devers, is on his way to meet Sullus.
Wraith wants to kill Devers and Rechs has agreed to kill Sullus, so an alliance
of sorts is called for. As the discussion closes, Rechs declares that both
teams now work for him.

As fighting between the Brotherhood and the legionnaires
resumes, Rechs sees a black-robed and hooded figure escaping with a data core,
a device that houses the memory for the sector defense computers but can’t
figure out why a thug like Sullus would want it. Rechs concludes that Sullus is
a much bigger player than he thought, and gets the idea that he knows who
Sullus is. Sullus escapes in his ship, Siren of Titan, and Rechs is left
wondering how he’s going to fight off the legion troops.

Keel meanwhile is leading his new and expanded crew
back toward the Indelible VI, and tricks a legion patrol into thinking Wraith
is taking away prisoners. The ruse is discovered however and the legionnaires
open fire, forcing Keel’s crew to fight through the ruined compound to escape.
Prisma responds badly to the new surroundings and people on the ship, but Rechs
and Keel work together to bracket the Siren of Titan as Rechs pays Keel the
bounty for Sullus.

On Tusca, Keel sets a trap for Devers, intending to
snipe at him from cover while Siren of Titan is docked at the spaceport, and confirms
the presence of the ship but not Sullus himself. More legionnaires
arrive and a firefight ensues. Rechs learns from a Brotherhood merc that Sullus
has already left while a heavy mech begins a counter-attack. Rechs tells Keel
to take Prisma and leave the system as Devers arrives. Keel agrees after ground
fire chases Devers’s shuttle off.

Aboard his
ship, Keel prepares for his assassination of Admiral Devers, donning his old
legion gear as he leaves the ship and takes Twenties' old N-18 sniper rifle with him.
But as he prepares to make the shot, he is discovered by legion patrols, who
attempt to capture Prisma. Ravi defends her but “dies” after absorbing multiple
blaster hits.

Rechs, sensing the problem, draws the legionnaires and
mercenaries to his position, calls the Obsidian Crow to him, and activates a
distortion bubble in his armor as his ship detonates a Romula nuclear mine.
Keel gives up his dream of revenge and escapes with his crew as Rechs, barely
alive, confronts Goth Sullus. He learns that Sullus is after the War-Mind, a
swarm of automated war drones, the key to which is stored in Prisma’s DNA, triggered by the data globe he took. Sullus reveals that he’s not out to
fix the Republic, just to destroy it.

Sullus finally meets Devers and several other Republic
admirals and tell them they may begin their attack.