The Silent Hand — Michael Mersault

They said ten-year-old street urchin Inga was perfect for their purpose, taken from the squalor of Port City to the asteroid enclave, Hawksgaard, where she underwent the training and augmentation that transformed her. Maturing to full lethality even as war erupts among the Myriad Worlds, Inga is assigned to protect Family scion, Captain Saef Sinclair-Maru as he leads the fight against humanity's merciless enemy. The vessel: IMS Hightower The mission: Rescue a trapped Legion force from the surface of Delta Three. The crisis: Nothing is as it appears. With Marines plummeting into surface combat, an orbital space battle raging, and assassins swarming within Hightower, the stakes could scarcely be greater, but in the midst of this tumult, treacherous revelations continue to unfold. A mysterious enemy emplacement, a vanished civilian population, the inexplicable powers suddenly unleashed: Each new facet of discovery creates a deadly path leading from Delta Three to the heart of the Imperium and the emperor himself. To seize any chance for victory—or even survival—Inga must accept the irrevocable course leading from the remnants of her own humanity to the fullness of the Silent Hand.