A Star-Wheeled Sky [Torgersen, Brad R.]

THE WAYPOINT TO ULTIMATE POWER!

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Over a millennium in the past, humans fleeing Earth in slower-than-light vessels discovered the Waywork, an abandoned alien superhighway system that allows instantaneous travel from star to star. The problem: there are a finite number of Waypoint nodes--and the burgeoning population of humans is hemmed in as a result. Furthermore, humanity is divided into contending Starstates. One of the strongest is based on an oligarchy of ruling families, but still mostly democratic. The other is a totalitarian nightmare. War seems inevitable.

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Now a new Waypoint appears. Might it lead to the long-lost creators of the Waywork? If so, there may be knowledge and technology that will tip the balance in the coming war.

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Three people race to make it to the new Waypoint--and beyond ‚  . ‚  These include Wyodreth Antagean, the reluctant son of an interstellar shipping magnate, Lady Garsina Oswight, the daring daughter of a royal family, and Zuri Mikton, a disgraced flag officer seeking redemption. They are facing an implacable foe in Golsubril Vex, a merciless, but highly effective, autocrat from the Waywork's most brutal regime. Vex is determined to control the new Waypoint and whatever revelation or power lies on the other side.

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Now humanity's fate--to live in freedom or endless dictatorship--depends on just what that revelation might be. And who gets there first.