Killing of Worlds — Scott Westerfeld

The Risen Empire left readers begging for more. Now Scott Westerfeld comes through with the dazzling payoff in the conclusion of Succession, The Killing of Worlds.

Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial Frigate Lynx is a walking dead man. Unjustly held responsible for the death of the immortal Emperor's sister, Zai and his crew are sent on a suicide mission to stop a vastly superior Rix ship from contacting the new Al they've planted on Legis. Isolated by Imperial blockade, the Al is guiding a lone Rix commando in a desperate attempt to seize a polar communications array. Herd is a single warrior against an Imperial army, but behind her is the intelligence of an entire planet.

Ten light-years away, Captain Zai's true love, the psychic (some say mad) Senator Nara Oxham, is engaged in a deadly game of political intrigue. Nara must find a way to forestall the Emperor's final solution if the blockade is broken: a nuclear strike to destroy the AI, which will also kill millions of Imperial citizens. She suspects that the Emperor has a hidden weakness discovered by the Al, a secret so dangerous to his immortal dynasty that to keep it the Emperor is willing to countenance the ultimate crime ...

The killing of worlds.