The Wolf Worlds (Sten #2‪)‬

Set three thousand years in the future, the eight Sten novels tell the tale of a tough, street-wise orphan who escapes his fate as factory planet "delinq" to become the strong right-hand of the most powerful man in the Universe -- a man hailed by his billons of subjects as "The Eternal Emperor." When the Emperor needs to pacify the Wolf Worlds, the planets of an insignificant cluster that have raised space piracy to a low art, he turns to Mantis Team and its small band of militant problem-solvers. Sten's destiny is in his own hands.