Kaine's Retribution

The gates went dark ten years ago. He gave the order.
When Hayden Kaine severed the jump network to stop the Malliac, he saved Earth. He also stranded a thousand worlds.

Now he survives as a salvage pilot on a dying frontier planet — guilt-ridden, disgraced, and trying to stay out of choosing anything that matters.
Until his ship comes back.

The Scimitar, lost for a decade, reappears with his old crew and a secret. Buried in its systems is Glenatat technology that could reconnect human space. Not just FTL. Something older. Something that could restore the empire.
Something everyone is willing to kill for.

Admiral Thomas is consolidating power across the systems he can still reach. Rival factions are hunting the same technology. And inside the Scimitar is Cora — no longer just a ship's engineer, but a consciousness fused to the ship with alien code that may no longer be under human control.
Kaine has a chance to undo what he did. But repairing the damage means deciding who gets to own the future, who pays for it, and whether his crew survives long enough to use it.
Knowledge isn't power. It's a moral trap.

If you liked Battlestar Galactica for command as moral burden and survival that never comes clean, this is that kind of story.
Kaine's Retribution is Book 2 of Shattered Empire.

The question was never whether the empire could be saved. It was who would be left to save it, and what saving it would cost.