Rigelian Gambit

It began with a smell.
The same strange scent Dirk noticed moments before his parents died. He follows it to a man involved in an attempt to steal his inheritance and discovered that the political conspiracy surrounding his family reaches far beyond money or power.

Meanwhile, an Empire intelligence team arrives secretly on Capella 4. Led by Marila, their orders are simple enough: stop an approaching coup without revealing that the Empire was ever involved. Their solution is to create something Capella has never had before — a police force — and investigate the conspiracy from inside.

But somebody else is already there.
As Dirk and Marila close on the truth from opposite directions, assassination, political corruption and an alien presence become part of the same fight. And Dirk begins to discover that whatever happened to him has left him capable of things no ordinary human should survive.

The conspiracy wants Capella, but why?

Rigellian Gambit is the first novel in The Capella Saga.