Kaine's Rebellion

Hayden Kaine crash-lands on Oberon. The Scimitar is presumed destroyed. Cora is dying.

Shot down in an escape pod onto a desert world, fugitive officer Kaine wakes believing his ship — and everyone aboard — is lost. Cora's avatar is destroyed; her mind survives in a crystal matrix, failing. Her only chance is to return to the Scimitar.

"She is dying. Her only chance is to return to Scimitar."

But Oberon is at war: open rebellion against a ruthless governor, while a renewed Confederation fleet moves in to own the winner. To save Cora, Kaine must cross rebel territory with the help of a young engineer who refuses to give up on either of them — and confront what the Confederation his family served for generations did to worlds like Oberon.

Then the rebellion's hardliners rig a two-megaton bomb on the government's orbital station. Let it detonate: thousands of civilians dead, and a tyrant's retaliation guaranteed. Stop it: the station — and the Scimitar's alien technology — stays in a tyrant's hands.

"I have amends to make for a lot of generations of Kaines."

What you will find inside:
Fast-paced military science fiction, no filler
A commander protecting a wounded human-AI hybrid
A planet divided by rebellion and reconquest
A high-risk raid to steal back a ship that can reach orbit
A detonation dilemma with no moral high ground
Every book resolves — no cliffhangers

For readers of The Expanse who like competent people inside broken systems where choices stick.

Kaine's Rebellion is Book 4 of Shattered Empire.