The Highest Treason

Sebastian MacMaine is a prisoner only in the loosest sense: confined aboard a Kerothi-controlled prison ship, watched at every turn, he has chosen not escape but infiltration. By making the enemy believe he is loyal enough to serve them, he turns captivity into a weapon and prepares to play a dangerous game of trust, etiquette, and war. When General Polan Tallis arrives, their measured exchange exposes the gulf between human and Kerothi culture while hinting at the larger bargain taking shape. The novel follows MacMaine back to the losing war that made him a traitor in Earth's eyes and a strategist in the Kerothi's. As a colonel, he interrogates a captured alien general, studies battles that machine-driven command has mishandled, and proves that original thought can beat rigid doctrine. His world is one that prizes equality so fiercely it has smothered ambition, excellence, and independent judgment, leaving him bitter at a society that rewards conformity and fears talent. In this interstellar conflict, survival depends on intelligence, patience, and the courage to exploit the enemy's own rules before the war ends in surrender. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.