Jurisdiction Universe Series by Susan R. Matthews
Jurisdiction Universe #1
An Exchange of Hostages
Susan R. Matthews
A promising young surgeon, Andrej Koscuisko has come, with great reluctance, to study at a military orientation center adrift in black space. Against his will, he will train here to serve as a "Ship's Inquisitor" -- a vocation that runs counter to his deepest moral convictions.During his tenure, Andrej will earn the devotion of his personal slave. He will gain the grudging respect of the Station Administration. He will make a deadly enemy of his fellow student. He will learn a frightening truth about himself. And ultimately, he will be forced to sacrifice all that he holds dear...**
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Jurisdiction Universe #2
Prisoner of Conscience
Susan R. Matthews
Andrei Koscuisko is an Inquisitor for the Bench federation of worlds. It is his duty to root out -- quickly, efficiently, quietly -- anyone who would threaten the ruling order.Andrei has been posted to the penal facility at Port Rudistal. Here hundreds of prisoners -- traitors who dared dream of freedom and self-rule -- await interrogation. They know an Inquisitor's judgment is firm and unassailable. Yet there is a line that even he may not cross.Although an Inquisitor is not supposed to feel outrage, weakness or pity, Andrei is, above all, a man of honor. And now he must risk his career -- and perhaps his life -- exposing the truth that lies behind the black walls of Domitt Prison.A riveting novel of one man's courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Prisoner of Conscience again showcases one of the most promising voices in contemporary science fiction.**
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Jurisdiction Universe #3
Angel of Destruction
Susan R. Matthews
Bench Intelligence Specialist Garol Vogel is one of an elite few chartered by the Bench to uphold the rule of Law by any means he sees fit, to rewrite policy, assassinate corrupt officials, and topple planetary governments at his discretion.His most treasured achievement was the amnesty he brokered for the Langsarik rebels. But someone is raiding depot stations in the Shawl of Rikavie around Port Charid, torturing and murdering with unprecedented savagery. Vogel knows the Langsariks are innocent, but who could be to blame, and how can he prevent a Judicial crime of horrific proportions?Garol Vogel finds the answer on the wrong side of the Judicial order he’s served faithfully all his life, and once he sets foot on a path of subversion and sabotage there will be no going back for him, forever.
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Jurisdiction Universe #4
Hour of Judgement
Susan R. Matthews
Burkhayden is a subject colony, leased by the Bench to a Dolgorukij familial corporation for economic exploitation. When a Nurail woman from the service house is brutally raped and beaten, Andrej Koscuisko –- Ship’s Inquisitor on board the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok –- is called upon to render services under contract. One of Koscuisko’s bond-involuntary Security slaves recognizes the tortured woman. And murder is done in port Burkhayden. The only way Andrej can protect a man he loves is to condemn a guiltless man to atrocious torment. Will he commit the ultimate crime? Before one fateful night is out Andrej Koscuisko will put himself under sentence of death by doing what he realizes at last he should have done from the beginning. And Port Burkhayden will burn.
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Jurisdiction Universe #5
The Devil and Deep Space
Susan R. Matthews
Andrej Koscuisko, the Ragnarok’s Ship's Inquisitor, is going home on leave. His ship of assignment is participating in training exercises, and when an observer station unexpectedly explodes –- killing the Ragnarok’s captain -– Pesadie Training Command has to come up with a cover story in a hurry or risk exposure of its black-market profiteering. There is a conveniently obvious explanation: the Ragnarok did it on purpose. All Pesadie needs are a few confessions -- obtained by judicial torture, which creates its own truth. And a bitter enemy from Andrej’s earliest days in Fleet has been waiting for just such an opportunity to set a trap and bait it with the lives of people Andrej loves. Andrej will have to fight Fleet itself to bring the Ragnarok the only thing that can save the ship and crew from destruction –- a single piece of evidence with the potential to change the course of the history of Jurisdiction Space forever.
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Jurisdiction Universe #6
Warring States
Susan R. Matthews
Chilleau Judiciary’s senior administrative officer has been murdered in the very heart of Chambers. Bench Intelligence Specialist Jils Ivers has been unable to ferret out the perpetrator, and that means she’s the Bench’s prime candidate for execution –- so that justice may be seen to have been done, whether or not she is guilty. Andrej Koscuisko means to take this opportunity to execute a daring theft -- stealing six bond-involuntary Security slaves to send them away beyond the Bench’s reach to Gonebeyond Space. But the corruption of the Bench extends even further than its use of institutionalized torture as an instrument of State. Before Jils Ivers realizes who killed the First Secretary and why, the rule of Law will be rocked to its very core, and the fundamental nature of the Bench will be changed forever.
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