Good old fashioned Exploration and Self-discovery.

A young soldier is falsely accused of causing the death of Diplomat and some of his fellow troopers...

And he sets off to find the proof of his innocence. Along the way, he gathers a small band of fellow travellers to guard his back in a mercenary, rough and tumble Universe where he has to keep eyes open for suspicious Military Law Officers, ruthless Interstellar Corporations and a shadowy force older than all the races together.

All he has on his side -- is a little quartz pebble that seems to have a mind of it's own...

Think of this as a more Up-to-date but different version of Andre Norton's 'Zero Stone' Adventure.

This is a nice, lite entertaining read for a Friday or Saturday evening. ( )

This is a never again read. It takes more than a third of the 360+ pages to get past the back story to start in on the plot of this tale. Perhaps all that is needed for the trilogy but there are inherent writing errors in the material.

TSR, the publishers of Dungeon and Dragons thought they were onto something by starting a line of fiction that had nothing to do with their games. But they lacked expertise in this area, obviously. Editing of the work lacks in many areas.

As a reader, you start with great expository paragraphs, sometimes longer than a page. And these go on for many pages. As a reader you need to be interrupted with dialogue, and short paragraphs to catch your breath.

Then there is so much extra exposition that does not advance the story, in the early part of the book, that by the time the rhythm works you are uninvolved.

The premise is that an upcoming Marine officer who does intelligence work for the diplomats gets framed for their deaths. Some benevolent alien, and why, I must have missed because it seems far fetched, thinks our Marine is worthwhile and teams up with him to help him start a new life after the corp can't use him. He of course though not proven innocent, is let go on a hung decision.

We then have another third of the book, after this back story, of the Marine and Alien establishing themselves. The nefarious entity, the corporation, that set things up still is entwined in their lives, but so damn powerful that snuffing out this loose end should have been like sneezing.

The story then doesn't work, because our heroes aren't heroic enough, our enemy is too powerful and we don't understand there motivation since it is unclear and placed at the end. Don't waste your time or effort with this. ( )