Sten Adventures Book 6: The Return of the Emperor

The Return of the Emperor is the sixth book in Chris Bunch and Allan Cole's The Sten Adventures.

Plot

The Emperor had been killed at the very end of the last book. The immortal Eternal Emperor is apparently not so immortal after all.

Sten takes it upon himself to hunt down and try to kill the members of the Privy Council that took over after the demise of the Emperor. He gathers proof they were responsible but can not touch them. Finally, after a failed assassination mission, he organizes a grand tribunal to try them for their crimes, even though they are not present.

This book also follows a mysterious character named Raschid that wakes up in a strange space ship, in a strange portion of space, with no memory. He leaves, finds himself drawn to a dive of a diner and becomes the cook. He is very successful and things look good for him until his internal clock tells him it is time to leave. He can not even explain it to himself, it is just time to go.

He signs onto a smuggling ship, organizes a mutiny and takes over the ship, mostly to PReVENT the bloodshed that would occur if the other members of the crew were to carry through their own mutiny. He lands the ship at its scheduled point, a planet called Dusable.

Dusable is the most corrupt planet in the known universe. Everything AbOUT the planet revolves around politics; the only thing you can say about Dusable, is that IT Works. Raschid wades in and in a dazzling display of cleverness and guile, rigs the election. Again, he does not know why he is doing this, just that he is supposed to.

After the election, he borrows a ship and takes off. Something in his heads has clicked and he knows what he is supposed to do. He makes a few stops along the way and shows up to the grand tribunal that Sten is running and stuns everyone by parading out of his ship with his imperial Ghurka bodyguards. He is the Eternal Emperor reborn.

The book ends with the Privy Council captured and all killed. It looks like it is smooth sailing from here on out.