Is Willow eating the Keerah Emperors just making things worse?
The Keerah War is getting personal for the Dragon Host.
Their original home world is out there somewhere.
Answers which Bud and Willow seek still elude them.
And now the tigers have made their job more difficult.
The Dragon Host is taking the war to the tigers, and the Imperium must step up to support them. But Bud has a bigger worry.
Just how will the Keerah react if they actually find the Dragon Homeworld?
The new Dragon Host goes operational with a mission for the Terrans.
But as their numbers and skills rise, so do the questions.
Why did the last Host end? Why are dragon kind so scattered? Are there any more to be found?
And most importantly, where did the dragons come from originally?
But what gets Bud started on all of these is an even deeper mystery. Why do the Keerah fear the dragons and no-one else?
The Host must quest for its own past.
But for Bud, it's become the Dragon Imperative.
Bud is back, and he's finally in the Keerah war!
It is thought that back in the far past, the Dragon Host pillaged the galaxy. But something must have happened for them to lose everything they were.
Now they have a champion.
Someone who knew he had to bring back two genocide populations of dragon kin. A mage who leveled up in power by doing so.
The Imperium learned a hard lesson, and is moving forward. And Bud isn't as angry now.
The Keerah war goes on, and the dragons need training. But it seems there's one important thing needed to establish a true Dragon Host.
There needs to be a Dragon Rider.
Gitte isn't looking forward to becoming Matriarch of her people.
But if all goes well, it won't happen for a long time. She thought she'd already found her true calling. Her life is filled with training mages, Imperium emergencies, and filling in for a leader who refuses to leave their planet.
But there's something she doesn't know.
Some place she's never heard of.
Some reason why she's about to find out about them.
And some one who wants her to step up and become what she's always been:
The Matriarch.
There has never been a mage this powerful before.
And yet, what use is power when bad things happen while you sleep?
For most people, the question is: 'How do I go on?' For Bud, the question is: 'How do I fix this?'
The problem is determining why it broke, so it won't happen again.
But fixing things is easy. It's the consequences of your choices which are difficult.
And what of the other things which need fixing? Once you start fixing things, where does it end? And what happens if you get it all wrong?
He's worked for Kali, Ganesha, and Shiva, across two galaxies. Now, he's Destiny's Spacemage.
For the powerful, there's always someone who wants your help.
Diplomacy is the bane of Bud's life these days.
As riots rage across the Human Federation space, what he'd been told on Sanctuary accelerates. Everyone wants his help.
The consequences of losing your temper for a moment grow with your power.
But is this a good thing or bad? Only time will tell, but suddenly everything seems to be happening at once.
There's a galaxy outside of sector ten, and only one person who can deal with what's happening out there.
Now, he's Shiva's Spacemage.
Even a Spacemage must answer the call of a higher being.
The Rawtenuga and Trixone wars are over, and Bud and his people have been relieved of the task of liberating the remaining Rawtenuga held planets.
Jon and Jane have known about the Sanctuary system's planetary alignment for some time. All they know is it points to the Outback system, where the Door to Gaia used to be.
Bud knows Ganesha wants him to do something, but doesn't know what or where.
Could the alignment point to some threat from Gaia? Or to a place where an intergalactic rift could come from anywhere?
The Thorn's Cluster Militia is tasked with handling whatever comes through the Outback system. Even if it means going to another galaxy.
Bud is the Spacemage, and the bearer of Kali's Sceptre. But right now, he's Ganesha's Spacemage.
A complicated war is about to get a lot more complicated. And Bud's brought it on himself.
There's no end in sight to either the Rawtenuga or Trixone wars. And the search for the dinosaur home world is proving just how big the galaxy is, especially where it's not properly mapped.
The enemy keep popping up in too many places, and as fast as the sensor network expands, they seem to have expanded faster.
Bud's been stepping up continuously since he joined the Imperium military, but now it's time for others to as well.
But in the midst of the mission, civilian matters continue to intrude, and being the goto mage has its downsides. Even with unexpected help, more resources, and finally producing shipyards, the Rawtenuga seem unstoppable.
The question has always been, where the hell are they from? But is the answer going to be what they need to end the war? Or is it just going to raise a lot more questions?
It's all on the shoulders of a very young Fleet Captain Spacemage.
For Arthur, home isn't what it used to be.
The threat his people are now obsessing about is gone, thanks to Merlin. And Arthur isn't the only one unhappy with their current assignment, which is partly based on the fact Merlin has vanished again.
However, you should be careful what you wish for.
Unknown to them, elsewhere in the galaxy, old tensions have exploded into war. Back in the galaxy's core there are those who need Arthur, and don't know it yet.
But are Arthur's ships and people going to be enough this time?
Arthur accepting he was THE Arthur was one thing. He was never really Arthur Hunter in his own mind, let alone the Arthur Pendragon of legend. Just Arthur.
But how much say in that he'll actually get, he's about to find out.
There's no such thing as a nice clean war.
If fighting a war which might never end wasn't enough, now the Imperium has a new enemy. But now promoted to be a genuine squadron leader, Bud finds himself leading more than his squadron. Just how complicated can war get?
Is the enemy of your enemy really your enemy? Or can their enemy become your friend while you're still at war with each other?
Even in the middle of a brand new war, Bud finds people who think they know better about what he should be doing. He's thousands of light years away, and there are always still obligations to home which must be fulfilled, and the future to be provided for.
And just maybe, can they be made to work for you on the fringes of the core?
The Imperium really has no business in that part of space, let alone fighting another war, but what do you do when you get asked for help, and the original hero is not available?
You send in Lieutenant Commander Spacemage.
Never underestimate the capacity of a plant to learn something new from a dinosaur.
Bud is getting a crash course in how to fight a war all on his own. At the same time, the needs of his homeworld and the Imperium distract him from the goal of finding where the Rawtenuga entered the core galaxy from.
Being Thorn's heir has both positive and negative aspects to it, and as the war with the Rawtenuga keeps getting bigger, so do the demands from the civilian side of his life. The Imperium's eternal problem is not having enough ships to fight both the wars it now has. And civilians also want new ships.
But as Bud's life gets more complicated, the Imperator starts pushing him to fill in the gaps. Jon knows what Bud's been up to, approves of what he's doing, but has no idea of the scope of it.
No-one does.
But does Bud really know what he's doing?
And should a lowly Commander be getting this much responsibility, even if he is Commander Spacemage?
Even for a powerful Spacemage, war can turn personal in an instant.
Bud is now the captain of a small capital ship, and so tactics must change. And once again, Navy Mage Squadron One leads the way. But the more the Imperium ups their game, the faster the Trixone adapt. And in the middle of things changing around Bud, the new prototype dreadnought is stolen.
While seemingly unimportant to the war, Navy Mage One and Eagle Wing will find out just how wrong that perception is. Just when is a mysterious invitation a good thing or a bad thing, and will they be able to tell the difference in time?
For Bud, squadron command gets real, and the stakes are building as Rogue gets nearer to its destination.
From a war being fought in the center of the core of the galaxy, suddenly the arena becomes much bigger.
And to cross vast distances quickly, the Imperium needs:
Lieutenant Spacemage.
