Jurisdiction

A promising young surgeon, Andrej Koscuikso 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.

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.

As Chief Medical Officer aboard the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, Andrej Koscuisko's duty is to care for his shipmates; as Inquisitor, he must extract confessions and administer punishment. But while the doctor takes pride in his healing skills, the torturer knows only self-loathing. As the planet Burkhayden prepares for the arrival of its new governor, a brutal attack on a Nurail slave woman by a ship's officer sets in motion a chain of events that culminates in murder.

A stand-alone novel set in Susan R. Matthews's critically acclaimed "Judiciary" universe, Angel of Destruction focuses on Bench officer Garol Vogel and his attempts to make peace with the Langsarik people-the people his own Judiciary drove into a life of piracy.

Set in the critically-acclaimed "Judiciary" universe, The Devil and Deep Space features listener favorite hero Andrej Koscuisko caught up in a conspiracy between political backstabbing and military corruption....

The Ragnarok's legal status has been ambiguous since it shot its way out of Taisheki Station to escape a threat against the lives of its innocent crew. Ship's Inquisitor Andrej Koscuisko hopes to take advantage of this period of chaos and unrest to see his bond-involuntary Security slaves somehow freed and sent to Gonebeyond space. The personal conflict he is experiencing has surprised and distressed him, and yet he cannot afford to let his private agonies interfere with his purpose.

Andrej Koscuisko is a former Fleet Medical Officer for the enormous totalitarian star empire, the Jurisdiction. But when he served in the Fleet, Andrej's real job was not medicine, at least not primarily medicine, but to act as a torturer of prisoners, whether they had information to give or not. To help him in his duties, Andrej was attended by "bond involuntaries" - slaves - men he'd come to look upon as friends and family. Finally, enough was enough.