Search Worlds Without End

Novella set in Smith's Jani Kilian universe. It originally appeared in Jim Baen's Universe, December 2006 and has been reprinted in Ligthspeed Magazine, April 2016. In Smith's own words:

"The events in Incident take place about five years after Captain Jani Kilian fled the idomeni homeworld of Shèrá and about thirteen years prior to the start of Code. I wrote the story during a break in the writing of Endgame, the fifth and final installment in the series. I had always wanted to write a Jani story that was more of a straightforward adventure, with less emphasis on espionage, politics, and the sociological skirmishes between human beings and the alien idomeni. The Jani in Incident is solely focused on the day-to-day challenges of surviving and of avoiding capture by the Commonwealth Service. She has just landed a job as a documents technician for a small shipping company. A little downtime is all she's looking for, a chance to earn a few badly-needed dollars, and catch her breath. Yet even though she fears discovery and is reluctant to get involved in a troubling situation, she's unable to ignore a cry for help."

Read the full story for free at the author's website.

Captain Jani Killian had been Evan Van Reuter's lover eighteen years ago, when a Commonwealth diplomatic corps, sent to establish peaceful relations with the alien idomeni, took sides in a civil war. Jani was presumed killed in the ensuing bloodbath, and Evan went on to become the Commonwealth's Interior Minister. But Jani survived as well more or less. Doctors gave her a new face and patched her broken body together with illegally obtained idomeni genetic materials. They healed her of everything but her memory of the desperate actions she had taken -- sure to result in summary execution should Commonwealth authorities discover her existence.

Which makes it unwise to refuse Evan's request for help in solving the mystery of his wife's death. There is no shortage of suspects, and the trail draws Jani back into the trauma of Rauta Shiraa and secrets long buried there, secrets someone has killed to protect. If she isn't careful, she'll wind up the next victim -- assuming her own body doesn't kill her first. For after eighteen years, her rebuilt body is failing. Jani is dying. Or is she being reborn?

Anarchy Rules

For eighteen years, Captain Jani Kilian has been hiding from her bloody past. Now she faces trial for what she once did, what she knows now, and what she has become.

Eighteen years ago, she was saved by a radical -- and illegal -- medical procedure that added alien genetic material to her own. But her hybrid body is breaking down. And so is everything else.

Relations between the human and alien "idomeni" races are deteriorating as rapidly as Jani Kilian's augmentation. And Jani's reemergence has caused old wounds to reopen and new wounds to form. Perhaps it's time for a damaged soldier to stop fighting; to let the desperate architects of a vast and devouring conspiracy keep the truth well hidden; to let the universe and everyone in it go straight to Hell.

Perhaps not...

A human-idomeni hybrid with a very bad reputation, former Captain Jani Kilian is out of hiding and officially a civilian. But peace is not an option. Suddenly an important player in the Commonwealth's delicate dealings with the alien idomeni, Jani has inadvertently incurred the wrath of top powers in politics, finance, diplomacy, and crime. Her war is not yet over, just moving to a higher plane. There's no truth to the timeworn adage that old soldiers never die; they do... and sometimes badly. Jani Kilian's come back to a new world that's not brave but definitely in peril. And "kill or be killed" is her only real choice...because now only one law remains.

Former captain Jani Kilian is a genetically altered human-idomeni hybrid who acts as a bridge of communication between two fiercely incompatible races. With intergalactic civil war looming large -- with renegades in the Service secretly plotting extermination -- Jani Kilian is being pulled once more into perilous space. Because a horrific act of terror is about to ignite a long-feared conflict between human and alien…and the key to the survival or destruction of human civilization is waiting for her somewhere on the edge of the universe.

Ever since contact was first made between humans and the alien idomeni, tensions between the two races have been frequent and bloody. As the first genetically altered human-idomeni hybrid, former Captain Jani Kilian serves as a lightning rod for the anger, outrage, and hatreds of both sides. And now the ex-soldier finds herself in the unwanted role of diplomat—serving the interests of her hybrid enclave, Thalassa, the only place in the universe that welcomes renegade humans, hybrids, and aliens alike.

But the all-powerful Commonwealth intends to bring Thalassa to its knees, and the time for diplomacy is at an end. With death surrounding her, Jani Kilian must return to where her nightmare began and once again take on her most powerful persona: warrior. For as the game approaches its inevitable conclusion, she knows only two options remain: victory... or extermination.