To Valor's Bid

Desmond McLaughlin was just getting through his life and trying to survive. A 9-5 job and a hobby that cost more than it earned left him just enough money to afford a crappy apartment and time to dream of something better. He was expecting to spend most of his life like this.

He hadn’t expected to be greeted by a CIA agent waiting inside his house one evening. He wasn’t expecting that CIA agent to tell him that he was being drafted for a special mission. And he really wasn’t expecting to basically get kidnapped.

But most of all, he wasn’t expecting to be told two important things. One, aliens were out there. And two, they wanted to take him as the first of the locals drafted from his planet to go to one of the few super-dreadnought class starships in the Hegemony and learn magic.

Join Desmond as he learns to manipulate mana—a source of power that exists beyond the reach of most people in the universe—meets vastly different alien species, risks life and limb, all while trying to pass classes. If he’s lucky, he will find someone he can trust out here amongst the weird. If he's very lucky, maybe someone he can love.