Glen Cook.
The Dragon Never Sleeps.
Night Shade Books. 1988
For millennia, the Guardships have patrolled Canon Space,
maintaining peace—and human hegemony—with an iron gauntlet.
Guardship dictate is law, and those mercantile houses that dare defy
Canon rule are harshly dealt with—through interdiction
or outright sterilization—by the massive, sentient starships
with immortal crews and vast armies kept ready in suspended animation.
To date, no attempt to overthrow the Guardships has succeeded…
But now, House Tregesser believes it has an edge. A force from beyond Canon Space has offered them the resources to refuse the Guardship shackles. And Kez Maefele, one-time leader of the rebel fleet Dire Radiant, has reemerged after centuries in hiding. Will he side with the Guardships that hunted his race to extinction, or with an alien presence that promises chaos and destruction?