Fearful Symmetry

by Edward McKeown

Book Opening:
The war against the Conchirri irrevocably altered the Confederacy of Seven Species, as the Seven collided with and destroyed the eighth race in known space.  The Conchirri, usually called the Xenophobes, possessed only one reaction to any other life form, genocidal fury.  They could not be understood, reasoned with, or intimidated, only destroyed.  It was a hard lesson for the Confederacy but they learned it well.  The Second Sector War ended the Conchirri and with it, the old Confederacy which had been little more than a trading association.  The Seven now looked at the stars warily, with weapons to hand and a grim promise of ‘never again’.  They had looked into an abyss and it had looked into them.  In that much they had become the thing they destroyed.

Much else disappeared in that war, lives, hopes and loves, including Lt. Commander Lisa Fenaday and her scoutship the C.S.S. Blackbird.  Robert Fenaday, her husband went nearly mad with grief.  Flying a captured frigate renamed Sidhe (Shee) he roamed space, searching for his wife and killing Conchirri mercilessly.  Shasti Rainhell, a genetically engineered assassin rescued by him on one voyage, joined him in his search.  They became a team, till the war ended and the market for privateers dried up.

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