2023 SF, short fiction in the Arcana Imperii series. Various people
work for the DHC (the relatively "good" human government) to find out
what's happening in the breakaway mini-empire of New Texas.
"Getting Even" has a lone "advisor" being spacedropped onto New
Shenzhen, where the New Texan invaders are coming to terms with
Arithmetic on the
Frontier.
But that doesn't help when he's caught up by some pro-invader
irregulars. (Every Battletech story in the 1990s was required by law
to include a spacedrop sequence, and they were all copied from
Starship Troopers; this feels much the same, I'm afraid.)
"Partners" gives us the negotiator sent on a hopeless task to New
Texas as cover for his husband to do some spying. Everyone except him
has worked out what's going on…
"Dead Reckoning" has a merchant ship caught when the rules suddenly
change, and taking desperate measures to avoid being boarded and
confiscated.
"Trade Craft" has a long-term agent in place having to burn her cover
to get out a crucial piece of information. Good fun except for the
pointlessly downbeat ending.
"One Hour" has an internal security agent-in-place aboard one of the
ships of PTX, allied to New Texas, manipulating both people and events
to ensure that the planned suicide run (and war crime) doesn't happen.
Finally, the longest piece here, "The Gifts of the Magi" (previously
published separately) starts with a hard-luck asteroid miner stumbling
across a stealth ship. It's all tweaked a bit to make the right people
do the right things to justify the title, but it's quite fun, and it
leads into the climactic events of Deep Black (book 2 of the
series).
In fact it's all decent stuff, but to me at least it feels very
slight. Perhaps that's the point, that like the horseshoe-nail in
reverse all it may takes is one key bit of information to alter the
outcome of a huge battle many months later, but the impression I got
was much more "exciting story ,which happens to be in the same
universe as the main series" than "something contributing
significantly to the main series". I'd already read the second book
when I found out about this, which may not help.