Bred for War
Set at the beginning of the civil war story arc, this sees Katherine Steiner split the Lyran Alliance from the Federated Commonwealth, the Free Worlds league team up with the Draconis Combine to take back worlds lost in the fourth succession war, and the Clans attempting to break the truce of Tukkayid.The first half of the book is politicking and maneuvering for position. There's quite a lot of threads being set up, but Stackpole knows his characters well enough to avoid this becoming boring.
The second half is all action, spread across multiple worlds as the Clans start in-fighting to determine if the truce can be broken and Free World forces work their way into lost territory.
One of the events in the Clan thread is slightly glossed over, but the full story can be read in "I am Jade Falcon" which runs in a concurrent time frame.
