Defender of the Flame

Starship pilot Terry Radnor is elated to be among those chosen to defend the secret colony Maclairn against enemies who pose a threat to the spread of paranormal human mind powers. He commits himself wholly to the goal of that world, not guessing how far his effort to protect it will take him from everything else he cares about--his promising career as a Fleet officer, his wife and soulmate, his unborn child. Torn away against his will, he is forced into exile from all that has previously mattered to him, without hope of a chance to fulfill the pledge he has made. Yet a mysterious and extraordinary destiny has been predicted for Terry, and fate leads him to an even stranger one than anybody could have imagined.

This is the first book in the Rising Flame series. Although it follows the two books in the Hidden Flame series, Stewards of the Flame and Promise of the Flame, which tell of the founding of Maclairn two centuries earlier, it is a completely independent story that doesn't depend on having read them.