Mercenary's Heart (The Wild Geese Saga Book 1)

With his world of Kodomir overrun by brutal conquerors, Stevar Polrany makes a desperate escape to find allies who can help. But in the 29th Century, the Settled Worlds have plunged into war and few care about the fate of a backwater farming world. Against his own best judgment, he finds that all he can do is hire a small mercenary unit called the Wild Geese. As the Kodomiri form an underground, interstellar maneuvers try to make Kodomir into a pawn on a board measured in light years. Igniting the fuse of rebellion, Polrany faces a terrible choice: use the mercenaries one last time to free a thousand Kodomiri held as slaves on a desolate, frozen mining world or use them to strike at his enemy and aid the rebellion.

Mercenary’s Heart, the first of the Wild Geese novels, explores the issues of why humans fight, what loyalty means, and the true heart of courage by following professional soldiers, mercenaries, politicians, and ordinary people as they confront choices of life and death. Steven Silver wrote Mercenary’s Heart drawing upon his work as a psychologist and historian, giving the reader a realistic view of war and its consequences, from the cockpits of human brain-driven war machines to the cells of interrogators to politicians to farmers.