Operation Haystack

Lewis Orne, a hard-bitten Galactic Investigation & Adjustment agent, returns from a deadly mission on Heleb with a secret that could shake the League: a supposedly peaceful female-led society has been breeding and controlling male slaves to preserve its power. Near death and hidden in a medical creche, Orne survives against all expectation, hinting that he may be more than an ordinary operative. When he recovers, his superior, Umbo Stetson, sends him to convalesce as a house guest of the powerful Bullone family—really a cover for a dangerous investigation into a conspiracy that may stretch across generations and planets. At the opulent Bullone estate, Orne is ordered to stay close to Diana Bullone, but the mission becomes perilously personal as attraction collides with suspicion. Beneath the family's elegance and political influence, he uncovers clues linking them to the Nathians, descendants of an ancient network planted throughout the League. As the evidence mounts, Orne realizes the conspiracy is not a simple plot but a deeply embedded female power structure, built on controlled breeding, political grooming, and quiet manipulation. In a final confrontation, he forces a compromise that may avert riots, collapse, and even another Rim War—while discovering that survival, in politics and in love, demands its own kind of cunning. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.