An Honorable Defense

The assassination of the emperor disrupts the carefully crafted balance of power in an empire that blends humans and other sentient species. Who will give up the peace first in a move toward domination? The blow falls on the paradise world of Palaccio, a green and blue planet of fair winds and playtime for humans, which most other species avoid as "Stink World." When the war breaks out, the man who must devise a defense is the least likely to succeed, Taddeuz Bertingas, a public relations functionary who never took basic military service. He finds himself the point man in an interspecies coalition to save the last remnants of empire.