SECOND CHANCE: DUKE OF AVERON

In this action packed 6th book in the series, Justin manages to convert a war missile to a space delivery vehicle, in order to sell his anti-gravity units to advanced civilizations.  The successful space mission results in Justin being offered the title of Duke of Moxon, by the King.  However, Justin waits until he's offered the title of Duke of Averon.

Moxon is a relatively impoverished area of southern Averon that become Justin's assignment.  They grow cotton in Moxon.  However, Justin knows of a 'royal cotton,' grown in the South Continent.  Justin and some volunteers from 'The Institute for Cotton Research' then fly down to the South Continent to grab some royal cotton.  They get the cotton, but Justin has to be abandoned in a jungle full of hostile natives.

Justin outruns the natives and, in the process, finds what appears to be two star gates.  He also finds a Glyon sigil.  The find reinforces the idea that an ancient high mountain civilization was at least alien ruled. He then works on his duties as King and also works on developing sword skills, using the sword he obtained from the temple in the jungle.

Then, trouble erupts in Zaya.  A pretender to the throne of Zaya wants a war.  Justin easily defeats the pretender's army, but then has to face a sword fight with the pretender.  Having won the military battle, Justin is faced with finding work for the conquered.  He manages to get some low level advanced civilization technology to solve the problems.

A former Arquellian battlewagon, patrolling the space around Corin then intercepts a shipload of refugees from Ruanth in a stolen space vehicle. Justin and Norva Lemni then aid the refugees.  In the process,Justin 'acquires' a patrol boat from the space vehicle.  He also becomes a pilot and learns a bit about interstellar travel.

Justin then gets some staff from the King of Averon, so that he can manage his affairs as the Duke of Averon.  In return,Justin is asked to solve the problem of a march of impoverished people from Zaya into Averon.  He solves the problem and then needs to find jobs for the Zayans.  Justin then sets up sales of Zayan products in Averon.  In the process he meets some  Averonean film stars.

The refugees from Ruanth are now pursued by a legendary demon.  Justin fights the demon in an epic sword battle.  At the end of the sword battle the body of the demon is retrieved by a mysterious being.  Justin for the first time glimpses what just might be a demi-god.  He still has business affairs to tend to, but the future looks bright and he still has his second chance!

CORIN, MY WORLD, IS a primitive world, at least according to the advanced culture civilizations that run at least this part of the galaxy.  One of the main reasons that Corin remains a primitive world is that Corin has no conventional space travel capability.  That last is about to change.

I have a manufacturing operation in Averon.  The operation takes certain military missiles that were intended to wipe out cities on Corin and converts the missiles to space delivery vehicles.  The large rocket motors and fuel tanks of the military missiles are replaced with four large capacity anti-gravity units and a small rocket motor with small fuel tanks.  The combination of the anti-gravity units and a small rocket motor, allow the former military missile to climb to a height above the atmosphere of Corin.  Once at the proper height, a payload of anti-gravity units will be ejected into low orbit for pick up by an automated advanced civilization space freighter.

The process of climbing into space accomplishes three main aims of mine.  First, the anti-gravity units help earn me money necessary to support my current Zaya operations.  Second, the anti-gravity unit trade with the advanced civilizations gets me entry into a lot of advanced civilization markets for other products I'm making here on Corin.  Third, the trade with the advanced civilizations is making me very important to any number of advanced civilization governments.  In fact, I have become so important that several of the advanced civilization governments have officially accepted the Arquellian arbitration verdict that I'm not a Kivosh and, as a result, there are now any number of planetary governments who no longer have me under sentence of death.

My current space delivery vehicles are, admittedly, a bit primitive, but they're all I can really afford at the present time.  However, my current space delivery vehicles are going to make me money.  While I'm making money, I'm also training space vehicle pilots.  With the profits and the trained space vehicle pilots, I'll soon be able to move to the next phase of my space operation, that of landing a large nickel-iron asteroid on Corin, to provide a source of metal for the anti-gravity units I'm selling to the advanced civilizations.  Better yet, I'm also establishing myself as the legal owner of all of the asteroids in the sun system that includes Corin.  The legal basis is the laws that were enacted during the period of exploration and discovery on Corin some five centuries ago.

(You have to understand that the people who made the laws way back when were politicians who wanted to carve up the riches of the new world for themselves and then run home and screw their neighbour's wife.  The long term consequences of what they were doing were never even considered at the time.  The general idea seemed to be that they would do what was in their perceived best interest at the time and then change the rules later, if that seemed useful.  The fall out is that I'll have sole ownership of the mineral riches of the asteroids at very little cost to me.  I can then use the money to acquire more Kingdoms on Corin.  I must continue to expand on Corin and also to expand my trade relationships with the advanced civilizations.  There are still many who wish to kill me because I'm a Kivosh and the Arquellians wish to kill me because I continue to rip them up both politically and financially.  If I'm to survive, I must continue to add people who depend on me financially and will support me against those who want to kill me.)

I have programmed up a simulator and my first space pilot is as ready as he can be for the very first manned space expedition from Corin.  I talk with the pilot mog and he's confident.  I talk with the engineers who converted the missile into a space craft and they're confident.  I talk with the ground crew and they're confident.  In fact, I'm probably the least confident of all the mogs involved.  Ah well, somebody has to do the worrying.