Training done, healing complete, Desmond is positive that it’s time to return to ‘life as usual’ with his guards. Sure, he’s got a trio of nearly several-hundred pound alien guard animals that believe they are lap-sized, a whole new world of power to explore as an adept, and a brand new posting as an officer. But all that is nothing Desmond can’t figure out.

Especially after his team helped disassemble a drug ring pushing a new and lethal drug to a planetary colony that was having lethal consequences amongst the users. That’s not even counting the repeated missions to handle cult activities and uncover members of said cult.

Surely, a nice, quiet few years doing paperwork and Arsenal doing their everyday job—diving into magical Rifts in space to kill the monsters inside and stabilize the tear in reality before it exploded—would be simple enough to ask for. Even if he’s being assigned to the adept-lieutenant position aboard a fleet dreadnought—a post selected for him by a member of the special enforcement organization in the Hegemony, the Imperial Questers.

Fate should give her favorite squeaky toy a rest, wouldn’t she?