Sten Adventures Book 1: Sten
 | |
| Author | Chris Bunch and Allan Cole |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Ralph Brillhart |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Sten Adventures |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Del Rey Books, reissued by Orbit Books |
Publication date | 1982 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 279 pp |
| ISBN | 0-345-28503-4 |
| OCLC | 9524371 |
| LC Class | CPB Box no. 2609 vol. 10 |
| Followed by | The Wolf Worlds |
Sten is the first book in Chris Bunch and Allan Cole's The Sten Adventures.
Plot summary
Karl Sten is a young boy growing up on an industrial factory world called Vulcan. Citizen's inside the corporate dominated society are stratified into Execs, Techs, and Migs or migrant unskilled. Living on a pioneer planet might be attractive with higher salaries, but the cost of living outweighs pay, something corporate recruiters leave out of Vulcan's pitch. Mig's time-to-expiration date on work contracts constantly moves further away. On Vulcan, Sten's parents are little better than indentured servants, living in small cubical style housing segregated in a district called The Row. Although Sten's parents wish to raise their children elsewhere, they never are able to "buy out" their contracts and leave.
After Sten's family is killed in an industrial cover-up initiated by Vulcan's CEO, Baron Thoresen, Sten rebels against the laws of Vulcan and escapes to live on his own in the background of the factory world. For several years he runs with the Delinqs, a band of young outlaws that have also rejected the ideals of The Company.
One day he saves an off-worlder, Ian Mahoney, from a security team. Mahoney is the head of Imperial Intelligence and is trying to gather information on a special project Baron Thoresen is running. Mahoney offers Sten and his gang a chance to leave Vulcan if they can get the information he needs.
Unfortunately, during the mission they are discovered and Sten is apparently the only one who makes it back alive. True to his word, Ian takes Sten off the hellhole of his birth, but enlists him the military to keep him safe. During Imperial Guards training, Sten proves to be square peg for the traditional military, but perfect for the super secret CIA-type covert branch of intelligence that Ian heads, called Mantis.
While in Mantis, Sten excels and becomes the head of Team 13, with Alex Kilgour, a heavy worlder from New Edinburgh, (who has a rather ill-tempered view of the Campbell Clan) as his second in command.
Eventually, The Eternal Emperor assigns Team 13 to bring down the government of Vulcan so the Baron's secret project can be unmasked. Team 13 accomplishes this by organizing a rebellion, which gets out of control and almost tears apart the factory world in a heated frenzy. Sten and Team 13 finish the job up with sneakiness, judicious violence and a few well placed explosions. Sten confronts his parents killer, Baron Thorenson, and kills him by ripping his heart out with his bare hands.
At the conclusion of the novel, while being dressed down for killing Thoresen against the emperor's orders, Ian promotes Sten to lieutenant. It seems the emperor had thought better of his order not to kill the baron but had not been able to get word to the team in the field. A great future seems to be in store for our hero.