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By Root 1221 0

Vervain for protection. Cavilo is clever, ruthless, sociopathic, casually homicidal, and makes new friends quickly, her latest being Stanis Metzov, the former Lazkowski Base commander whose career Miles helped end on Barrayar. She sends Miles on a mission to subvert the Dendarii from within, thereby allowing her mercenaries to raid Vervain in the chaos of allowing an invading Cetagandan fleet through the wormhole to "rescue" Vervain from the mercenaries, and seal an alliance with the planet, ensuring that Empire more direct access to the Hegen Hub—and getting closer to Barrayar too. However, Gregor in the mix changes everything, and Miles figures Cavilo will now reach even higher—for an empress's crown, gained by marrying Gregor. Miles retakes the Dendarii, frees Gregor from Cavilo's grasp, and sends his outmatched fleet to hold off the Cetagandan invasion force until reinforcements arrive. They do, in the form of the dreadnought Prince Serg and a Barrayaran fleet. Admiral Oser escapes during the fighting, and is killed when his shuttle is blown out of space. The Cetagandans are routed, and Cavilo, who had escaped from the brig in the confusion, kills Metzov when he tries to kill Miles, and is granted safe passage out of the area. Miles is reunited with his father, and is assigned to be the Barrayaran liaison to the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet—as "Admiral Naismith," with an accompanying promotion to lieutenant in the Barrayaran military as well.

Cetaganda (1996)

Lieutenant Lord Miles Vorkosigan and Lieutenant Lord Ivan Vorpatril have been assigned to attend the funeral of the late Cetagandan Empress Lisbet Degtiar, and to observe the Cetagandans in their native habitat. The trip gets off to a surprising start when a strange-looking person bursts into their ship upon landing. Thinking he's an assassin, Miles and Ivan try to subdue him, but he gets away, leaving a nerve disruptor and a short, unusual rod behind. Miles decides not to tell their commanding ImpSec officer about the incident right away, as he wants to figure out why it happened in the first place. They attend a welcoming party that same evening, where Miles meets Lord Yenaro, a Cetagandan lord and perfume maker who has supplied a large, walk-through sculpture for the Marilacan Embassy. Invited inside, Miles suffers an accident when a power field heats his leg braces, causing painful burns. Miles is now even more suspicious that something is going on, and his instincts are confirmed when, during a gift presentation and viewing of the Empress lying in state, a Cetagandan haut-lady named Rian Degtiar contacts him, demanding the return of the strange rod. Miles arranges to meet with her again, then takes his place back in the viewing procession just in time to see the same strange person who had invaded their ship, member of a Cetagandan servant neuter caste known as ba, lying dead behind the funeral dais, its throat slit. Continuing his investigation, Miles discovers the short rod is the Great Key of the Star Crèche, a security device that stores all of the information on the Cetagandan genetic lines kept for reproduction purposes and to maintain the lines of descent for the ghem and haut-lords. Invited to a party at Lord Yenaro's estate, Miles makes contact with Rian again, and returns the Great Key, which is revealed to be a fake. Miles demands to continue his investigation, feeling he was set up for this, with Barrayar to take the fall, provoking an interstellar war with Cetaganda. To make matters worse, he has less than nine days—the mourning period for the Empress, after which a new one will be chosen—to uncover the plot before it happens. Pressing Rian for more information, he learns the Empress had made eight copies of the haut gene bank, feeling that Cetaganda was growing stagnant, and hoping that dispersing the gene bank to the governors of eight satrapy planets would revitalize the Empire. Miles sees the move as insanity, creating eight smaller, aggressive empires out of one large one. He figures out that the ba was played, and was supposed to give