Jumping through Grimspace is what Sirantha Jax was born to
do, literally. As a carrier of the rare J-gene, Jax is one
of an elite group of navigators, trained to guide starships
through Grimspace, a wormhole shortcut through space. Jax's
Corp career comes to an abrupt end when a ship full of
diplomats she's navigating crash lands on Matins IV,
killing everyone onboard. Everyone except Jax.
Confined to a psych unit for evaluation, Jax quickly comes
to the realization that blame for the crash is about to be
laid on her. Although she has no memory of what happened,
she seems to recall coming out of Grimspace in one piece,
but the details are fuzzy. When a stranger breaks into the
facility and offers her a way out, Jax runs without looking
back. Although she has no way of knowing what the man and
his crew want of her, she does know that to stay where she
is would be suicide.
The man, who introduces himself as March, wants Jax to help
train other jumpers. In the status quo, the Corp controls
all interplanetary travel and trade. The company has become
the ruling government on a good many planets and they plan
to keep it that way, no matter what it costs in money or
lives.
This is solid science fiction with a firm romantic thread.
A strong heroine on the verge of self-realization, Jax is a
woman ready to take control of her life and make her own
choices. Although she starts out worrying mostly about
taking care of number one, she eventually realizes that
there's more "hero" in her make-up than she ever gave
herself credit for. There are some sad deaths along the
way, and I would have liked to know a little more about
some of the people and places Jax comes across in her
travels, but with all the sequels around, I'm hopeful there
will be more of Jax and her universe coming soon!
As the carrier of a rare gene, Sirantha Jax has the
ability to jump ships through grimspace-a talent which
makes her a highly prized navigator for the Corp. Then a
crash landing kills everyone on board, leaving Jax in a
jail cell with no memory of the crash. But her fun's not
over. A group of rogue fighters frees her...for a price:
her help in overthrowing the established order.