Young Miles by Lois McMaster Bujold

Paperback. Condition: Fine. 2003. Stock Image.

Being a Vor lord on the war-torn planet Barrayar wasn't easy. Being an officer in Barrayar's military wasn't easy. And being the leader of a force of spaceborne mercenaries while maintaining a secret identity wasn't easy—in fact it should have been impossible, to say nothing of being a capital offense on Barrayar. Not that impossibility or great danger would slow down young Miles Vorkosigan much.

Washed out of the Barrayaran Military Academy for being overly fragile (he had been biochemically damaged during an assassination attempt while still in his mother's womb), Miles's natural (if unorthodox) leadership qualities quickly led to his off-handedly acquiring a fleet of nineteen ships and three thousand troops, all unswervingly loyal to him—or at least to his alter ego, Admiral Naismith. In short order, he foiled a plot against his father, returned to and graduated from the academy, solved a murder among his people, joined a mutiny against a deranged superior officer, thwarted an interstellar invasion, and rescued the Barrayaran Emperor. Then things get interesting....