The Nobinata Gambit

In the human Republic, Shakiro Nobinata wakes from life-saving surgery to discover he is paralyzed from mid-chest and re-growing several organs as well as his spinal cord. When his parents invite him home to the Empire of Nippon and Allied Cultures to finish his recovery, he jumps at the chance to end his decade-long exile.

Then he discovers his father’s true motivation is a mysterious disappearance of a member of the royal family that he wants Shakiro to solve, before the Emperor himself comes to the planet in a few weeks.

Yuki Karaguchi, sometimes known as “Lilo,” is an unofficial agent of the Empire’s security clan—running a spacer bar on Dorrigan for her day job—who has been tasked to “assist with his recovery” by Shakiro’s father, Clan Lord Feng Nobinata.

She’s not so ready to go to Imperial space, since she was born in the Republic, and her mother—the original sleeper agent—is dying there. But when the young Nobinata offers to take her mother home for her final days and a proper funeral, she can’t refuse.

So Shakiro has to learn how to walk again, convince the intriguing woman who has seen him at his worst to stay with him, find a traitor to the empire, and plan a Buddhist funeral, all in the few weeks before the Emperor arrives for his Golden Jubilee celebration…and possible assassination. Only the emperor’s life, stability of the interstellar government and the honor of his clan is at stake.