Glynn Stewart has no business trying to write intrigue. The first few Starship’s Mage books were fine as schlocky action sci-fi but the whole Keepers of Oaths and Secrets arc proves how out of his depth Stewart is. Every character is an absolute moron, Damien was never a super genius but his one specialty is teleportation yet somehow he’s always late to do anything and whenever someone springs a scheme on him he just shrugs his shoulders and says shucks nothing we can do. Someone last minute adds a traitorous mage to his detail? No back tracking who arranged that just gone and forgotten. Someone on Mars puts a tracker on his car? Well shucks no need to look into that. The book is a complete waste of time, and its infuriating to boot. Nothing new is learned, no character progression occurs it just wastes your time while Stewart does a tour de force of poor plot development.