The Defiant Agents
by Andre Norton
Travis Fox, once a reluctant captive fugitive spacecraft Galactic Derelict, this time impatiently volunteered for a mission to colonize Topaz. But when he and his Apache brothers find themselves on the path of their ancient warrior race, it becomes clear that more than their own lives are at stake, just as an expedition from Russia is transformed into a Mongol Horde camping across mountains. The clashes of these groups with each other, with nature on a hostile planet, with Russian puppeteers, and with an even more dangerous force coming from behind the stars, form a metaphorical, creative, subtle heroic narrative told with a convincing pulse of a true storyteller.
