Nova -- Chuck Black

<p><em>A mighty empire...a lowly slave...a galaxy to save. Will a hero rise? </em></p><p><em>Nova </em> chronicles the early years of the galaxy after the great war between two immortal races known as the Malakians and the Torians. The despot, Zari Treville, is leading the Torians on a campaign to rule the galaxy, but Supreme Chancellor Ell Yon, leader of the Malakians, stands in his way. Both races have technology that mankind can't begin to understand or even imagine. Young Daeson Starlore was born of royal blood on the planet of Jypton where an indentured race of people called the Rayleans (the Drudge class) serve the ruling classes of Jyptonians (the Colloquial and the Elite classes). As a young man Daeson is living his dream piloting his Starcraft at the academy and is on track to graduate at the top of his class. He is secretly taken with a young Raylean mechanic named Raviel Arko, but there are strict fraternization rules about interacting with the Drudge. One fateful night he encounters an oracle that reveals to him that he is pure-blooded Raylean, and his world begins to collapse. When his cousin Linden, the royal heir to the Chancellor of Jypton, discovers Daeson's love for Raviel, he sets out to destroy him. Daeson kills a sentry sent to expose him and Daeson and Raviel are forced to flee in his Starcraft to a remote and deserted planet near the Omega Nebula. But the radiation from the nebula nearly kills them both as their bodies are purged of Dietum Prime, the g