Expendable

Under the benevolent leadership of the League of Peoples, there is no war, little crime, and life is sacred...unless you're an Explorer. The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different -- and terrible -- ways to die.

Festina Ramos belongs to the well-trained, always-dwindling ranks of ECMs (Expendable Crew Members). Now she and her partner, Yarrun Derigha, have been ordered to escort the unstable Admiral Chee to Melaquin -- the feared "Planet of No Return"-- which has swallowed up countless Explorers before them without a trace.

Obviously, this is meant to be the last mission for Ramos and Derigha. But it won't be, if Festina can help it.

Great writing carries this unusual story about the Explorer Corps., the branch of the League of Peoples responsible for investigating planets and contacting new life forms. The catch is that corp members usually die in the process. That's why the corps comprises the medical misfits of society--people healthy enough to function yet disfigured or deformed enough that no one cares all that much if they die. Festina Ramos is an "Expendable Crew Member" who has just been ordered to escort a soon-to-be-senile admiral to Melaquin, a planet with an impeccable record for killing Explorer teams. It was meant to be a one-way mission to rid the League of one more has-been admiral, but Festina has other ideas about how things will turn out.