The Berserker Throne

The Empress of the
Eight Worlds has been assassinated. Prince Harivarman, exiled on the
Templar Radiant, suspects that he will be the next victim. Help is
scarce: Anne Blenheim, the fortress' clear-eyed, fair Commander, is
favorably disposed toward the Prince, but her first responsibility is to
the Templar High Command. And Chen Shizuoka, a Templar recruit
sympathetic to Harivarman's cause, is being stalked by planetary
security forces. When Prince Harivarman discovers an operable
Berserker–one of the asteroid-sized, spacefaring war machines that once
destroyed their makers and all other life in their path–his first
instinct is to turn it in. But then he finds an ancient code that will
either allow him to control the dreaded machine or lead him–and everyone
else on the Templar Radiant–to certain death.