vigil

Twelve years ago, humanity and three alien civilizations ended a brutal war by signing the Halcyon Accord. To enforce it, each species agreed to a strange compromise: peacekeeping ships patrol the border zones with their weapons physically sealed. To fire, the commander needs a second key held by an alien observer living aboard the ship. Every fight is a negotiation, even on your own bridge. The protagonist: Commander Soren Hale, 31, is the youngest commander in the Galactic Navy. He got his ship because nobody else wanted it. The Vigil is an old warship from the last war, converted for peacekeeping and considered a dead-end posting. Soren was a war orphan raised partly in an alien refugee enclave, so he speaks their languages and understands their customs. That makes him valuable to the Navy, but many humans see him as "too close to the enemy."