Law of Survival

Jani Kilian has successfully escaped to civilian life, but the life of an experimental alien-human hybrid doesn't include the opportunity to sneak away to a nice quiet colony world lacking less-than-cutting-edge medical facilities. So she has to make the best of a bad lot and capitalize on her expertise in dealing with an alien species for whom bureaucracy and diplomacy are inextricably intertwined. It doesn't help that the alien ambassador and religious leader is insisting that she's supposed to inherit his place in society. And why is a crime syndicate trying to kidnap her parents?

Smith keeps the action running at all levels, from interstellar diplomacy to the complex personal life of the heroine.

Jani Kilian was seriously damaged when fighting aliens on behalf of humans, she was repaired by those aliens and now has to deal with the fact that she's not fully human any more, what's more, she's suspect on both sides.

I really liked this story and wasn't aware that it was a sequel until I was nearly half way through, still I enjoyed it.

Quite a dense prose to work through, does not make for easy reading and takes a long time (if any) to start getting interesting.