Agent of Vega

Blurb

Agent of Vega is a science fiction novel by James H. Schmitz, 1960. Like the Foundation series, it is a collection of stories that originally appeared separately in magazines. It was republished in 2001 as Agent of Vega & Other Stories.
The tale began in 1949 as a longish short story published in the SF magazine Astounding. In 1960 it appeared as a book, along with three loosely related stories set in the same time and context: The Illusionists; The Truth About Cushgar; The Second Night of Summer.
In the far future, humans are building a 'Confederacy of Vega' to replace the original fallen Empire of Earth. The new empire includes some mutated humans and also some non-humans. Enemies are also a mix of humans and aliens and it is very much space opera, featuring Vega's 'zone agents'. Combat involves both physical weapons and telepathic attacks. It clearly owes a lot to E. E. Smith's Lensman series.
Unlike the six Lensman books, the four stories are only loosely connected. Each features a completely different set of enemies.