Time is of the essence. The race to the end is on. 

Tangel leads the I2 to Star City, while Joe follows after the Perilous Dream, desperate to bring his daughters home. Elsewhere Praetor Kirkland prepares for attack, suspecting that the Widows are coming for him. To top it off, the denizens of Star City make an impossible demand. When personal need runs up against the Alliance's goals, Tangel is forced to reevaluate what her role is and what she's willing to sacrifice to save her people.

While battles rage across the Transcend and the Inner Stars, Tangel's focus shifts to Orion space.

Tangel is still reeling from her battle with the ascended AI, but she still needs to complete her negotiations with the League of Sentients and bring them into the Alliance. Once that agreement is in place, the Alliance will be in a position to hit the Hegemony on multiple fronts, beginning the process of defeating humanity's oldest empire. But unbeknownst to Tangel, a force of Widows is present on Lunic station, eager for the opportunity to derail that agreement though Tangel's death.

The Allies have solidified their hold on the Large Magellanic Cloud and turn their sights on the Inner Stars and Perseus Arm. With forces spread thin, they must depend on superior technology and quantum entanglement communication to retain their edge. But their enemies have not been idle. Ascended AIs move to destroy Tangel, as Garza and the Orion Widows strike out at both Tangel and Airtha. Deep in the Transcend, Justin readies his new stasis ship for an assault on Vela, and the League of Sentients dithers on whether to join the fight.

Sera must return to Khardine, where new challenges await, and preprations for the march on Airtha begin. Meanwhile Tanis turns toward the Praesepe Cluster. There, a handfull of interstellar nations hold out against the encroaching Nietzschean Empire. Sera's Hand agents are certain that the Nietzscheans are backed by Orion, and Nadine is sent in ahead to connect with agents in Septhia before the I2 arrives.

Tanis and Sera have taken the I2 to Khardine, the new capital of the Transcend, and must now travel to the Inner Stars and meet with Scipian Empress, Diana - who they hope will be an ally to the Transcend. With the Trisilieds Kingdom, the Hegemony of Worlds, and the Nietzschean Empire all aligned with the Orion Guard - not to mention a civil war brewing in the Transcend - they will need all the help they can get to secure the Inner Stars. But Empress Diana has her own plans for the Inner Stars, and while they may dovetail with the Transcend's for now, they may not always do so....

New Canaan is under attack. Driven by Uriel, the Hegemony and its last remaining allies have sent their fleets against the ISF's homeworld. It's a final solution, little more than an attempt to bring about mutually assured destruction. Of course, the humans of Sol don't know that their leader is under the control of core AIs who do not care which side wins, so long as humanity is weakened. Tanis and Tangel have returned from the core, ready to defend their homes, but they lost a month in a temporal jump, and the core AIs are ready for them, led by one of Epsilon's lieutenants.

Talus, the system comprised of Toralians and the Sisterhood, is under siege. Massive battleships, each ferrying an envoy from a federacy race, surround the Talusian home world Toral. Two wedges, each comprised of nine federacy battleships, wait outside the system. The sisters, whom the SADEs created during the fight to defeat Artifice, possess advanced tech.

Tanis Richards has had enough with people manipulating her; unfortunately, the only way out is to go through. Her mission takes her to Earth to abduct a high-ranking Scattered Disk officer on the orders of the Jovian Oligarch. Meanwhile, Harm must do the unthinkable to escape his captor and come to Tanis' aid. Tanis doesn't know it yet, but if she doesn't succeed, her failure will spark the third Solar War....

The Genevians are at war with Nietzschea...and they’re losing. In a last-ditch hope, the Genevian mech program was founded. Its goal to augment humans into cyborg fighting machines; mechanized warriors sent to hold the front lines against an enemy that was storming a hundred worlds. Yet few wished to undergo the brutal process, and so criminals were used, their minds enslaved by control chips and obedience enforced through discipline.

Events on Naraka leave Grayson exhausted but hopeful. The invaders may not be as unstoppable as he thought, and the entire weight of the Alliance is about to enter the fray. Rejoining the Navy should bring closure to his ordeal and allow him to return to his life as a pilot. Except his mesh partner is still stranded on a freezing planet. Except his past refuses to let go of his future. Except the man he trusted to rally the defenses may have sabotaged them instead.

Follow the continuing adventure of the Lyssa and the Sykes family while the Psion AIs set their sights on Vesta. 

After years of drifting aimlessly after the war with the Nietzscheans, Rita has finally found a home with the Marauders - a mercenary outfit comprised of Genevian veterans. When General Mill, CO of the Marauders, comes to Rika with a top-secret solo operation, she wants to turn it down. But the mission comes with a chance to save Silva, her old team leader from the Nietzschean war. Without team Basilisk, without the Marauders, Rika must stand on her own against all odds and save the woman who once saved her.

The Confederation has decided that Earth represents a significant danger to their future plans of Empire. A massive fleet is dispatched to destroy the Solar System and every Human on its planets, moons, and asteroids. If the Solar System falls, the fledging Human Empire will have no chance of survival. Admiral Reynolds is tasked with defending the Solar System and preserving as many Human lives as possible. He knows he faces a nearly impossible task as he does not have the ships needed to stop the coming attack.