A routine sentry mission discovers a human colony where only bones remain, and the hostiles are nowhere to be found.
Days later a fusion bomb devastates the defending forces on the desert planet Squire. Hordes of the insectoid Kadan flood the planet with the technology of the ancient Emflife. They advance to crush the human lines but stop just short of victory.
Colonel Cole Clarke and his battalion of convicts must discover what the Kadan are really doing. Their untested armor is the only thing that can stand up to the Emflife tanks, and that’s if they’re lucky. They’re outgunned, outmatched, and stretched thin. If they fail, the alien invasion won’t stop until they’ve burned their way into the heart of human space. Terra.
Sent on an impossible mission with no support, the 19th ACR strikes out alone.