Publisher's Synopsis
War has returned to the Thousand Worlds of the Orion spiral arm for the first time in 300 years. Fleets are moving, planets are being bombarded, invading armies are landing. Storms of blood and metal are blowing across the broken face of invaded Genève and four more startled worlds. More war is on the way, racing outward to fill every corner of Orion.Jan Wysocki is a failed officer, a washout from Aral Academy who ran away from his first ever combat. But he's in command, with over 300 fighters looking only to him. He must overcome a lifetime of self-doubt to lead a cutoff and ragtag Madjenik Company on an epic trek to reach the last place of refuge on invaded Genève, if it's even still there. He must master himself as well as the enemy. He must learn to lead in spite of his limits and failures. He doesn't think he can do it. Zofia Jablonski is younger, more confident, more ruthless toward the enemy and brutally honest with Jan. She led her platoon back to save him on that first day, wounded in the leg as he ran away, his back to the enemy. She graduated top of her class. She's a consummate military professional who exudes confidence and competence. Not like him at all. Can they work together? Can they elude the swarming and surrounding enemy to reach refuge? What then? Is there any way off a burning world? Any chance to defy an invader so much more powerful in every way? Can they find a way to make peace no more, forever?SECOND EDITIONKali Altsoba is the pen name used to publish future war fiction by the award-winning teacher and military historian, Cathal J. Nolan. Author of multivolume books of international and military history, he received the major international book prize, the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History, for his critically highly acclaimed The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (2017). His books have been feature reviewed in academic and military journals, in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The National, as well as online. He hosts a military history podcast on the New Books Network.
