We fought them for decades. And we won. But victory hurt us more than defeat. Years after defeating aliens bent on burning down the galaxy, the Interstellar Union is breaking apart, its member species undermining each other at every opportunity. When an interdimensional distress signal arrives, only humanity is interested in helping. Captain Vin Husher is sent in with a task force… …right into a trap laid by humanity’s old enemy. Surrounded by a bioengineered super-species and unable to return home, Husher must draw on decades of experience just to keep his people alive. If he can’t survive long enough to escape this hellish pocket universe and warn humanity of the impending danger, all will be lost.

Trapped in a pocket universe… After barely surviving the Brood’s first vicious assault, the battered human battle group must now take the fight to the enemy’s home systems. Defeat is not an option. If Captain Husher and Admiral Iver can’t lead their people to victory, not only will those in the battle group perish – so will all of humanity. A desperate counterstrike is their only hope.

The brink of disaster The Relentless is destroyed, and Captain Husher has fallen into a coma. The Brood harries the battle group from all sides, and the end seems near. Can the allied humans and aliens pull together to escape to the Milky Way and warn humanity of its impending doom? The time of reckoning has come.