From the Nebula Nominated and New York Times Best Selling Author comes the long lost story of how Launa Obrian and Jack Walking Bear met, got to know each other, hit and did not hit it off and learned to train together. Here's the story that was referred to in the other books of the trilogy, but you've never had a chance to read before. Follow these two courageous troopers as they prepare for an insane mission even as the world around them descends into its own insanity. Included with this short novel are sample chapters from three books you can expect to see in the first half of 2017: Kris Longknife's Replacement: Grand Admiral Sandy Santiago on Alwa Station; Kris Longknife - Emissary, and Ray Longknife - Enemy Unknown. The first novel of the Iteeche War. Enjoy!

How do you win a war lost 6,000 years before you were born? Launa O'Brian, fresh out of West Point, gets those for her first set of orders. They want her to help peaceful farmers win a war they're about to lose to horse raiders, and change all history. Since a designer plague has canceled all human history in the 21st century, refusing the orders is not an option. The Army has a time machine. They tested it once. It didn't work, but trust them, they've fixed it. Yeah, Right. With all the army to chose from, Launa has one subordinate, Captain Jack Walking Bear. Being a Captain, he outranks her. Being a guy, he's got definite opinions on how to run this show. But the President's old anthropology professor says women spoke first back then, and Kris gets the command. So how come the first thing they see is a war band of horsemen who just want to hit them over the head and steal everything they brought? Did the time machine blow it? Where the anthropologists a bit off? Is Launa going to kill Jack before you get to the end of the book? You really want to read this book.

The year is 4,000 B.C. To save the People of the Badger from extinction, Lt. Launa O'Brian and Captain Jack Walking Bear must lead them down a new path of war. For the survival of this wise and peaceful tribe is civilization's only hope to erase the thousands of years of brutality that lie ahead for the human race.

A designer plague threatens every living thing on earth...and a desperate world sends two 21st-century soldiers back in time to win a war lost six thousand years ago. Now, in the thrilling follow-up to First Dawn and Second Fire, Lieutenant Launa O'Brian and Captain Jack Walking Bear return from 4,000 B.C.-and discover a radically changed civilization, and a society infested with a different sort of plague... First Dawn was a Locus Recommended Novel, hailed as a fine debut by the Salem Statesman Journal Mike Moscoe is a major new talent.-Robert J. Sawyer, Nebula Award-winning author of Starplex