Two years after the Empire abandoned them on Avalon, Colonel Edward Stalker and his Marines have established the Commonwealth, a union of worlds intended to take the place of the vanished Empire. But now contact has been made with a remnant of the Empire, a successor state controlled by a ruthless dictator bent on crushing the Commonwealth and expanding her rule over the entire galaxy. While the Commonwealth frantically prepares for war, a small team of Marines is dispatched to the enemy homeworld with orders to bring down the dictator – by any means necessary ...