March 15th, Earth Year 2290 The day the aliens returned. The memories are still fresh. Of colonies burning. Of millions dying in agony. 50 years later, we’ve built up our strength. Using a wormhole, we colonized both sides of the galaxy. It was the worst mistake we could have made. Our enemy has returned and the wormhole has collapsed. Commander Thatcher finds himself on the wrong side of the divide. Separated from his pregnant wife by countless light years. He’s just been given command of a light armored cruiser. His first command. If he ever wants to see his wife again, he’ll need to do the impossible. To defeat this enemy, he will need to reinvent space warfare. So that’s just what he’s going to do.

It's not the size of the ship in the fight... It's the size of the fight in the ship. The Xanthic are hitting the Dawn Cluster hard. All signs point to their invasion beginning with a star system in the distant north. To stop it, Commander Thatcher and Veronica Rose put together the biggest fleet they can - a force that still seems hopelessly small. With that, they set sail against impossible odds, to see if a miracle can be worked one more time.

Nothing brings change like war. A surge of new tech. New weapons. New tactics. To lead a crew to victory, a captain must understand change. He must understand command and that it is a test. A test most men fail. He must be brilliant. Resourceful. Every second. Of every day. And at night during scarce moments of rest he must sleep the sleep of the righteous. The time has come for Commander Tad Thatcher to look in the mirror. The time has come to ask himself Am I that kind of man?

The galaxy’s first super-ship is here A rogue private military corporation has begun construction on the first privately owned super-ship, and it threatens to massively upset the balance of power throughout the Dawn Cluster. Commander Thatcher and Veronica Rose have teamed up with a new mega-alliance led by Simon Moll. Together, they plan to destroy the super-ship before it ever finishes construction. But all is not as it seems. As war expands to engulf even more of the star cluster, Thatcher begins to doubt whether uniting humanity to fight the Xanthic is even possible anymore. A darkness coalesces at the edges of known space. New forces are emerging. New forms are taking shape. It may be time for Thatcher to lower his expectations…from uniting humanity, to simply making sure his crew survives what’s coming.

Hunted through system after system Veronica Rose is gone. Frontier Security has fallen. And so goes Captain Thatcher’s last lifeline. Cut off from the rest of the star cluster and surrounded by enemies, all seems lost. Thatcher must reach deep inside himself to find the resolve to keep fighting. The spacers under his command are counting on him to bring them safely home. In the darkest hour, someone must provide a light.

The fate of the star clusterCaptain Thatcher has survived the crucible of Lacuna Region and escaped to the Cluster's south, where he hopes to gather allies in the fight against Simon Moll.Moll's betrayal has haunted him for months, and he lays the death of Veronica Rose directly at the man's feet. Thatcher will stop at nothing in his mission to avenge her.But friends are hard to come by in this cutthroat Cluster, where allegiances shift like sand. Thatcher is quickly learning that in the final reckoning, he only has his own wits to rely on - and the strength of the starship crews under his command.The time has come to deploy his riskiest gambit yet.

The war they'd all feared The star cluster's super-powers tried to make peace last. Truly, they did. But everyone knew war between Ascendant Horizon and the Coalition of Giants was inevitable. Saddled with an alliance that seems to struggle with the basics of space warfare, Captain Thatcher must fall back on his tactical prowess - along with the steadfastness of the crews under his command - just to keep his people alive. But an enemy lurks around every corner, and there is dissension even in Thatcher's fleet. What's more, he knows there are only two ways this war can end. In victory, or in total defeat.

A hammer is made for one thing Captain Thatcher, the Hammer himself, wages a desperate fight for survival against his most bitter enemy. In the battle for humanity's future against Simon Moll's swarming fleets, Thatcher reaches inside himself and finds a willingness to do anything it takes to win. Anything. It. Takes. Long-held principles disintegrate as massive fleets clash in the darkness of the void. But while sudden changes of heart can win short-term tactical victories, what will be the cost to Thatcher's soul? Or those of the crews under his command? Long-sought vengeance may yet be had in the star cluster's southern reaches. But a reckoning looms on the horizon, the likes of which no one fighting has begun to fathom.

The storm finally breaks. With Simon Moll vanquished at last, Thatcher's attention turns inward...inward, that is, toward the Dawn Cluster's center, where the UNC yet controls the system where the wormhole to Earth once orbited. He will return to Earth - surely nothing can keep him from that, now. But what resistance might the UNC muster in the meantime? And when Thatcher does return to Earth, what will he truly find there? Find out in a series finale both gripping, and chilling. The Xanthic await.