With the destruction of their home colony, Captain Ben Gibson and his Army Rangers have nowhere else to go. Six months after humanity’s victory in Earth’s first ever interstellar war, a group of soldiers are tasked with running a convoy refueling base in a rural part of the occupied enemy world. When they arrive, they find the local village has been abandoned in anticipation of their arrival by the panicked residents. Fearing a possible humanitarian crisis, the troops have to go into the alien wilderness to find them, reassure them that the humans are not the savages they’ve been taught they are and bring them back. And it won’t be easy. They will have to overcome language barriers, a fearful and hostile population, cross-cultural miscommunications, almost no support from the Army, and their own demons to succeed. With no idea where to start, it looks nearly impossible until the sudden arrival of a dirty, disheveled priestess who confesses to a host of war crimes and demands she be executed for them.

It just got awkward... With the Va'Shen villagers home safe, Army Ranger Captain Ben Gibson is ready to settle in for an easy deployment overseeing a sleepy refueling base on the occupied enemy homeworld and its small contingent of soldiers and sailors. That is until he returns from his shower and finds the the alien priestess, Alacea, sitting on the floor of his room and his interpreter frantically banging on his door with something urgent to tell him. Meanwhile, Staff Sergeant Ramirez is making inroads with the Huntresses, the alien village's hunting guild, and has been invited to come with them on a hunt. Little does he realize he is about to become someone else's prey. Because hiding not far away is a group of Va'Shen for whom the interstellar war never ended.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Happy… Arbor Day? As Captain Ben Gibson and his Army Rangers continue to improve relations between the humans and the Va’Shen villagers of Pelle, Gibson is invited to participate in the village’s ruling council. During his first meeting, what starts as a little white lie to make it acceptable for the Va’Shen to accept food aid snowballs into a huge festival for both races and big opportunities for the U.S. military to interact with their alien hosts (without being shot at). But while Gibson and company are busy with the festival, a Va’Shen noble comes to Pelle, intent on making the Va’Shen high priestess, Alacea, his bride. And he won’t take no for an answer.

With the misunderstanding surrounding Ranger Captain Ben Gibson’s marriage to the local Va’Shen high priestess, Alacea, finally cleared up, relations between the Rangers and the local occupied alien village have never been better. Because of this, Alacea believes it’s the perfect time for the two of them to move to the next logical stage of their relationship: having a baby. For Gibson, this means one thing. He needs to get out of town. Now. Fortunately, he has the perfect reason to do so. Alacea has asked him to try to find out on what planet the village’s commandos were killed so that the villagers can perform the proper funeral rites. Armed with a list of names he can’t read and literally no information on where to start, Gibson and his interpreter, Lieutenant Patricia Kim, head off for the main air and space base on Va’Sh to begin the search. But they are not the only ones with an interest in Va’Sh’s missing commandos. A secretive organization is moving around in the background, intent on completely undermining the fragile peace between the two worlds.

A month has passed since Captain Ben Gibson arranged for the return of the village's missing commandos, and relations between the Rangers and the local alien community have never been better. As the two sides work together to prepare for the arrival of a group of refugees, he and the Va'Shen priestess, Alacea, work on exploring their budding personal relationship. But the story has been quite different for those incoming refugees, and their experiences with the human invaders have been very difficult. And when they arrive, they will bring more with them than hungry, homeless villagers. They will bring dark secrets, heartbreaking trauma and the dry tinder for an all-out insurgency. All it will need is a spark.