The new HG Rickover Shipyard in the asteroid belt was designed to build humanity's first interstellar colonization ships. Construction of the Voyager III was just underway when the visitors first appeared in the constellation Orion, approaching the solar system from the galactic rim. What humanity didn't know was that they were about to take center stage in a multi-billion year conflict between two races that originated in the Andromeda Galaxy and had now poured over into the Milky Way. Sted Richardson had been pushing hard to lead that first interstellar mission, but his plans were cut short by a freak accident at Tranquility Base on Luna. With the loss of both legs above the knees, he was no longer eligible to lead that mission. His new prosthetic legs, however, gave him hope. His advances in a new career as captain of a state of the art mining assay ship were about to lead him into the forefront of humanity's battle for its very existence.