Army engineer Eduardo Torres is caught up in the world's raging oil wars when he stumbles onto the plans for a quantum-energy battery. This remarkable device could slow civilization's inevitable descent into environmental disaster, but Torres has other plans. Forming a private army, he uses the device to revive an abandoned space colonization effort in an ambitious campaign to lead humanity to a new life in a distant solar system. The massive endeavour faces many challenges before the fleet finally embarks for the Holzstein System many light-years away. But even as the feuding colonists struggle to carve out homes on alien worlds, they discover that they have not left their old conflicts and inner demons behind. Nor are they alone on this new frontier. Awaiting them are inhuman beings who strike without warning or explanation - and who may spell the end to humanity's last hope.