the third instalment of this gripping trilogy from an exciting new sci-fi author. two years after the unhatching of Callayan President Neiland's plot to make the capital city of tanusha the centre of the Federation, Callay is under siege. A powerful faction of conservative Fleet captains have surrounded Callay, at Earth's behest, and are threatening a blockade - or worse. A fearful Earth does not wish to lose direct control of its precious war machine, and there are fears of civil war. All that Callay has to oppose the warships of the Fleet is the CDF, or Callayan Defence Force - a newly formed group of raw recruits led by a politically hamstrung general, but largely trained and organised by Major Vanessa Rice and her best friend, Callay's very own tame combat-android Commander Cassandra Kresnov. But when Cassandra's lover, Special Agent Ari Ruben, discovers a plot to kill her using a killswitch that her old masters in the League built into her brainstem, Sandy is forced to go underground to stay alive ...