The Terran Alliance and the Pan-Humanic Hegemony play the 'great game' in space. But a new trade route to a mineral-rich planet destroys the uneasy peace between these two powers and one of the nations that shares the planet hopes to play the two against one another, allowing them to seize ultimate power.

Author C. Scott Saylors delivers an exciting military SF story, with action on both ground and in space. Saylors's creates vivid characters drawing us into the story.