Newly promoted Captain Brett Butcher is about to achieve his lifelong ambition to command a battle cruiser. Before he takes up his new posting, he goes home on leave, hoping for a glimpse of his first love, the unattainable Lady Tarlyn.
When the queen is assassinated in a terrorist attack, Tarlyn's life is thrown into turmoil as she becomes a target herself. The last person she expects to rescue her is her childhood sweetheart, Brett.
As Validor's Ptorix and human populations face off over a group of disputed islands, calls for war grow louder. Torn between love, duty, and ambition, Brett and Tarlyn struggle to prevent an inter-species conflict. But with planetary peace at stake, both may be forced to choose between the future they want and the duty they cannot escape.
