A dangerous mission. A second chance.Actually, scratch that. No chance.Dix's career as a trooper in the Federation army is unblemished - until the day he disobeys a direct order and strikes an officer.Now Dix has a choice. Face a life of hard labour that promises to be brutal and short. Or accept a mysterious invitation to join a black-ops mission in hostile terrain.The plan sounds simple, if horribly dangerous. Fetch a fearsome weapon from a secret location and deliver it to a distant planet, whose population is under the chilling yoke of the Federation's rival empire, the Axis. Do it without getting caught, or implicating the Federation, and Dix's transgressions will be forgiven.But the weapon turns out to be unlike anything he could have expected, and Dix's troubles have only just begun.