Space opera the way it ought to be...Bujold and Weber, bend the knee; interstellar adventure has a new king, and his name is Walter Jon Williams. --George R. R. Martin

At last, the climactic final episode of the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy--what started with The Praxis and The Sundering comes to a brilliant conclusion in Walter Jon Williams's epic space adventure.

Working on opposite sides of the galaxy--one in deep space, the other undercover on an occupied planet--and haunted by personal ghosts, Captain Gareth Martinez and Lieutenant Lady Caroline Sula fight to save the Empire from the vicious, alien Naxid. In a desperate, audacious bid to stop the Naxid fleet, Martinez makes a move that could win the war ... and lose his career. Meanwhile, Sula's guerilla tactics may not be enough to stop the Naxid--until she tries one deadly, final gambit.