his first assignment that he and his crew would make humanity's first contact with a sentient alien species. In an uncharted star system where Aurora's crew discovers two planets inhabited by a non-human civilization, Aurora is disabled by gigantic alien starships before she can escape. Boarded by nightmarish blue-skinned warriors with claws and fangs, the aliens learn all there is to know about the ship, including all its stored information about humanity, before the crew is slaughtered in a series of ritual combats. Ichiro, the sole survivor, is returned to Earth as a messenger to warn of the aliens' coming invasion of human space. For that is the Way of the Kreelan Empire, an ancient and dying race that has waged war across the galaxy for a hundred thousand years, slaughtering every sentient species it has encountered in a desperate search for the One, a savior foretold in an ages-old prophecy who can rescue them from looming extinction. For the Kreelans, who will die out in a handful of generations, the conflict with humanity will be The Last War. With Earth leading a fragile coalition of military forces to mount a defense against what many believe is nothing more than a hoax, Ichiro again finds himself at the sharp end of the spear aboard a Terran destroyer. Together with journalist Stephanie Guillaume, Legionnaire Roland Mills, and the irrepressible General James Sparks, Ichiro and the other men and women of the coalition put their lives on the line against an enemy