The war is over, but the struggle continues. Tyler Barron and his spacers have set out into the unknown, deep into the Badlands, seeking to discover the empire's old tech and the secrets of its tortured history before Gaston Villieneuve and the resurgent Union can beat them to it. The White Fleet is a vast force, powerful and crewed by the toughest veterans from the war. Barron and his people know the future of the Confederation, even its survival, depends on recovering the scientific secrets of the empire before the enemy can do the same. Barron and his people push far beyond the Confederation's borders, to space untraveled since the Cataclysm. They are seeking the past, its secrets, its knowledge...but they will find a present that they never expected, a new and terrible danger, one that threatens not only the White Fleet, but the Confederation itself...even the entire Rim.