Spacers call the warp point Charon's Ferry. No star ship has ever
entered it and returned since a vengeful Orion task force pursued a
doomed Terran colonization fleet into it in 2206. Almost a century has
passed. The fiery hatreds of a quarter-century of warfare between the
Terran Federation and the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaieeee, the cat-like
species humans called the "Orions," have eased at least a little. The
"Grand Alliance" forged by the need to fight side-by-side against the
genocidal Rigelians remains, but there are those on either side who
continue to hate, continue to distrust. Now the strength of that
war-forged alliance is about to be tested. For Charon's Ferry is about
to give up the secret of its dead. A ship has emerged from the deadly
warp point at last. A ship which responds to the challenge of an Orion
star ship using ancient human communications codes...then opens fire.
The holocaust of interstellar warfare has been ignited anew, in a bloody
crusade to free Holy Mother Terra.