A peacekeeping mission that might be anything but...

Lieutenant Bannon and his phalanx of Corvanite warriors have already seen some of the worst that the irregular war between the reptilian otuchans and the human latecomers can offer.

Or so they think.

First Sergeant Draven, trying to hold his company of Zolarian citizen soldiers together, has been on the desolate planet of Zhogalgan longer than Bannon. He's seen even more.

Yet while they are both there as peacekeepers, they are not there to help each other.

Spheres of influence and empires clash on a dry, harsh world that might become the flashpoint in an interstellar war!

Includes a bonus short story, "Pacification."