Basilisk, this is a distant backwater outpost of the mighty star empire of Manticore. Nearby is a quiet and calm planet inhabited by savages - aborigines. A measured provincial life flows around, smugglers scurry there. No one else knows that the Basilisk will soon become the scene of a grand battle, the first battle in the upcoming war of the Manticore Empire with an unknown enemy. And if Commander Victoria Harington had not been on duty on the basilisk, the empire would have seemed to have no chance of winning...