Earth and the Colonies are in a fight to the death against the Brotherhood's civilization in the Andromeda Galaxy and, to make things worse, an advanced civilization called the Cyrens has threatened to attack the new colonies settled in Andromeda if Earth's fleets don't start attacking the Brotherhood's forces. Up till now, Earth's warships have managed to remain undetected by the Brotherhood's fleets but that was over; Admiral Talent is being forced to initiate attacks against the Brotherhood or run the risk of the new colonies being destroyed. Earth only has twenty-one Sha Class warships in Andromeda and they are heavily outnumbered by the Brotherhood warships and Berserker's. The Cyrens have stated they will delay attacking the new colonies until the Brotherhood has been defeated but offer no assurances they won't attack the colonies once that's done. If, by some miracle, Earth manages to defeat the Brotherhood then the Cyrens might attack the colonies anyway. Earth is in the untenable position of having to fight the Brotherhood without defeating them until some means of taking on the Cyrens' giant warships is discovered. To complicate matters, the alien civilizations attacking the Brotherhood for invading their planets are a clear threat to attack Earth's warships if they discover humans are flying them. They'll be lumped in with the Brotherhood and it will be Earth against every civilization in Andromeda. Things couldn't get much worse...or, could they?