“A Blood Moon rises! For too long we have hidden from reality, fearing the loss of our past should we attempt to find our future. No more! Our day of infamy has arrived. A spark has ignited our universe and set it ablaze. From those ashes has grown a force that will crush the League of Brothers and drive it from our Realm! The decision has been made! Today we go to War! Phoenix rises!”

Tears flowed down the new king’s face as she thought of her sister, Darla, hoping beyond hope the woman might still live. This time her opponent had gone too far. There was no longer any place for negotiation. Their day of infamy had arrived. Mihai Astron, king over the Children’s Empire, had raised her fist, declaring absolute and total war with no hope of treaty or armistice. From the flames and ashes of this coming holocaust would rise only one power to rule over Heaven, Earth, and Hell - one power to rule the universe, either to its ending hour or coming glory.

The Third Fleet was shattered, Admiral Euroaquilo’s heroic rescue attempt of the Shikkeron sounding his demise and the fleet’s ruin as a fighting force. But they had won, beaten the enemy back, saved the Shikkeron and its precious living cargo from capture, or had they? What of the imperial frigate, Shikkeron? Gone it was, ship and crew, swallowed up in the cosmic dust of space.

Mihai shrugged. It mattered little now. She had raised her fist to the god of war, declaring the time of the world’s ending. Already her battle fleets hovered above MueoPoros, those invasion forces protected by Navy and Marine sky ships swarming the planet’s surface, engaging a ruthless enemy with no intention of surrender. In her mind’s eye, she could already see the great slaughter and the ruin of body and machine, smell the blood and gore of battle, the burning cordite and charred flesh. Had she not witnessed it so many times before, but always as the soldier faithfully obeying another’s commands?

This time Mihai had raised the banner of war, declared the unholy hour of death and destruction. Now others led the charge into the slaughter, into the meat-grinder of damnation...