The alien fleet orbited Penum IV and used colorful incinerating death rays on the planet rotating below. When the inhabitants of the globe were annihilated and everything left worth pillaging stowed on black-hulled plunder ships, the fleet moved on to the next inhabited human world, unopposed except by. The warship Preceptor, commanded by Pier Norlin, a junior officer on a ship with only a skeleton crew. The ship lacks proper armament, the crew is mismatched and fighting among themselves--and the mission is not sanctioned by the Empire. For Norlin, these are only small obstacles to be ignored. He is on a personal mission of revenge against the aliens until. Command of the Preceptor is given to the genetically enhanced superman, Pavel Pensky. Pensky is brilliant-and quite insane. Will his daring schemes bring victory against the aliens or deliver rainbow death to Norlin and the Preceptor's crew?