What is the definition of strength? At what point is there nothing more to learn than the limits of endurance? When is darkness no longer contrast to light but a suffocation, and how close to that line can a person walk before she risks her soul? Ten years after she graduated from the Fleet Academe at Terracentrus, Alysha Forrest was captain of the battlecruiser UAV Stardancer with more honor to her name than any other officer her age. But before that dawn there was a night, and it is in the darkness that souls are made...or broken.