I'm a killer. I don't remember every face of every victim but I remember this: that look in the eyes of someone facing their end, the mixture of fear, resentment, resignation. It was my job, just my job. I stole lives. Now they-the men, the women and, God help me, the children-steal my sleep, my peace of mind, my soul. I am a haunted man. This government asked too much from its soldiers. It asked too much from its citizens. It asks too much from me. Now, I'm asking for something. . . . To get my soul back. Kicking fate in the teeth, Capt. Stanley West goes off the grid, slips quietly off world, and makes a run for it. This story begins before Raven West's birth, before her father Stanley met her mother, Lilia Slone, before the battles of Saigus or Los Dabaron. Indeed, before any of it. This is Raven's heritage; a time of war and killing, a time of human suffering on a galactic scale. This is the story of Raven's father, the beginning of hope.