Failing a mission can cost Micah Stone his life, that's nothing new, but now success may cost him his best friend Lately, the League Navy has seen a suspicious increase in the number of defective parts they receive. These parts only fail during combat, when they're needed most, and often with fatal consequence. Micah and his teammate Vera Kidwell begin tracing this trail in an under-the-garble mission to find the source of the bad equipment. It leads them to the Starcrown Sector, a long-time League member whose government is organized around a King and his Noble Houses. Micah and Vera must then navigate this labyrinthine tangle of intrigue, hidden agendas, plots and counter-plots in order to discover who is sabotaging the League. When Micah delves too deeply he makes a horrible discovery: the thing standing between them and success is nothing less than the life of his friends