In a post-apocalyptic America, desperate survivors have banded together in redoubts to pool their resources and provide defense against marauding bands of raiders. A bedraggled soldier presents himself to a group of survivors in their redoubt, offering military skills and training in return for food and shelter. Despite their misgivings about the soldier's dark, sinister past, they accept him into the redoubt. He transforms them from farmers and ranchers into a workable militia. And just in time, too, as bands of raiders cast their covetous eyes on the survivor redoubt and make their plans for attacking and pillaging.