At Alpha Centauri, the United Nations of Earth made their last stand against the Medari Council. Humans would have been willing to consider joining if the dominant race of the Council, the Medari, didn't demand that all races convert to their religion. The war was going poorly until humans produced the new phase cannons and establishing a policy of destroying their ships to ensure the enemy never gets one. At Alpha Centauri, the phase cannons almost carried the day but instead it ended with the Japanese fleet heroically sacrificing themselves to cover the evacuation of civilians to Sol. Among the broken remnants of humanity, grandparents and parents pass on the stories of those heroes, the few ark ships hiding deep in space, and the legend of a ship that was supposed to save them all. Excalibur.

Mage-Captain Ivan Halloway managed to retire from the Royal Martian Navy without seeing combat. He's a coward, so better to be retired rather than serving in the coming civil war. Back home in the Xanth system he's uncertain what he wants to do with the rest of his life, so he agrees to help an old friend. He should have gotten more details before he agreed! Karl is deeply in debt following a divorce and mid-life crisis that saw his entire crew resign so he's going to enter the illegal Black Pulsar Race, an obstacle course around a binary pulsar system run by crime syndicates. One reason it's illegal is that twenty-five percent of ships don't survive to the end, but Karl is confident the Restoya can win. The prize money will allow him to pay off his debts and keep his ship. Ivan's not a fan of this plan, but he does want to help Karl until the mob threatens to kills both of them unless Ivan helps them take the Restoya during the race. He agrees on the condition they don't harm Karl and forgive his debts, but he still has a bad feeling about this.

Damien is no longer Regent but he is still immersed in running the Protectorate as Prince-Chancellor now that Kiera, Mage Queen of Mars, has reached her majority. After an attempted kidnapping of the Mage Queen ends with thousands dead, Damien leaps at the chance to lead the investigation himself. Meanwhile, an old acquaintance turns to Roslyn Chambers for help when he realizes that his criminal organization most likely supplied the nukes used to destroy the Mage Queen's ship. In return for amnesty he's willing to give up the leader of the arms smuggling ring, who just happens to be Roslyn's ex-boyfriend and the reason she ended up in Juvenile Detention. Damien and Roslyn have never been closer to capturing the head of Nemesis, the organization who's scheming has created wars, as well as assassinating Kiera's father and brother among other atrocities. Damien may be getting a late start in this race, but he's determined to end Nemesis once and for all.

In the 23rd century humanity achieved faster than light travel, not through engineering, but with genetic experiments that resulted in human magic. A trained Jump Mage can teleport a starship up to one light year every few hours, and in the Protectorate of the Mage-King of Mars they are essential. Damien Montgomery is a newly certified Jump Mage and Rune Scribe of only average power. He never mentions that he doesn't need to study runes to identify a spell because he can actually see magic and what it's doing. But in order to prevent his crew from being murdered by pirates he uses his unique ability to save the ship, and suddenly finds himself the most wanted man in the interstellar Protectorate. In addition, the alterations he made to the cargo ship are very illegal so the crew is now running from both the law and the pirates. If you enjoy political conspiracies, and lots of combat in space complicated by a little magic, you might enjoy this.