Things have gone to hell for humanity. We have been driven back time and time again by the Lankies and we have no colonies left beyond 30 light years from Earth. As we set up defenses on the new border the Lankies suddenly jump all the way to our solar system and deal us a crushing blow by taking Mars. This wipes out the majority of our fleet and effectively cuts off our remaining colonies from Earth. Staff sergeant Andrew Grayson is now stranded on the colony moon of New Svalbard along with a small task force of ships and little food. Caught between a rock and a hard place Andrew knows they will all starve to death if they stay where they are but they would be blindly jumping into an unwinnable space battle if they try to go home.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and a plan is hatched by the New Svalbard task force to send a stealth recon mission back to our solar system to find out if any humans are still alive. Resupplying from Earth is the only thing that will prevent their impending death by starvation so Andrew joins the crew of the Indianapolis on their potential suicide mission back to Earth. The small task force at new Svalbard is composed of ships from both the Sino-Russian Alliance (SRA) and the North American Commonwealth (NAC) and their cooperation has been the only thing that has kept them alive so far. Most of the ships are old but the Indianapolis is actually a newer ship and certainly the only one in the task force with a slim chance of remaining undetected after the jump. The SRA commander agrees to allow their secret Alcubierre jump node to be used for the mission back to Earth since the North American Commonwealth node was compromised by the Lankies when they invaded the solar system. This places a single Russian soldier who knows the activation code for the node on the Indianapolis and Andrew is charged with keeping an eye on him. 

The mission back to Earth is high tension and that is what makes this the best book of the series so far. Things continue to get more dire for humanity and cog in the machine Andrew Grayson continues to grow as a character and become more interesting. Cut off from all communications, Andrew has no clue if his Mom is still alive on Earth or if his fiancée Halley is still training pilots on Luna. This mission will put him tantalizingly close to them, if he survives it, and pull him in multiple directions as his duty to the military and his desire to be with his loved ones war with each other.

For audiobook fans, Luke Daniels has been the voices of all the main characters from the start and he continues to do an excellent job. This series continues to get better and while the storyline isn't always perfect this is definitely worth picking up.