The Eternal Empire is at war against an alien species from another universe, collectively called The Phobes. For millennia, the Eternal Empress has ruled and expanded Her Empire through control of two things in particular: faster-than-light travel via T-space, the home of the Phobes; and the genetically perfected military savagery of the squads of her all-female shock troops cloned from the Empress Herself, known as The Forged. Forged Team Scimitar-3 has been dispatched alongside two others to the Skull Nebula for Operation: Abaddon. Their mission: do whatever it takes to end the Phobe threat. When Scimitar-3's leader Vic is presumed KIA during an initial assault, leadership falls to CrazyJo. As politics on the Throneworld threaten to reveal a wide-ranging conspiracy amongst the cabal of psychics known as Cassandras, the line between enemy and ally is blurring in the field, and CrazyJo and the rest of Scimitar-3 are forced to consider the unthinkable ... treason.