Homecoming

About the book

The UFS Phoenix is finally on its way back home. On the journey, they pass by Tuki Station in the barabo space, which has just been attacked by a force of sard ships working together with a larger invasion from alo space. Despite all of Phoenix's efforts to prepare humanity's forces over the past three years, they are in chaos.

Leading the assault is Nia, Styx's old AI queen nemesis from the Drysine/Deepynine War - the biggest armed conflict in Spiral history, twenty-five thousand years ago. The question remains, what does Nia want? Is she after the drysine data-core that Phoenix recovered almost three years ago? Is she targeting members of the Debogande family at Hoffen Station to get to Phoenix's captain personally? And if she's trying to eliminate humanity as a strategic threat, why do her battle strategies seem so strange?

Nia is considered the greatest synthetic military mind in history, second only to Styx. The Human Fleet is in desperate need of Styx's assistance, but Supreme Commander Mazungu is hesitant to give her and Phoenix too much power. To add to the complexity, Phoenix's shipboard AI Shali has just obtained a powerful analysis program from reeh space, specifically designed to outsmart Nia.

The pressing question remains - can Nia be predicted before it's too late?