A gunner and her sometimes lover, sometimes enemy. An aristocrat whose family was taken down politically. A pilot who lives as an exile in the Empire, and who harbors a secret desire to return to Earth. Moving in and out of each other's lives over the years, all four are fighting a losing battle with The Others. None of them want to admit it. When they each arrive at a crossroads, the stakes are life and death?and a breaking open of everything they thought they wanted and believed.