On a distant planet, a brutal intergalactic massacre leaves two survivors-a soldier named Temetrian and a toddler called Zed. Marooned, the soldier raises the boy the only way he knows. As a warrior.
Years later, Temetrian and Zed are rescued and returned to the hustling metropolis of Alexandrius space station. Zed enlists in the elite Starforce commandos, even though his upbringing makes him an outcast among his bioengineered comrades. But when Zed proves himself in a dogfight against enemy raiders, he earns a special assignment to deliver medical supplies to remote mining colony at the edge of the galaxy.
Arriving at desolate, waterless Planet Osmar, Zed finds his ship sabotaged, half the colonists murdered, and the remaining humans-especially ex-convict Dahlia-deeply suspicious. What Zed doesn't realize that the miners have discovered rich deposits of tritium, the universe's most precious fuel. And that someone wants to grab it all and put the blame on Zed. When Temetrian leads a rescue mission, Zed narrowly escapes a trap sprung by power hungry Commander Jankwo and his squad of Starforce turncoats. With Temetrian dead, Zed and dahlia are left to fight the galaxy's most fearsome commandos in an alien wasteland crawling with paranoid miners, carnivorous insects, and ruthless killers. Zed's battle propels him from the blazing heat of Planet Osmar to the icy void of outer space-where Zed finds a powerful warship waiting to deliver the final surprise.