Earth Two is a world beset by dangers, inside and out. It's genetic groupings, the cloned "Tanks," the "Natural Borns" and the hybrid "Mules" exist uneasily, each wary of the others, even as they rally to face the deadly threat of the First Imperium's robot warriors. President Max Harmon and his inner circle have played an elaborate game of chess for twelve years, a deadly battle of wits with the genocidal alien Intelligence known as the Regent. They have moved fleets, spread deceptions, built decoy planets...all to hide Earth Two's location, to protect it from the deadly onslaught of the enemy. But sitting and waiting is a losing game. The Regent's resources are just too powerful, its technology too advanced. It will find Earth Two eventually...and when it does, it will consign the planet to the apocalypse of antimatter devastation. Harmon knows his people must do something...and when a scouting fleet sends back word that it has found the enemy's antimatter production site, it seems almost too good to be true. Harmon suspects it is all a trap designed to lure his fleet to its destruction. But, more than one side can lay a trap, or turn one around, and the elimination of the Regent's antimatter production will go a long way to evening the two sides, and setting the stage for a final showdown the humans can win.