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Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death

In the end, the only political systems that seem to work are those based on freedom. The Inner World leaders of the Terran Federation seem to have forgotten this simple truth. After fighting the Khanate--with the Fringe Worlds to supply the raw material and the fighting men--the Inner Worlds found it hard to give up the powers they had seized during the war. So they decided not to--rather than allow the rapidly expanding Fringe Worlds representation in the Federation, they are inviting the Khanate in, to keep the colonial upstarts in their place. The Fringers have only one answer to that:

INSURRECTION

Spacers call the warp point Charon's Ferry.

No star ship has ever entered it and returned since a vengeful Orion task force pursued a doomed Terran colonization fleet into it in 2206.

Almost a century has passed. The fiery hatreds of a quarter-century of warfare between the Terran Federation and the Zheeerlikou'valkhannaieeee, the cat-like species humans called the "Orions," have eased at least a little. The "Grand Alliance" forged by the need to fight side-by-side against the genocidal Rigelians remains, but there are those on either side who continue to hate, continue to distrust.

Now the strength of that war-forged alliance is about to be tested. For Charon's Ferry is about to give up the secret of its dead. A ship has emerged from the deadly warp point at last. A ship which responds to the challenge of an Orion star ship using ancient human communications codes... then opens fire.

The holocaust of interstellar warfare has been ignited anew, in a bloody crusade to free Holy Mother Terra.

Five thousand years after Sun Tzu writes The Art of War, his advice is followed during the Fourth Interstellar War between the terrible Bugs and the humans, who are aided by their catlike Orion allies.

The bugs have overrun planet after planet and they regard all sentient species as convenient protein sources. The Grand Alliance of Humans has been driven to the wall. When the only possible outcomes are victory or racial extermination, only one option is acceptable - The Shiva Option.

The Promised Land Has A Vermin Problem...

Once before, the sentient races in the known part of the galaxy had united against alien invaders. Decades have since passed and new generations have grown complacent... dangerously so.

Long ago, much of the population of an entire planet fled their world before its sun went nova in thousands of ships, each one larger than a city. Now, the armada has arrived at the world they intend to make their new home. They regard the fact that the planet is already colonized by humans as a mere inconvenience, and their mode of communication is so different from anything humans use that they do not consider humans and their allies to be truly intelligent.

This time, the races of the old alliance will not have to worry about becoming an invader's meal -- but that will be small comfort if these new invaders decide that genocide is justified for their own survival....

An implacable foe with telepathic cohesion in battle, near-immortality, and eons-advanced engineering skills threatens to wipe humanity from the galaxy. What's more, they've overcome their one weakness--no faster-than-light travel--and have followed humanity through our star gates and beyond. But humans are the master of adaption, and have got a counterpunch of devastating proportions in reserve. Now a hard-bitten and brilliant admiral must face down renewed alien attack and somehow communicate to the enemy that if he is forced to use his ultimate military option, galactic civilization itself may come to a fiery end.

The war with the Arduans--profoundly alien invaders who originally arrived in STL ships--is over. Most of those attackers are now probationary (and very productive) citizens of the Rim Federation.

However, many among the Arduans' warrior caste have neither accepted defeat, nor the personhood of any of the other intelligence races. Their leader, the ruthless admiral of the second Arduan exodus-- Amunsit--is in firm control of the Zarzuela system. Along with a fifth column among the peaceable Arduans, she hopes to find allies in subsequent refugee fleets that abandoned their race's now-dead home system long ago.

But as the victors' diplomats attempt to soothe tensions with these warlike neighbors, two heroes of the last war--veteran Admiral Ian Trevayne and young trouble-shooter Ossian Wethermere--suspect they have stumbled upon a deeper Arduan plot: one which could shatter the Pan-Sentient Union, and perhaps interstellar civilization itself.

The war with the profoundly alien Arduans has ended, and the Arduans have come to call humanity their allies. Most of them--the Arduan warrior caste refuses to accept defeat. Now known as the Kaituni, they are waging a war of extermination against all members of the pan-Sentient Union, human and Arduan alike. What's more, the Kaituni have an unexpected weapon in their arsenal: the alien Arachnids, once thought driven to extinction. The Kaituni drive the Arachnid fleet ahead of them, inflicting untold damage.

The war has been marked by retreat on the side of the pan-Sentient Union. It seems the best they can do is minimize their losses. But now the Arachnids and the Kaituni are at the doorstep to the Heart Worlds, Sol, and Earth: Alpha Centauri. The odds look bleak. But Admiral Ian Trevayne and Commodore Ossian Wethermere have faced down long odds in the past. It's time to take a stand, for Earth, for humanity... and for the pan-Sentient Union!