Offered an opportunity to command a new covert mission into Clidepp space that will resolve an outstanding issue created during her last mission, Lieutenant(jg) Sydnee Marcola accepts, then makes preparations to captain the CPS-14 Justice once again.

During the mission briefing the following day, she learns that the parameters of the assignment have expanded tremendously since her acceptance. Instead of the voyage being a simple delivery, the Justice might be required to remain in Clidepp space for as long as two years. The crew size for the newly revised mission has been expanded from the original nine Space Command officers and enlisted, plus the previous Marine Special Ops team and Marine fire teams from the Denver, to twenty-four Space Command officers and enlisted, the same Marine Special Ops team, a platoon of Marines from the Denver, and a full Wing of Marine fighter jocks and support personnel. The mission had just gone from a penetration/delivery/exit operation to a major clandestine incursion into the space of an unfriendly neighboring nation currently embroiled in a deadly civil war.