The Nek'var Empire marches across the stars.  Their ruthless campaign to purge all life from the galaxy has crushed a thousand years of peace. Fires rage in cities all across the Galactic Union. Their grand armies have been crushed, cities conquered. Nothing stands between a sweeping Nek'var victory but the battered remnants of a mauled fleet.  If they fall, the galaxy falls with them. Meanwhile,  humanity is an unknown power emerging from their little speck of space when they are inexplicably attacked by a powerful alien fleet, forcing the ever squabbling nations of Sol to form a grudging alliance in the face of annihilation.   Corporal Erik Shields finds himself far from home, embroiled in a life or death struggle on the surface of a colony world known as MX-01, battling for humanity's future against a seemingly unstoppable force.  But there is a glimmer of hope when Fleet engineers develop a miniaturized reactor core capable of fully realizing the power armor program's vast potential and a desperate mission is cobbled together to deploy the newly formed Armor Corps to the surface in hopes of defeating the enemy invasion.  This is a tale of defiance in the face of annihilation, the soul-crushing horror of interstellar war, and the death of dreams.