In the far future, Earth is no longer the only cradle of humanity and she has spread her arms wide. In a distant solar system called the Ides one such cradle was built, but the system rebuked humanity's reach and turned its children into monsters. Now the primary planet Isla Mariposa is used as a training ground, and a killing ground, for the most brutal soldiers known to the universe where the very makeup of the world changes and morphs anyone unlucky enough to end up on it's shores into monsters and hardened warriors.  Sathea, a.k.a. Sparrow, is just a thief out of necessity, or so she tells herself. Bigger jobs and bigger scores can't seem to pull her and her kid brother out of poverty. You would think she was going to get caught stealing a gem encrusted scepter, but a thoughtless theft of an apple sends her into the Gestalt gauntlet with one mandate: go to the Ides and become a soldier with the promise of a pension at the end, or rot in prison for the rest of her life. What's a girl to do except hope that the Ides doesn't pull her apart limb from limb.  But there's more going on in the Ides than just a soldier boot camp, her fellow soldiers are all thieves and scum, but the stand out is one man who clearly doesn't belong. Justinian is a scholar by trade and he's come to the Ides prepared to become the strongest. His crime? Writing and handing out treasonous pamphlets in the galactic capitol city. He knows something that no one will acknowledge and he will stop at nothing to defeat the Gauntlet and bring the war home.  There is no peace once a newly minted soldier is graduated from the Ides, there is only the war against the Cryzaants. The only other species that humans have encountered, the Cryzaants have laid siege to human space in a war that has spanned generations and light years of space. Even if you survive the Ides, you probably wont survive the war.