The Saro Front

The Treaty of Tarsis is very clear: no engagements at the Saro junction. Captain Esther Vass, *D.N.S. Reverence*, has read the Treaty. She has also read the after-action report from the *Calypso*, the last ship that obeyed it, and she has decided — over the objection of her First, the protest of her Political Officer, and the entire weight of Naval Command — that she is not going to be the captain who writes the next one.

The book is about the eleven hours from the moment Vass commits to the engagement to the moment the court martial begins. It is about her crew. It is about the kind of decision a commander makes when she knows the cost of every option and chooses anyway.