<b>From the back cover of the DAW first edition:</b> "The total conquest of Bakunin seemed only a matter of time. With commune after commune wiped out and every city under siege, it appeared that Dominic Magnus and his few surviving comrades would have no choice but to in one of the major powers of the Confederacy to halt the Terran Executive Command's bloody takeover of the planet. But such a move would immediately place Bakunin under the yoke of its rescuer.
<p>Yet trapped in Jefferson City and cut off from his own base of operations, what other choice did Dom have if he wanted to save not only his own life bu the entire planet? Of course, Bakunin and Dominic Magnus still had a few secret bargaining chips left - from the greatest Dolbrian find that any world had ever discovered... to the unique programming of Random Walk, an alien A.I... to the mysterious object that Dom had been given by the Proteus commune, an object that defied all the laws of nature. And Dom himself had a confederate he was totally unaware of in the very heart of the Confederacy - a man who knew him better than he knew himself, and an ally who had spent a decade waiting and planning for this final moment of crisis in an interstellar confrontation in which there could only be one winner..."
