The Wolf is Loose. Ten years ago, after her parents were killed in a terrorist attack, Melanie Armstrong walked away from a military officer's career to raise her orphaned brother. Since then she's been captaining a tramp freighter - shuffling from world to world, scraping to barely get by, but content that she's made the right decision.
But when her ship crashes, authorities make her an offer: take a fifteen-year sentence on a prison world where the average lifespan is a third of that. Or take part in a mission to stop an ancient, and until-now forgotten, robotic warship, the Fenris, from completing its hundred-year-old task of destroying a planet, killing millions.