The isfet are the single greatest threat to human life in the Erde system. Nobody knows where they came from, or why they do what they do. All anyone knows is that they're monsters; that their existence defies every natural and physical law, and that they won't stop until they've killed every last human.

For Aaron Wilder, a freshly-trained solider in the Bulwark - humanity's defence against the isfet - the future seems simple. He's going to raise his kid sister, he's going to support his partner as she rises through the Bulwark's political ranks, and, most importantly, he's going to fight to keep people safe. But one day, after getting himself injured in the most un-heroic of circumstances, things change. All of a sudden, he can create and control the same unnatural substance that the isfet are made of. He starts to bleed oil and mist. And, though he still feels like himself, there's an ever-growing part of him that wants, more than anything else, to utterly obliterate anything that stands in his way.

As he struggles to keep his new abilities under wraps, Aaron is caught up in a sinister plot by higher powers that threatens the futures of not just him and his loved ones, but every person living in the system. Though he may bear the colours of the enemy (so to speak), one thing is clear: he's humanity's only hope.

Gutaale is worried.

There's something in the woods, and he doesn't know what it is, but his daughter's obsessed with it. It doesn't feel like his husband is taking the threat as seriously as he should, and the rest of the village is more worried about local fauna, or getting themselves worked up about ghost stories and the isfet, than they are about this thing that's very real. So, he's staying vigilant. For his family's sake.

Somchai is worried, too. Less about the thing in the woods, though, and more about other stuff. Maybe it's just because he's Ardere-Ferven, born and raised, but he doesn't like the way the Bulwark is encroaching into the place he's trying to call home. And he's especially wary of the way this one Commander keeps talking about them all like they're expendable. He's not the only one hearing all that, right?

Zoe wants to do her duty. Ava wants to make a friend. And Ianthe?

Ianthe just wants to go home.

Seven years since 'Maelstrom'. A boundless pit of ambition, left to grow unchecked on an icy moon. And a convoy stopping in just the right place at the right time - a convoy that's carrying something very, very powerful.

Ana's story.

Watch this space.