Three years after the last shot was fired and Oliver Lincoln III left Vega 3 to return home, the Sword of Sophia emerges. Vega 3 has been invaded and overwhelmed by the Sirian Confederacy, its women raped, its society enslaved. The Vegans have put up a vicious fight worthy of their Viking ancestors, charging the Sirians a gallon of blood for every yard of the planet, but now the fight is over, the battle lost. Vega 3 has been conquered.

But deep in the Scroll of Sophia, that mystical goddess the Vegans hold dear, is a nearly forgotten prophecy of a time when the invader’s boot will stand on Vega 3. The prophecy says Sophia will send a sword—a sword of justice—and the invader will be torn asunder.

Is the prophecy real, or just a false hope? And if the prophecy is real, is it really possible to throw the Sirians off of Vega 3? And what…or who…is the “sword of Sophia”?

• Erika Sebring: a popular holonews reporter. Erika was captured by the Sirians during the first week of the invasion. She has been raped and humiliated for over a year, and now her slave ship arrives at the orbit of Sirius 1…but her adventure is only beginning.

• Capt. Brandon Marlow: Oliver Lincoln’s old college buddy. Brandon is an officer in the dreaded Sirian Elite Guards (SE), the organization responsible for the capture and transport of female slaves to Sirius. Even as he is promoted to Major, Brandon must face some hard choices, and decide whether loyalty to his old friend is more important than his duty to the Sirian Confederacy.

• Erik Norgaard: prisoner of war. After three long years of captivity, Erik, a former Vegan Guardsman, returns home to find the world he fought to save in the grip of a despotic conqueror. Erik has lost faith in Sophia, but his blood boils as he witnesses the atrocities done to his people, and he can’t hold back his rage.

• Hans Norgaard: Erik’s younger brother. Too young to fight the Sirians, Hans came of age under the occupation; rather than cry over what Vega has lost, Hans is seduced by the SE to join forces with the occupation, forging a “New, Improved Vega” under the direction of the victors. As a member of the new Vegan Elite Guards, Hans is tasked with helping track down the terrorist who is murdering Confederate soldiers by the score. Can he find the terrorist? What will he do if the Sword of Sophia turns out to be someone he knows?

• Valyn Kristensen: the lovely daughter of the Regent of Vega. Valyn has an exemption from slavery because her father serves the Confederacy. But when she takes a job with the SE as a computer clerk she sees hard proof of things the Sirians are doing that nobody talks about; does she dare feed this data to the Sword of Sophia? And what will be her fate if she is caught?

• Adam Pedersen: president of NordTek. Adam lost his sister in the war against Sirius, and now he manufactures munitions for his former enemy. Adam walks a fine line between personal freedom and serving the enemy…and he has a wife and baby daughter to think about…

The Sword of Sophia fills in the blanks between Oliver Lincoln’s war and the one fought by Johnny Lincoln. Visit the cold, dreary world of Vega 3 between the wars, during the time the Fighter Queen was born. Walk among the Sirians but don’t look them in the eye—it’s a dangerous planet out there.

102,400 words (equivalent to 384 pages in mass market paperback form)