The war wasn't going well.
The mind-numbingly alien Arachnids were an enemy whose
like no civilized race had ever confronted. Like some
carnivorous cancer, the "Bugs" had overrun planet after
planet . . . and they regarded any competing sentient
species as only one more protein source. They couldn't be
reasoned with, or even talked to, because no one had the
least idea of how to communicate with a telepathic species
with no recognizable language...and whose response to any
communication attempt was a missile salvo. No one knew how
large their civilization - if it could be called
a "civilization"- actually was, or how it was organized,
but the huge fleets they threw against their opponents
suggested that it was enormous.
The Grand Alliance of Humans, Orions, Ophiuchi, and Gorm,
united in desperate self-defense, have been driven to the
wall. Billions of their civilians have been slaughtered.
Their most powerful offensive operation has ended in
shattering defeat and the deaths of their most experienced
and revered military commanders. The edge in technology
with which they began the war is eroding out from under
them and whatever they do, the Bugs just keep coming.
But the warriors of the Grand Alliance know what stands
behind them and they will surrender no more civilians to
the oncoming juggernaut. They will die first...and they
will also reactivate General Directive 18, however
horrible it may be. Because when the only possible
outcomes are victory or racial extermination, only one
option is acceptable.