The prologue begins with the ancient SkyClan that were attacked by the rats. After another battle with the rats and the death of two of their warriors, Spiderstar, the leader, decides to have the Clan disband. Some cats decide to become house cats at the nearby town while others stay in the gorge. In present day SkyClan it has been six moons (months) since Firestar went to the gorge and reformed SkyClan. The new SkyClan has added new loners, rogues and former kittypets to the Clan. There are also kittypets that help the Clan in the day, but return to their Twolegs at night. They are called daylight warriors. Leafstar invited them into the Clan to help patrol and hunt for the Clan. However, it is clear that not everyone respects the daylight warriors. Many cats such as Sharpclaw call them "kitty warriors" feeling they are not loyal to the Clan by leaving at night. The daylight warriors are Billystorm, Ebonyclaw, Frecklepaw, Snookpaw, Harveymoon and Macgyver. Leafstar tries to keep the tensions low between the daylight warriors and regular warriors, but many regular warriors still make fun of the daylight warriors behind their backs. One day, Leafstar receives a dream from Spottedleaf, an old medicine cat of ThunderClan that helped SkyClan when Firestar first formed the Clan. She sees cats and they say, "This is the leaf-bare of my Clan. Greenleaf will come, but it will bring even greater storms than these. SkyClan will need deeper roots if it is to survive." The next day, Leafstar visits the Clan''s medicine cat Echosong and they realize they each had the same dream. Later, Stick, Cora, Coal and Shorty, the four cats Firestar met on his quest arrive at the gorge. They stay with the Clan and learn battle moves, hunting techniques. In exchange, Stick teaches the Clan how to destroy a rat family that lives in a dump in the Clan''s territory. After defeating the rats the four loners begin to lead patrols despite the fact that Sharpclaw still does not let the daylight warriors lead patrol and they have been around longer. One day, Leafstar follows a group of SkyClan''s cats visiting the nearby town. There she realizes that the loners came to recruit help to defeat a group of cats that steal prey in their town. In the end, Leafstar agrees to help though states that she will not kill anyone. The battle is fierce and ends in SkyClan''s victory, but Stick''s daughter Red is killed protecting her mate who Stick tried to kill since he thinks that Red''s mate threatened her to join them. Stick becomes even more infuriated when Leafstar calls off her warriors from killing anyone, a policy he disproves of. Returning to her Clan, Leafstar sets up rules for visiting cats in order to prevent any future conflicts. She makes it so that visiting cats must help hunt everyday, and the Clan shall not teach any fighting moves until they have spent a moon in the Clan and that SkyClan is "a proud, independent Clan with a code and honor of our own." Throughout the book it becomes apparent the Billystorm and Leafstar have feelings for each other especially when at the end she talks about how even if she does have kits she has an excellent deputy and medicine cat.

SkyClan''s Destiny

The essays in the book fall into three general categories, dealing with ancient civilizations and certain unscientific theories regarding them, occult-related subjects, and pseudoscience in general. Anecdotes from history and de Camp''s travels to some of the locales he writes about pepper the narrative. The first eight chapters fall into the first category. Discussions of Bronze Age Troy and the ancient Sudanese civilization of Kush counter romantic speculations with a resume of what is known of them from historical sources and archaeological investigations. In contrast, the section on King Arthur, of whom little factual information has been established, puts to rest unverified notions regarding him by tracing the development and elaboration of his legend down through the ages. The chapter on the Maya debunks diffusionist theories seeking the origin of their culture in Old World civilizations rather than from indigenous factors. Later sections about Teotihuacan and the Toltecs serve more as general introductions to these cultures. There is also a brief discussion of the Tour Magne, a Roman ruin in Nîmes, France, and a chapter on myths that discounts them as reliable reportage of prehistoric events. Chapters in the second category include discussions of memories of previous lives supposedly recovered via hypnosis, the Kabbalah, lives of famous charlatans claiming to have been magicians, such as Cagliostro and Aleister Crowley, the hoax perpetrated by Léo Taxil and others that purported to expose Freemasonry as devil worship, theosophist C. W. Leadbeater, the development of occultist cultism around Mount Shasta in Northern California (demonstrated to have a literary basis), and the origins of the mystic trance, with rational explanations for the visions experienced. A satirical chapter of advice on how to set one''s self up as a prophet rounds out the section. An account of the early history of Fundamentalist movement to prohibit the teaching of evolution in schools leads off the third category. There is also a biography of Populist politician Ignatius Donnelly focusing on his speculations regarding Atlantis and like matters, and then a speculative chapter regarding future languages, essentially a didactic piece on language change with application to science fictional treatments of time-travel. It leads in to a discussion of nonscientific claims about the "fourth dimension" in general. This part of the book also includes reviews of Immanuel Velikovsky''s Worlds in Collision and Erich von Däniken''s Chariots of the Gods?, both of which de Camp discounts.

The Ragged Edge of Science

It''s December 21, and hour by hour Angel and his crew must survive the longest night of the year. * Written by: Pierce Askegren * Setting: December 21, 2002, 6pm–7pm A quest for a missing child taken by his father leads Angel to a house where the father has made a pact. In return for a human sacrifice each winter solstice, both father and son could live forever. * Written by: Jeff Mariotte * Setting: December 21, 2002, 7pm–8pm A group is killing Santas and replacing them with their own people so that the sound of their bells can open a rift in space-time and allow a demon to eat the Earth. * Written by: Christopher Golden * Setting: December 21, 2002, 8pm–9pm Angel needs help from Cordelia - 4 days before Christmas and he still hasn''t done his shopping. But he really is planning a surprise gift for her. They must deal with demonic chaos. !-- This section is linked from Wesley Wyndam-Pryce --> * Written by: Scott Ciencin and Denise Ciencin * Setting: December 21, 2002, 9pm–10pm Wesley meets two ghosts from the early Hollywood era who lead him to a better understanding of his life. * Written by: Emily Oz * Setting: December 21, 2002, 10pm–11pm Cordelia is invited to become a model, but there is a catch. * Written by: Nancy Holder * Setting: December 21, 2002, 11pm–12pm The title is a pun on Have Gun — Will Travel, a popular Western TV series which ran in the 1950s and 1960s. The entourage of the prince of a small middle eastern country-who turns out to be a demon in disguise- is worried for his safety. They ask Gunn to impersonate him for an important gathering. Naturally, things don''t go as planned. * Written by: Yvonne Navarro * Setting: December 21, 2002, midnight–1am Having Lilah Morgan send presents was a good idea. Lilah sends Christmas presents to all, but of course she is not playing nice - it''s a ploy to test their resolve. * Written by: Nancy Holder * Setting: December 22, 2002, 1am–2am A group of wannabe Druids builds a stone circle to sacrifice a virgin. Time-traveling adventures ensue. * Written by: Doranna Durgin * Setting: December 22, 2002, 2am–3am Something is killing the down-and-outs, and Angel and Co. go undercover to save the day (or night in this case). * Written by: Yvonne Navarro * Setting: December 22, 2002, 3am–4am An ice demon shows up in the hotel and plays with people''s memories. * Written by: Doranna Durgin * Setting: December 22, 2002, 4am–5am Christmas carolers are being taken as hosts for a demon race. After freeing the singers and defeating the demons, Angel feels like singing - and does. * Written by: Christie Golden * Setting: December 22, 2002, 5am–6am The creatures of the night are trying to prevent the new day from starting, and only Angel can ensure the new dawn.

The Longest Night

The story opens with Jimmie, at this point a young boy, trying to fight a gang of boys from an opposing neighborhood all by himself. He is saved by his friend, Pete, and comes home to his sister Maggie, his toddling brother Tommie, his brutal and drunken father and mother, Mary Johnson. The parents terrify the children until they are shuddering in the corner. Years pass, the father and Tommie die, and Jimmie hardens into a sneering, aggressive, cynical youth. He gets a job as a teamster, having no regard for anyone but firetrucks who would run him down. Maggie begins to work in a shirt factory, but her attempts to improve her life are undermined by her mother''s drunken rages. Maggie begins to date Jimmie''s friend Pete, who has a job as a bartender and seems a very fine fellow, convinced that he will help her escape the life she leads. He takes her to the theater and the museum. One night Jimmie and Mary accuse Maggie of "Goin to deh devil", essentially kicking her out of the tenement, throwing her lot in with Pete. Jimmie goes to Pete''s bar and picks a fight with him (even though he himself has ruined other boys'' sisters). As the neighbors continue to talk about Maggie, Jimmie and Mary decide to join them in badmouthing her instead of defending her. Later, Nellie, a "woman of brilliance and audacity" convinces Pete to leave Maggie, whom she calls "a little pale thing with no spirit." Thus abandoned, Maggie tries to return home but is rejected by her mother and scorned by the entire tenement. In a later scene, a prostitute, implied to be Maggie, wanders the streets, moving into progressively worse neighborhoods until, reaching the river, she is followed by a grotesque and shabby man. The next scene shows Pete drinking in a saloon with six fashionable women "of brilliance and audacity." He passes out, whereupon one, possibly Nellie, takes his money. In the final chapter, Jimmie tells his mother that Maggie is dead. The mother exclaims, ironically, as the neighbors comfort her, "I''ll forgive her!"

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

Katherine, in the middle of her senior year in high school, finds herself strongly attracted to Michael, a boy she meets at a New Year''s party. As their relationship unfolds, the issue of sex comes up more as an emotional and health issue than as a moral one. Both of them are aware that physical intimacy is both common and complicated. Michael has been sexually active, while Katherine hasn''t. Their relationship progresses slowly as they begin to go on dates and trips together; they are accompanied on various meetings by Katherine''s friend, Erica, who has known Katherine since the 9th grade and believes that sex is a physical act and not a romantic act. Erica and Katherine are also joined by Michael''s friend Artie, who, with Erica''s help, explores and acknowledges some uncertainty about his own sexuality. Artie is a depressed teenager who feels life is over after high school. He shows his depression when he attempts to hang himself from his shower curtain rod but fails. When Katherine and Michael do have sex on Michael''s sister''s bedroom floor, they are sure it seals a love that will be "forever." Michael buys Katherine a necklace for her birthday that says both of their names on it and it also says "Forever". However, separated for the summer by work that takes them to two different states, Katherine finds herself aware of the limitations of the relationship and ultimately attracted to a tennis instructor, Theo, who is older and more experienced in life. She takes responsibility for breaking the news to Michael when he comes on a surprise visit and almost catches her and Theo together. Katherine realizes the ''loss'' of Michael, while painful at first, can be the start of new successful relationships. The book ends with Katherine''s mother giving her a message that Theo called for her.

Forever

Conan, about forty in these stories, embarks on the most desperate gamble of his life — leading a revolution against King Numedides of Aquilonia, with the end of making himself king in his place. From his low point as a treasure-seeking fugitive in the Pictish Wilderness, he is retrieved by allies from his days in the Aquilonian army to lead the revolt. The borderlands suffer grievously during the war, but in the end Conan takes the throne, only to suffer the customary uneasiness of the head that wears the crown, from an attempted assassination involving Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon to magical treachery on the battlefield as he strives to defend his hard-won kingship against predatory foreign powers. The Aquilonian civil war between Conan and Numedides is not actually depicted, but occurs offstage as background to the action of "Wolves Beyond the Border", Howard''s only non-Conan tale set in the Hyborian Age. De Camp later made the war itself the subject of his novel Conan the Liberator, co-written with Lin Carter. "The Phoenix on the Sword", which Howard rewrote from an earlier Kull story, marks his only use of Thoth-Amon as an antagonist, in a somewhat peripheral role — he and Conan never even meet! In later stories de Camp and Carter would later elevate the Stygian sorcerer into one of Conan''s principal enemies. Howard later reused the plot of "The Scarlet Citadel" as the basis of his only Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon (afterwards retitled Conan the Conqueror). Chronologically, the four short stories collected as Conan the Usurper fall between Conan the Warrior and Conan the Conqueror.

Conan the Usurper

The book covers the planning, execution and aftermath of what became known as The Great Escape. Other escape attempts (such as the Wooden Horse) are mentioned as well as the postwar hunt for the Gestapo agents who murdered fifty of the escapees on Hitler''s direct order. Much of the book is focused on Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, also known as "Big X", including his capture, early escape attempts, and planning of the escape. All the major participants and their exploits are described by Brickhill. Among these are Tim Walenn, the principal forger, who ''gave his factory the code name of "Dean and Dawson", after a British travel agency''; Al Hake, the compass maker; Des Plunkett, the ingenious chief map tracer, who made a mimeograph for reproducing maps; and Tommy Guest, who ran a team of tailors. Major John Dodge, who was related to Winston Churchill, was one of the escapees. The German officers and guards (called ''goons'' by the prisoners) included teams of ''ferrets'' who crawled about under the huts looking for signs of tunnels. They were carefully watched by teams of POW ''stooges'', one of whom was Paul Brickhill, ''boss of a gang of "stooges" guarding the forgers''. In the end, seventy-six men escaped. Seventy-three were recaptured and fifty of those were shot by the Gestapo. Four of the remaining twenty-three later tunnelled out of Sachsenhausen, but were recaptured and chained to the floor of their cells. One of them, Major John Dodge, was released to secure a cease-fire. The book is dedicated "to the fifty". In the aftermath of the escape, according to Brickhill, 5,000,000 Germans spent time looking for the prisoners, many of them full time for weeks.

The Great Escape

This story is about the life of Janie, who later renames herself ''Leshaya''. The book starts with Janie recalling a memory at toddler age, where she was drowning because of her mother''s neglect to Janie''s personal safety. Linda, Janie''s mother, is a heroin addict, and because of the neglect that nearly led to Janie drowning, Janie was placed in foster care. Janie lived in a strict foster home for roughly 4 years with her foster brother Harmon, who soon gets adopted by Mr. and Mrs. James, leaving Janie alone until she is kidnapped by Linda, who then trades Janie to her dealer, Mitch, for heroin. Janie lives for years with "Mama Shelly" and "Daddy Mitch" but then, while at a shopping trip she meets her former foster brother Harmon. She then moves in with Mr. and Mrs. James when her former foster parents get arrested for drug possession. Life with Mr. and Mrs. James was hard, because of her bad childhood she never could live with a good "normal" family. Instead Janie goes with a local jazz band and falls in love with the band''s 18-year-old songwriter, Jaz. Under the influence of beer and cocaine, Leshaya (Janie) loses her virginity to an unknown man at the party, and gets impregnated. She soon after finds herself living with a woman named Joy Victoria, who fostered Janie during her pregnancy. 9 months later, 13-year-old Leshaya gave birth to a baby girl who she names Etta Harmony James, after one of "The Ladies" that she listened to as a small child. She convinces herself and everyone else that Harmon is Etta''s father, due to wanting to have had sex with him (So much so that she had left her panties in his bed before running off with Jaz), and smuggles Etta back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to give her to Harmon, who is bewildered at how he could be the father. Harmon, in the end, takes Etta so that she could grow up like a normal child. She then lives with Paul, who is also a musician. She lives with Paul on good terms until she breaks a major rule that Paul had set for her, no drugs. And after he (Paul) found a dead man, Jed, in his bed from an overdose. (Jed was who Lashaya was with at the time). She is then forced to move out from Paul''s place. She soon ends up at Mama Linda''s beach house, who is dying of AIDS. Leshaya, seeing her mother in this state, stays with her for her final days, and while with her, looks at herself, and comes to peace with the past. The book ends when Leshaya travels back to Tuscaloosa to re-unite with Etta, but after seeing Etta living happily in a normal family life, Leshaya instead, leaves Etta with Harmon. Through this decision, Leshaya finds a new sense of personal identity, and sets out to meet her own future.

Born Blue

The novel follows a seemingly relativistic plot, where time and space disappear as absolutes. The first part concerns Marc, the son of a small-town prostitute who becomes the boatman, ferrying tourists from the mainland to Davenhall, the small island in the river where he grew up. Marc leaves town the night he sees a strange man die at his mother''s feet, and spends fifteen years on the boat, never setting foot in town, until one day, when he meets a girl in a blue dress, who never returns with the other tourists. Marc goes onto the island to look for her, and sees his mother. Their meeting conjures up the ghost of the man who died fifteen years before, and his story takes over the novel. The ghost tells his story in first person. His name was Banning Jainlight, and he begins by recounting his birth. He has the ability to look through the windows of his bedroom and see his time, as if looking at the Zeitgeist. After killing a brother and burning down the ranch house where he grew up, Jainlight moves to a city, where he becomes the writer of pornographic stories. These stories are eventually being bought by a single customer, an eccentric German named Client X. Jainlight writes stories about a fantasy woman who he is in love with, and she is also an expression of a woman that Client X was once in love with, who later died. The stories alter the course of history, as they change Hitler''s mind about how to conduct the war. England falls. Russia and Germany have a tense peace. The Germans decide that they are finished with Jainlight, and they kill his wife and daughter to silence him. He lives for a long time in a prison. Eventually, he hears his stories, broadcast over the radio as propaganda. He comes up with an escape plan, after finding Adolf Hitler in the same prison, now a senile old man. Jainlight and Hitler escape to America, to chase the ghost of the woman they both love. Hitler dies in New York City. Jainlight finds his way to Davenhall, where he lives for seventeen years in the hotel with Marc and his mother, trying to summon up the courage to ask for forgiveness. On the night Marc leaves town, he knows his life is slipping away, and he staggers down the hall, hoping to have time, but he doesn''t. The custom in town is to hang the dead in a tree until they say their name. When Marc''s mother claims to know the name of the dead man in the tree, she is accused of lying. Somehow, the 20th century heals itself, the two timelines, the one we know, and Banning''s timeline of a German victory, come back together. Marc''s mother passes away shortly after her son returns to the island. After her death, Marc goes to chase after the girl in the blue dress, after the 20th century, and winds up traveling through time, going from the end of the century back to its beginning.

Tours of the Black Clock

The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drug-users, who is also living a parallel life as Agent Fred, an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor''s household. Arctor/Fred shields his true identity from those in the drug subculture, and from the police themselves. (The requirement that narcotics agents remain anonymous, to avoid collusion and other forms of corruption, becomes a critical plot point late in the book.) While supposedly only posing as a drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to "Substance D" (also referred to as "Slow Death," "Death," or "D"), a powerful psychoactive drug. An ongoing conflict is Arctor''s love for Donna, a drug dealer through whom he intends to identify high-level dealers of Substance D. Arctor''s persistent use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently, or "compete." Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor''s superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path," a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the secretive organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games intended to break the will of the patients. The story ends with Bruce working at a New-Path farming commune, where he is suffering from a serious neurocognitive deficit after withdrawing from Substance D. Although considered by his handlers to be nothing more than a walking shell of a man, "Bruce" manages to spot rows of blue flowers growing hidden among rows of corn, and realizes the blue flowers are Mors ontologica, the source of Substance D. The book ends with Bruce hiding a flower in his shoe to give to his "friends" – undercover police agents posing as recovering addicts at the Los Angeles New-Path facility – on Thanksgiving.

A Scanner Darkly

Henry murders his uncle Lawrence with a poison found in the mummy''s tomb. When Henry tries to poison Julie in the same manner, Ramses comes to life in attempt to kill Henry, but succeeds only in scaring him away. After his awakening, Julie and Ramses are instantly attracted to each other. Ramses quickly adopts a pseudonym, "Reginald Ramsey," and claims to be an Egyptologist to throw off the accusation made by the frightened Henry that a "bloody mummy" rose from the crypt to harm him. With superhuman intelligence and the ability to learn quickly, Ramses quickly learns the English language and, with the help of an eager Julie, is given a tour of modern London and new technology that had arisen during the past two thousand years. While Henry''s accusations are passed off as the rantings of a drunkard, the elderly and ailing Elliott Savarell suspects that it may be the truth. He trails Ramses and comes to believe that he is who Henry claims him to be. During Ramses''s reign as pharaoh, he had learned from a Hittite priestess the formula for an elixir that grants eternal life. The potion not only made him immortal, but also allows his body to regenerate from damage that would kill a normal human, such as multiple bullet wounds. He requires neither food nor drink nor sleep, and only the sun''s rays to maintain his life. However, he still craves food and certain other physical pleasures, like sex, smoking, and alcohol. Ramses nurses a deep secret. Prior to the Roman conquest of Egypt, he had served as an immortal advisor to its kings and queens, and the last person to awake him for consultation had been Cleopatra, the last ruler of Egypt. Although he served as Cleopatra''s counsel (and encouraged her to romance Julius Caesar in a bid to keep the country independent), he had also fallen in love with her, and had revealed to her the secrets of the elixir. Having fallen in love with Mark Antony in defiance of Ramses''s advice, Cleopatra refuses the elixir and chooses suicide upon Antony''s death. In his depression, Ramses had given himself the name "Ramses the Damned", and had Egyptian priests seal him away underground. With Julie''s encouragement, Ramses begins to recover. While Henry is convinced that Ramses is an evil monster ready to kill the entire family, Elliott reads Lawrence''s notes and chases after Ramses to learn the secret of the elixir of immortality. Eventually, Ramses and Julie decide to visit Egypt one last time so that Ramses can say good-bye to his past. Although Ramses appears to be coming to terms with his past, upon visiting the Cairo Museum, he unexpectedly recognizes an unidentified mummy as being that of Cleopatra. Breaking into the museum later at night simply to see her, he impulsively pours some of the elixir onto the dead body. Cleopatra is revived, but by Ramses not pouring the entire vial of elixir on her, the restoration is incomplete; she is a half-formed monstrosity, awake and conscious yet with parts of her face, hands, and torso still gone. Her incomplete brain restoration leaves her not totally coherent; though Ramses later repairs her body with more of the potion, she appears to be insane and kills a number of people, including Henry. Cleopatra unexpectedly falls in love with Elliot''s son Alex though realizes a life with him cannot last because of his mortality and his innocence. Because Ramses would not give her long-ago love Mark Antony the elixir to save his life, Cleopatra holds a passionate hatred for him and seeks to even the score by killing his current love: Julie Stratford. Cleopatra ultimately falters before killing Julie, realizing that the girl should not be punished for Ramses''s actions. She also comes to regret the other murders she has committed. In an attempt to escape Ramses, Cleopatra "dies" when her car is hit by a train and is consumed by a fiery explosion so hot that it "could kill even an immortal." Ramses later gives the elixir to Julie after she attempts suicide in her grief for her loss of him, and he promises to stay with her for eternity. To thank him for his help in covering up all the unusual events, Ramses also gives the elixir to a dying Elliott, who drinks it after serious consideration of the consequences: dying miserably, or living eternally even when wishing for nothing but oblivion. Cleopatra has secretly survived the crash, and awakens under the care of a British doctor in Sudan. She vows to find Ramses again someday for revenge.

The Mummy

Firebird is the third daughter of the Queen of Naetai and a military pilot. Because she is a wastling, an unwanted heir to the throne, she is considered expendable. Leading her tagwing fighter group of wastlings on a suicide mission as part of a venture to capture a Federate world outpost, she is captured by Federate colonel Brennen Caldwell, a telepathic intelligence officer seeking to capture an enemy fighter for interrogation. She attempts honorable suicide by poison for her failure, but Caldwell thwarts her medically. Under telepathic duress, her military and political knowledge is used by Caldwell to save the Federate outpost. Firebird begins to see the dishonorable tactics of her mother''s government for what they are. Caldwell, in addition to being the most powerful Ehretan telepath of his generation, is the most senior telepath in a government that mistrusts them for their abilities. In addition to the government''s mistrust of his people, Caldwell is questioned by his own people for his deep connection with Firebird. In her, he sensed a strong possibility of connaturality, a deep personality congruity that is essential for telepaths to have a successful relationship in marriage. Among his people there is a strong belief that, as the strongest telepath among them he should not marry outside his people, diluting the genes that allow their telepathy. Caldwell rejects his people''s attitudes towards non Ehretans and continues his growing friendship with his prisoner, offering life and a future to one who believed herself as good as dead. Following Netaia''s failure on Veroh, the queen is forced to honerable suicide and Firebird''s sister Carradee ascends the throne. Caldwell is assigned to Naetai as the Federate representative and brings Firebird with him. While Carradee favors a conciliatory posture with the Federacy, their other sister, Phoena, secretly plots the overthrow of Federate occupation along with members of the nobility, by secretly building an ecological weapon of great power. After several political and military dangers are overcome by Caldwell and Firebird, they ignore his orders and carry out a special ops mission to destroy Phoena''s research lab. Once all is settled, Firebird and Caldwell accept their relationship (over the continued objection) of his people and become engaged. Firebird is a military pilot assigned to a risky venture to capture a Federate world outpost. Because she is a wastling, she is considered expendable. Leading her tagwing fighter group, she is captured by Federate colonel Brennen Caldwell, a telepath who senses something special about her. She attempts honorable suicide by poison for her failure, but Caldwell thwarts her medically. Under duress, her military knowledge is used by Caldwell to save the Federate outpost. Firebird begins to see the dishonorable tactics of her people for what they are. Caldwell, in addition to being the most powerful Ehretan telepath of his generation, is also heir to religious prophecies among his people, and the most senior telepath in a government that mistrusts them for their abilities. Caldwell is promoted to general for his victory in the Veroh battle, as well as his diplomacy with the captured Firebird. In her, he sensed a strong possibility of connaturality, a deep personality congruity that is essential for telepaths to be married. As he has strong convictions against marrying outside his faith, and being barred from proselytizing, much of the book revolves around Caldwell trying to bridge the gap to Firebird by demonstrating the goodness of his spirit to her, offering life and hope to one who believed herself as good as dead. Following Netaia''s failure on Veroh, Firebird''s sister Carradee ascends the throne after their mother is forced to honorable suicide. She favors a conciliatory posture with the Federacy. Their other sister, Phoena, secretly plots the overthrow of Federate occupation along with members of the nobility, by secretly building an ecological weapon of great power. After several political and military dangers are overcome by Caldwell and Firebird, they ignore his orders and carry out a special ops mission to destroy Phoena''s research lab. During the climactic battle, when Caldwell has been incapacitated and his telepathic powers are not available, Firebird casts her faith to the Great Speaker who sung the universe into existence, and strengthened by this, overcomes great odds to successfully neutralize the weapon. The religious differences thus settled, the story ends with Caldwell proposing pair bonding (marriage) to Firebird.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

SkyClan's Destiny

By Erin Hunter

The Ragged Edge of Science

By L. Sprague de Camp

The Longest Night

By J. N. Williamson

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets

By Stephen Crane

Forever

By Judy Blume

Conan the Usurper

By L. Sprague de Camp

The Great Escape

By Paul Brickhill

Born Blue

By Han Nolan

Tours of the Black Clock

By Steve Erickson

A Scanner Darkly

By Philip K. Dick

The Mummy

By Anne Rice

Firebird

No Author Listed