The book continues the fighting career of a space marine Ruslan Fateev serving an empire called the “Fourth Reich.” The empire is collapsing, torn apart by civil wars unleashed by the Insurgents. Cloaked in the ideas of freedom and independence, they one after another seize worlds from under the empire’s rule, which the space marines become enlisted to defend. Civil war will not pass by Ruslan’s home planet either—New Crimea.