The future world of Earth is not as splendid as the exhausted human race would like. The colonization of space turns into a long strip of brutal, drawn-out wars for Earth’s inhabitants against the residents of other galaxies. There is even a special army — the Self-Defense Forces of the Colonies — which recruits only elderly people, promising to return their youth. True or just a trick for naive people? No one really knows, because the soldiers of this hired army never return to Earth. John Perry, one of those mercenaries, signs a contract and almost immediately finds himself pulled into the terrible whirlpool of war. During the fight for the planet Coral — one that nearly cost John his life — he meets in the Brigade of Ghosts, the name of this star special forces unit, his own wife, whom he buried before going into mercenary service. That moment becomes the new starting point for his radically changed life.