Steel Wolves. Hopes for a Better World

You never know where your actions—or inaction—will lead. Sometimes you step onto the roadside, running from problems and bustle, but before you have time to look back, the highway of the universe itself turns toward you and you’re right back in the thick of events. That’s exactly what will happen to Mikhail Volkov.

The secret behind the creation of the Arachnid isn’t lost on the Earth Federation. Recently joined civilizations no longer want anything to do with people, and only the khargi remain faithful allies. At the same time, things are tense even within the Solar System. Nеchaев’s resignation and arrest cause a change of power in the Council, and public opinion swings in the opposite direction—so now the once heroes of the war for survival become outcasts, leading to the dissolution of the “Steel Wolves” unit.

Confident in his beliefs, Nеchaев isn’t going to sit quietly on the sidelines. With the support of the Observers and people loyal to him, secretly from the Council, he begins his game. While the new power isn’t yet strong enough, resources, equipment, engineers, chemists, biologists, research staff, and simply qualified specialists start disappearing across the entire Solar System.

Mikhail doesn’t see any of this. Instead, he and his family are sent into exile in a colony on the periphery of the zone controlled by the Earth Federation, where he must serve his sentence as an ordinary settler. But the transport carrying the prisoners never managed to reach the final destination. And the skeleton of a ship later discovered leaves no doubt that everyone on board died.

Meanwhile, deep in space, an ancient force has been waiting—deciding who gets to live and who is to be erased from the pages of the universe. And it has already delivered its verdict. And everything that happens next will be small-time commotion compared to the horror awaiting humanity ahead.