Lieutenants Terrance MacKenzie Larson and Joslyn Marie Cooper Larson had just gotten married and also finished training in the League of Planets Survey Service when their first mission was rudely interrupted. The planet of New Finland had been occupied by invaders, human but of unknown origin, who called themselves the Guardians.

The Larsons' new mission was to sneak into the occupied system, avoiding a missile defense that could vaporize any fleet the League could send, and open the way for a liberating counter-strike. All in a day's work. But the situation kept getting more complicated. Even utilizing an experimental matter transmitter that could materialize an army onto the surface of the planet, the Larsons would still somehow have to destroy a warship as large as a city that was on its way from the Guardians' home world. And the defeat of the Guardians occupying New Finland would only be the first -- and easiest -- battle in the war, because the Guardians have made contact with powerful aliens.

Anticipating an easy victory, the Guardians are quite unaware that the aliens have their own secret agenda -- and if the aliens' plan works, the end result will be a universe where no human, Terran or Guardian, survives!