Smijj, the leader of the Twenty Telmaj, doesn't always feel like a good leader. There are so many new members of the Twenty that the once close-knit group often seems too chaotic to be Telmaja's best chance for winning this war. When the Unified Government attacks one of Telmaja's allies, a small artificial world, Smijj agrees to bring as many of the Twenty to help the survivors as he can. But there's a deadly plot to capture Lucien, and Smijj doesn't guess that asking Lucien to go to Yylex is playing right into the kidnapper's hands. When Smijj realizes that Lucien is gone and no attempt to find him can be made until the war victims are brought to safety, his ability to control both the Twenty and his own impulsive nature will be put to the test.