Lightning is the ultimate survivor. After society collapsed on an ecologically devastated Earth, he helped build the ships that carried humanity to salvation on the planet Garna. When the apex predators of their new world launched a series of devastating attacks, he joined the fight to protect the colonies from annihilation. In the wake of the onslaught, he taught the few hardy souls who remained how to rebuild. For centuries he has stood watch over the last human city, one of the living saints of a theocratic regime.

And almost everything he believes about himself is a lie.

Three hundred years after planetfall, an encounter with a group of rebels unearths deep questions and Lightning ventures far afield in search of answers. The trail leads him out into the wastelands of Garna and down the twisting avenues of his past. Lightning finds himself on the threshold of an unimagined new future, and he makes a choice that will change the course of history once again.