It's two millennia in the future and professional mercenary units dominate land warfare. Sergeant Galen Raper arrives at the Jasmine Panzer Brigade welcoming center with high hopes for assignment as a tank commander. However, when he arrives he is assigned to the Brigade's home world mechanized infantry battalion and he has to serve a year as enlisted before he can apply for a commission as an officer. From there it's wall to wall action, never a moment's rest, as is often the case for Soldiers serving their first enlistment. But then Galen is pulled up higher into the command structure and gets a bird's eye view and it all starts to make sense. A nice twist near the end puts Galen in a situation he's hardly prepared for and he's forced to rise to the occasion or accept defeat.