Using fast and furious hit-and-run tactics, Marcus GioAvanti and his Avanti's Angels mercenaries have earned a tough reputation throughout the Inner Sphere. But the Inner Sphere isn't where their newest job is taking them—because their latest employer resides in that remote and mysterious region of space known as the Periphery...

The Magistracy of Canopus has been the target of aggression by the Marian Hegemony, and by hiring Marcus and his gutsy band of can-do commandos, it hopes to retaliate. But the fact that the Canopians are armed with technology that is considered rare in the Periphery is the least of Marcus's problems. Marcus and his "Angels" will have to face the real force behind the hostilities—the religious cult known as the Word of Blake. This fanatical group has a scheme deadly enough to trap even the amazing Avanti's Angels...