Throughout the bleak nightmare of the Collapse, long dark shapes of warships, scoured clean of organic life, still prowled the now-lonely space lanes and cast their deadly shadows over half a thousand worlds. Imbued with a malignant intelligence, and a taste for apocalyptic violence, the vampire fleets methodically finished the work that the first wave of Virus infection had so haphazardly begun.

After seventy-five years, humankind finally stood backed against the edge of the abyss, only one more short step separating them from oblivion.