The Empress of the Eight Worlds has been assassinated. Prince Harivarman, exiled on the Templar Radiant, suspects that he will be the next victim. Help is scarce: Anne Blenheim, the fortress' clear-eyed, fair Commander, is favorably disposed toward the Prince, but her first responsibility is to the Templar High Command. And Chen Shizuoka, a Templar recruit sympathetic to Harivarman's cause, is being stalked by planetary security forces. When Prince Harivarman discovers an operable Berserker-one of the asteroid-sized, spacefaring war machines that once destroyed their makers and all other life in their path-his first instinct is to turn it in. But then he finds an ancient code that will either allow him to control the dreaded machine or lead him-and everyone else on the Templar Radiant-to certain death.