At The Edge Of Human Space, The Last Garrison Has Lost Every Son It Ever Sent

Every year since Earth burned, the last human garrison at the edge of space sends its eighteen-year-old boys out in small fighting boats to strike the enemy every child aboard is taught to blame. In thirty years, not one boy has come back. Not one has sent home so much as a bone.

No one aboard has ever seen the enemy. So the rifle instructor who trains every class gave it a face himself: a towering monster of welded scrap and stitched canvas, built from the nightmares six-year-olds draw for him. The boys grow up beneath...