They know what we've done.

Cameron Bannister and his group of survivors have endured the fall of their great city and gone searching for what they once believed to be a weapon but found to be something else entirely. It's something that will decide the fate of all humanity - innocent or guilty - if Cameron can summon the will to start the doomsday clock ticking.

Accompanied by a strange wanderer with a hidden past, they must confront the judgment archive at its new location in the "capital of capitals": Ember Flats, on the former site of Giza, beyond the infamously unpassable wasteland known as Hell's Corridor. But when they arrive, all is not as it seems, and the viceroy, along with the secret society hiding within her government, is keeping secrets that keep the city calm - while unrest boils beneath its skin.

When a double-cross threatens the group's center, only a risky plan might save the species before judgment comes or bring the walls crashing down as the epoch ends in extinction.

This relentless, pause-resisting tale of colonization and alien empire is the fifth in the Alien Invasion series by masters of story Truant and Platt, authors of The Beam, Robot Proletariat, the Dream Engine series, and many more.

Fight for hope. Search for survival.