Crucible — Moira Katson

"We have come to a moment when what we know as goodness and mercy will not be enough to guide us any longer. Your loved ones may not ever understand what you did here today, but they need you to stand for all that is good in humanity." With these words, war hero Benito Sandoval launched one of the most brutal massacres in human history, attacking the undefended colony of Guan-Yu and slaughtering forty thousand of the civilians he had sworn his life to protect. When humanity's fleet arrives, too late to stop the attack, all that is left is ruins--and the cryptic words of a lone alien survivor, warning humanity of the Henth, a race that has devoured everything in its path. Hunted to the brink of extinction, the Aireni were fleeing across the galaxy when they stumbled onto a living weapon with speed, strength, and brutal cleverness: a fragment of humanity on a long-forgotten planet. In desperation, the Aireni set about honing humanity, breeding and modifying the colonists into a weapon that might be the last hope for life in the galaxy. As the human fleet searches the stars for the Henth, they leave the ruined colony behind them. But the colonists have not been destroyed. They have hidden. They have survived. And they know who their enemies are. It is only a matter of time before they return from their exodus to the destroyed city, to find the technology the Aireni left behind. It is only a matter of time before that technology carries them into the galaxy. And then, as the last remnants of the surviving races face down the final advance of the Henth, it is up to humanity to convince a long-lost weapon to come to its aid...