"Military science fiction [concentrating] on the psychology and politics of societies in conflict."-Analog, on the Confederated Worlds series The Confederated Worlds implanted in his brain the skills to make him a soldier. He had to learn for himself how to survive interstellar war. Tomas Neumann sought escape from his backwater planet and overbearing mother, and a mentor to replace his long-dead father. "Taking the shilling"-enlisting in the Confederated Worlds military-promised both. But despite the soldier's skills implanted in his brain, combat still threatened to destroy him, in body and in spirit. Grieving for lost comrades, demoralized by a spiral of atrocities, could Tomas learn what he needed to survive, before facing his war's ultimate challenge?