Joseph J. Urban III

The War Between the States is finished. In the wake of the bloodiest military conflict in American history, Malcolm Jefferson, a former Confederate officer, created an international shipping fleet that was suddenly catapulted into the most successful merchant house in the world when luck, cunning, and ruthlessness gave him access to radical new technology discovered after an armada of alien ships attacked our world in a holy war of conquest. It is 1877, and steam-powered vessels now patrol the cosmos, lunar colonies are established, new species are discovered, and alliances are formed. Foreign mystics, psychic warriors, and Martian shock troops now do battle with Union soldiers, interstellar colonials, and alien mercenaries. Amidst this chaos, a Martian princess following a prophecy that declares she is the key to interplanetary peace is brought to Jefferson, whose own destiny gives him a blessing that will bring about that salvation or interstellar destruction.