After defeating the Gardener's forces on New Mars, newly recalled Marine Lieutenant General Colby Merritt Edson returns to the agricultural world of Vasquez, rescue any survivors, and ensure that the alien menace won't come back through the wormhole. It should be easy, but . . .

Defeated but far from dead, the alien Gardener must warn its people of the threat of this new kind of Meat that has dared to interfere with the planet it had seeded. Smuggling itself back to Valdez aboard a human ship, it prepares for a final assault against the Marines and farmers there, the first step in a war to eradicate humans from the galaxy.

Former psychology professor Lawrence M. Schoen and retired Marine Colonel Jonathan P. Brazee join forces in this third novella of the SEEDS OF WAR trilogy, pitting Marine against Gardener, with the fate of all of humanity hanging in the balance.