Humanity has endured centuries of horrific plague and a particularly brutal interstellar war: Its time for a few decades of peace and quiet. No such luck: for now there is new treat. Stirred from aeons of sleep, the inhibitors - ancient alien killing machines - have begun the process of ridding the galaxy of its latest emergent intelligence. Fleeing the first wave of machines, a ragtag group of refugees headed by the war veteran Clavain waits anxiously for the next phase of the cull. But with Clavain sunk deep in despondency, the actual leadership falls to Scorpio has very reason to flawed experiment in genetic engineering. Though Scorpio has every reason to hate humanity, he believes he has put his grudges - along with this criminal past - behind him. Then an unexpected new element enters the colony: an avenging angel, a girl born in ice, gifted with both the power to lead humanity to safety and the ability to drew down mankinds darkest enemy. On Hela, where vast traveling cathedrals circle the world in endless procession, the witnessing of a miraculous event has given birth to an apocalyptic new religion.