Rowan Jun, a human born into the illegal slavery trade, arrives planetside on Unata inside the blazing wreck of the vessel he once called his prison. This new place is legendary among his fellow slaves—the populace bloodthirsty and violent and vicious, the food harsh, the air suffocating, and the ground toxic. Stories claim that even the jungles come alive to eat anyone who might enter unbidden. They call Unata "The Crossroads of the Universe". But among the Slavers, when they speak of her in hushed tones, she is better known as "Fear Planet."

Rowan prays those stories are overinflated. He sabotages the directional controls aboard the Slaveship QuellTruth. Then something dreadful happens to the controls. The QuellTruth crashes, killing all the precious people he tried to save. And in a cruel twist of fate, Rowan survives to face his guilt, breathing in his first free air as the lone survivor from the QuellTruth’s forbidden cargo.

“What are you, boy?” asks the Valkyrie, her silver armor gleaming in the sunlight above him.

“A murderer,” Rowan replies, his tone dead serious. “Nothing more.”

The Valkyrie stands there, regarding him with an understanding he didn’t deserve. “I will be the judge of your worth, now.”

This Valkyrie, Unata’s Queen Garyn Kei, orders him to survive, to train, to live. To truly live. Rowan's guilt rises to strangle him as he seeks out refuge, freedom, and the chance to protect even just one person with his new skills as a warrior, to pay her back for his unwarranted salvation.

Then a new enemy brings war upon Unata. These creatures—the warrior class from the Slavers' home world Gangre-ta—thirst for vengeance over their losses, threatening to wipe out all Unatans. Rowan struggles to reconcile his bloody past with that of his new home, fighting the weakness of his human body and mind. He sets out to become the Queen’s own champion, to prove he can be the greatest warrior Unata has ever known!