The great spheres and probes of Artifice, humankind’s enemy, haunt every inhabited world near and significantly. The Omnians’ lengthy and arduous seek out Artifice has ended. They’ve located Artifice’s lair in the Talus system.

The sentient digital entity rules a vast swath of worlds, referred to as the federacy, through ruthless intimidation. Its insidious applications are embedded in every races’ digital systems-warships, shuttles, stations, domes, comm systems, and power plants. One misstep with a race could find about Artifice: A Metallic Ships Novel its citizens exterminated in huge quantities. The survivors, if there have been any, would be thrown back again to the days before spaceflight.

Artifice has had millennia to secure its base. Effective battleship fleets safeguard the system’s periphery and the methods above and below the entity’s globe, Toral. Probes surround the system and warn of unauthorized encroachment, and Artifice provides control of the planet’s army of bots.

The Omnian expeditionary fleet, led by Alex Racine, desperately needs allies to be able to defeat or circumvent Artifice’s defensive measures. The Omnians are interested in the fleet of black-hulled battleships, which carry a resemblance to Artifice’s probes and guard the Talus program. The SADEs, the Omnians’ digital friends, believe that the sentients aboard the dark fleet and Artifice talk about a common background.

Whether or not the Omnians can gather allies, they don’t really intend to abandon their goal and go back to Omnia. They imply to capture or destroy the entity, Artifice, or die trying.