The mining ship El Cavador, beyond Pluto, detects a fast-moving incoming object headed toward Earth. The crew decides it's probably not important, but they're wrong: it represents the opening wave of the first Formic War.

Continues the sci-fi history of the Formic Wars and finds the warring nations and corporations of Earth struggling to set aside their differences to defend against an imminent alien invasion.

"The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the pequeninos, a large colony of humans, and the hive queen, brought there by Ender Wiggin. But now, once again, the human race has grown fearful: the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania. Ender's oldest friend, Jane, an evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly...

The story of the Fleet in space, parallel to the story on Earth, told during the time that Peter Wiggin and Bean are consolidating the Hegemony on Earth. The terraformed Formic worlds are open to settlement by humans, and the International Fleet becomes the arm of the Ministry of Colonization, run by Hirum Graff. MinCol now runs Fleet School on the old Battle School station, and still recruits very smart kids to train as leaders of colony ships and...

One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death. This is the story of the First Formic War. Victor Delgado beat the alien ship to Earth, but just barely. Not soon enough to convince skeptical governments that there was a threat. They didn't believe that until space stations and ships and colonies went up in sudden flame. And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could move fast...