Assigned to improve an undisciplined patrol craft squadron in the Red Sea, Naval Commander Dan Lenson and his Tactical Analysis Group find themselves on a humanitarian mission in famine-stricken northern Africa, where a young jihadist coordinates a violent insurgency.

"Newly-promoted to captain, Dan Lenson's first glimpse of his command is of a ship literally high and dry. The USS Savo Island, which carries a classified, never-before-deployed missile defense system, has run aground on an exposed sandbar off Naples. Captain Lenson has to relieve the ship's disgraced skipper and deploy on a secret mission--Operation Stellar Shield--which will take his ship and crew into the dangerous waters bordering the Middle East"--...

"Captain Dan Lenson is under fire both at sea, and in Washington. His command of the first antiballistic-missile-capable cruiser in the Fleet, USS Savo Island, is threatened when he's called home to testify before Congress. There, he must defend his controversial decision to prevent a massive retaliatory missile attack by Israel against civilian targets in the Mideast. Shaken by the near-end of his career, Lenson returns to command uncertain of his...