Their ship, the Earth’s Hope II, tries to outrun a pursuing Tauran vessel, but it is eventually damaged in an attack, and Potter is severely injured. He finds love with Margay Potter, a corporal and comrade-in-arms. The physics of near light-speed travel have kept Mandella young while the universe ages around him. Twenty years later, Mandella is now a sergeant, and the war continues. On the planet’s surface, the ground assault becomes a slaughter as Taurans flee without protection and the humans, under the influence of mind control and propaganda, revert to bloodthirsty barbarism.

Once training is complete, the platoon is transferred to Stargate 1, where they are given their first assignment: Attack a Tauran base and take at least one prisoner alive. The hazards of working and fighting in deep space take their toll, and after two weeks of training, 11 soldiers have died. Mandella’s platoon is soon sent to the planet Charon to complete basic training in the hostile environment of space. A fully integrated force, the army encourages sexual relations among its members, and Mandella obliges with Rogers, a biologist in his platoon. In basic training, Private Mandella learns many ways to kill, both hand to hand and with the military’s latest technology. The military and the United Nations Exploratory Force soon start a war with the Taurans, seeking to establish footholds on “portal planets,” bodies orbiting collapsars. As they begin to colonize unknown parts of the galaxy, they run afoul of the Taurans, an alien race that, military authorities claim, has attacked an Earth vessel, although evidence of the attack is sketchy. In the future, humans have discovered “collapsars,” wormholes that allow high-speed space travel across vast distances in very short periods of time. William Mandella, a recent graduate with a degree in physics, is drafted into the army under the Elite Conscription Act, a law that seeks to fill the military ranks with only the best and brightest.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman