Book excerpt: The race is on to claim the area between the Ohio River and Tennessee. What's left of the resistance is hiding out in the tangle of central Kentucky hills-leaving the powerful, well-organized Kurian vampires the opportunity to fill the void. Major David Valentine knows a small group of fierce, freedom-loving allies who would be glad to settle the rich lands. But they're more than three hundred miles away, with hostile aliens and vicious human slavers standing between. But even if by some miracle they make it, the Kurian Order isn't about to easily yield the blood-soaked Kentucky soil...