As colonial warfare explodes across Venus, 19-year-old Ken Seno undergoes a crash training course to learn to handle the Hound, a one-ton antitank battlecycle intended to defend the peaceful colony of Aphrodia against the invading mechanized hordes of the territory-hungry Ishtar. An Ishtarian blitz has already left the Aphrodian capital in danger of imminent capture; and so the outgunned and undertrained Hound corps faces a deadly graduation test--the awesome firepower of an Ishtarian Octopus supertank battalion!