It has been six standard months since a United Front assembled to fight the Annihilation Wave.

The war is not going that well.

Wave forces continue to pour into the Kree Galaxy, destroying civilizations and planets in the non-unified quadrant. Kree forces have maintained the borders of the Empire, preventing the Wave from invading further, but even after allying with the Skrulls and Rigellians they cannot push the Wave back. The Shi’ar could tip the balance if they became involved, but they keep their distance after the loss of Gladiator, and stay back in their annexed territories on the other side of the galaxy, safe from the invaders. A variety of soldiers, scientists and space heroes lend their abilities to the Front, but it’s still not enough.

On the planet Daedalus 5, a United Front military base stands guard over a massive stargate to the Milky Way, where envoys attempt to negotiate with the Badoon and the Church of Universal Truth for military assistance. The system comes under attack by a massive vanguard of the Annihilation Wave, bombarding the planet as the bulk of the fleet passes through the stargate. Kree ships attempt to hold back the bombardment, while ground forces battle hordes of giant bugs.

Among the forces defending the base are Beta Ray Bill, Quasar and Nova Prime. They fight alongside Kree and Skrull units as Nova receives intel from the Worldmind – a squad of Wave soldiers are breaking into the base to steal the Glorian Matrix, which was being experimented on here at the frontier. Quasar and Nova create a energy pulse that scrambles the local hivemind, causing the Wave hordes to become mindless and aimless, while Bill defeats a giant beetle-dinosaur hybrid and its handler.

While Quasar defends the Glorian Matrix (and Korath, who has taken charge of the experiments on the reality-shaping cube), Nova and Bill fight the leader of the Wave horde – Eradica, first concubine of Annihilus, who rockets down from her flagship to investigate the hivemind disruption. She webs up Nova and almost injects him with larvae before the two heroes cut her down – but they take her alive on the Worldmind’s insistence, in the hope she can provide desperately needed intelligence on Annihilus’ plans and Wave forces.

With Eradica unconscious, the remaining Wave fleet loses cohesion, giving Front forces a chance to retreat. And just in time – the Wave’s new planet-destroying weapon is en route to the Daedalus system. As for what has replaced the Harvester of Sorrow, sensors reveal the horrible truth – an emaciated and paralysed Galactus, shackled to the hull of an advanced ship, his limitless hunger turned into a planetary devourer for the Wave!