The Last of the Immortals  The Last of the Immortals () is a military science fiction novel written by the Russian science fiction writer Andrey Livadny as part of his "The History of the Galaxy" series. The novel is also sometimes published under the name Retaliatory Strike (). The story begins in the year 3870, with Galact-Captain Ivan Tamantsev of the Confederacy of Suns defending an unarmed convoy from a group of pirate ships. Despite managing to destroy four of the attacking ships, Tamantsev loses his wingman and is himself forced to eject, after his fighter sustains heavy damage. His escape pod is towed by the pirates to their homeworld of Ganio, settled by colonists of Middle Eastern descent. Tamantsev is brought before Faizullah of the Javgeth Clan, the man who ordered the raid on the convoy. He explains to the Captain his options: he can either agree to temporary employment by the Clans as a pilot, until he pays off the destruction of the four fighters and their AI modules (the fighters were unmanned), or Faizullah can let him go with the knowledge that Tamantsev will not survive long on the desert world. While Ivan agrees to fly missions for Faizullah (fully aware that the Ganian intends to go back on his word), he demands to personally inspect his fighter. Upon arriving to the hangar, he sees that it is an ancient "Phantom"-class aerospace fighter from the days of the First Galactic War with the Earth Alliance. While he shudders at the thought of flying this 1500-year-old antique, Ivan knows that this is his best shot of escaping the planet. Faizullah's engineers agree to let him inside the fighter, as they have disabled all of the craft's AI functions. However, they underestimate the Confederate pilot training, and Tamantsev is able to restart the systems in service mode and launch the ship manually. Upon entering orbit, Ivan faces another problem, as the "Phantom" does not have enough fuel to jump to another system, and the old fighter is no match for the Ganio's orbital defenses. Ivan scans the local hypersphere force lines and determines that one of them is unmarked on all star charts (i.e. it does not lead anywhere). Realizing he has nothing to lose, Tamantsev transitions into hypersphere and uses the last of his fuel to maneuver the ship to intersect with the unmarked force line, remembering that 3 million years ago, none of the known races did not possess hyperdrives (it is an invention unique to humans).