It features the military use of exoskeletons and insect-like alien enemies but concentrates on the psychological effects of violence on human beings.

Armor is the story of humanity's war against an alien race whose foot soldiers are three-meter-tall insects, referred to in the book as "ants".

Using armored infantry suits, soldiers drop onto the planet from starships via a teleportation device called "Transit."

The attack goes horribly wrong, as Felix's company is completely wiped out, and the mountain fort they were originally supposed to capture is revealed to be a giant hive.

There, he meets another highly skilled scout named Forest, who participated in the fleet-wide Armored Olympics against decorated soldier Nathan Kent.

It is also revealed that the Ants can lock onto the fleet's Transit beacons and barrage them with missiles fired from the Hive, making retreat impossible.

During a fallback to an elevated bluff, a dying soldier keys all functions on the suit and blows up the nuclear powered armor.

In a stroke of bad luck, Bolov is also mortally wounded, grudgingly accepts the task of sacrificing himself and is thrown in the Hive by Felix.

Felix discovers that his 21st drop will be with the Masao, the hereditary ruler of an extremely wealthy extra-solar planet of the same name founded and inhabited by Japanese.

The Masao goads Felix until he admits his past as the Guardian Archon, the elected leader of Golden, a similarly affluent planet.

Felix's wife Angel was killed in a tragic freighter accident when she fled Golden, whose people would not accept her because she was from Earth.

He agrees to leave the military as Allie has brought a small courier ship and funds for him and his desire to die had subsided, but still refuses to return to Golden.

Only moments before being teleported onto the ship, Felix notices a Hive in the distance that barrages them with missiles, killing Allie.

A secondary plot takes place on Sanction, a planet far removed from the fighting, at a Fleet research facility.

These immersions change Jack - as it does the others - so that he chooses to make an almost certain suicidal stand with Holly against Borglyn's attack on the facility.

Jack and Holly watch in awe as this happens, and catch a final glimpse of Felix on the back of the starship through a security camera just before the ship moves out of range.