Guerra de Vietnam, 1966. Australia y Nueva Zelanda envían tropas para apoyar a los Estados Unidos y a los vietnamitas del sur en su lucha contra el norte comunista. Los soldados son hombres muy jóvenes, reclutas y voluntarios que nunca han estado involucrados en un combate. El 18 de agosto, los miembros de la compañía Delta deberán afrontar el verdadero horror de una despiadada batalla entre los árboles de una plantación de caucho llamada Long Tân. Son apenas cien. El enemigo es una ola humana que está lista para destruirlos.

Sometime in the near future, paraplegic prison inmate Matt Mills meets "The Board" of Satoshi-Telefair Industries, who thank him for joining the Program. Under pressure and with a promise to make him walk again, Mills agrees to volunteer. He is injected with a synthetic nanomaterial and suffocated, only to wake up with restored use of his legs, yet alone in a steel cell in the first spoke of an experimental apparatus - The Wheel. A series of assailants inflict a multitude of damage to Mills' body and torment his mind, yet the synthetic nanomaterial not only restores his damaged organs, it re-engineers his strength. The experiment might be designed to kill, but Mills is determined to survive - and get back to his daughter before The Board finds her first.

Ben Hall is drawn back into bushranging by the reappearance of his old friend John Gilbert. Reforming the gang, they soon become the most wanted men in Australian history.