The show details the end of the war that occupied the previous season, with the Empire performing clean up duties on remaining enemy forces that have scattered about the galaxy. While the other seasons took a look at the big picture, this one takes a look at a much smaller scale, a single planet that is liberated by the Empire's forces. For political reasons, someone of royal blood must govern the area and the lucky candidate this time is Lafiel. She, along with Jinto, must come up with a solution for the problems faced when the newly liberated planet, Lobnas II, is found to be a prison planet with a number of groups that want to take control over it. Their policies forcing them to take sides and govern in a just manner challenge the two to deal fairly with various factions. The main focus of the second volume was a rebellion in the prison, with the prisoners doing everything they could to alter the outcome of the previous episodes emigration. In this concluding volume, Lafiel is forced to abandon Jinto in order to protect the lives of her small fleet against a much larger invasion of humans who are trying to reclaim the occupied system. Torn between duty and her personal feelings towards Jinto, what will the young ambassador do and what will come of it are explored pretty thoroughly here. While there are only three episodes here, an extra OVA is included to sweeten the pot so here's a quick breakdown of them for you:

Episode 8) Things To Protect:
Admiral Spoor, forced to protect Lafiel's emigration plans, is caught between a rock and a hard place. Her forces are greatly outnumbered yet to save face, she must defend those leaving Lobnas II, against her wishes. She attempts to negotiate with the enemy fleet in order to buy time but they don't go for it. In a bold move, Spoor attacks the enemy but soon finds out that she has no hope of winning.

Episode 9) To Lay Down The Bow:
Spoor's remaining forces retreat with heavy losses. The enemy fleet has proven to be unpredictable and Spoor eventually must weigh her option to surrender. Another couple of Imperial fleets, including one led by Lafiel's father, a respected Admiral, go to check out what happened to her.

Episode 10) An Abriel's Tears:
Lafiel returns to Lobnas II in order to find Jinto (or his remains). Her forces find some survivors of the riots that might have a lead to Jinto's whereabouts. With no rations and on the run for weeks, his fate was all but certain yet Lafiel had a need for closure. Considering the series started with his death, his chances aren't considered good.

Bonus Episode: Passage Of The Stars: Birth:
This was a separate OVA that showed how Lafiel's parents met years ago. It also showed how they fell in love and ended with her birth. It didn't add anything great to the series but it was a nice touch for fans and the small touches are what make the series interesting.

The story wrapped up nicely with no cliffhangers to speak of. While things didn't end exactly as planned for the main characters, there was enough closure for fans on the secondary cast members as well. The themes explored here were done so in an adult manner and the voice acting on the dub wasn't bad. The story didn't have a lot of space battles and focused mainly on verbal exposition so if you want to see continuous action, you'll want to look elsewhere for your kicks. I'm rating this one as a Rent It but fans of the two series will definitely want to pick up a copy.

Picture: The picture was presented in 1.78:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color. Aside from a few minor issues, it looked great. I saw no compression artifacts and the colors were very fitting for the shows darker subject matter.

Sound: The sound was presented with a choice of either Dolby Digital English or Japanese with optional English subtitles. The vocals were clear and the music quite well done, both contributing to the feel of the show as much as the visuals did. There was some separation of the audio tracks, especially in the battles, and that made it almost feel like a movie rather than a series.

Extras: There weren't a lot of extras on the dvd but they were better than the last volume. The best extra was the extra episode, which was reportedly sold separately in Japan. It detailed the circumstances that led to the birth of Lafiel and added a slight measure of depth to the overall story. The next best was a text section called "Newsletter of the Stars" that provided some background to the show, allowing those of us that haven't watched the previous seasons to understand the basics of what's going on. I wish all anime had something like this although it does contain spoilers. There was also a bit of a production art gallery where some of the artwork was displayed and some trailers. Lastly, there was a paper insert with some artwork and minimal story information.

Final Thoughts: If you liked Banner Of The Stars 2, Volume 2 and the previous series relating to this one, there's no reason why you'll want to pass this one up. It was an intelligently written story and while it dragged a bit in describing negotiations, I think it's a better idea than some of the series that are highly repetitive (and pad themselves too much).