After decades of interplanetary warfare, a wealthy inventor leads a team of intrepid adventurers in perfecting a faster-than-light drive to safely scatter humanity among the stars, but greedy corporations and corrupt governments plot to take the technology and steal the future of the human race.

I’m tuning a pitch and need this to be razor sharp. This is for a series. An alternate version (four more words) is:

After decades of interplanetary war, a wealthy inventor leads a team of top scientists and intrepid adventurers in perfecting a faster-than-light drive to safely scatter humanity among the stars, but greedy corporations and corrupt governments plot to take the technology and steal away the future of the human race.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Paring this down even further:

After decades of interplanetary war, a wealthy inventor leads a team of top scientists and intrepid adventurers through a gauntlet of greedy corporations and corrupt governments to perfect the first faster-than-light drive and lead humanity to the stars.

EDIT EDIT: We can get leaner:

Under the specter of interplanetary war, a wealthy inventor leads a team of top scientists and intrepid adventurers against greedy corporations and corrupt governments to perfect the first faster-than-light drive and take humanity to the stars.