Engineering corvette Copernicus One is down on the surface of Bayone Three. With her boat's crew missing, life support failing and nearly all her systems damaged, Chief Engineer Yili Curtiss must use all her scientific and tactical knowledge to practically re-invent spaceflight from the ground up before nearby enemies locate her crash site. Meanwhile, with the entire crew of the battleship Argent also missing, a Sarn Invector destroyer squadron on the warpath and unusual readings coming from an abandoned planetary defense base near a civilian settlement on the planet, Rebecca Islington,...