Some graduate students discover how to open a wormhole after one Three graduate students at Stanford University-Lily Yuan, Kevin Langly, and Douglas Medder-discover how to open a wormhole after Lily has a dream about it. When the students open their first wormhole, an alert is sounded by the wormhole detectors that were planted on the moon fifty thousand years ago when humanity was raised from apes to humans. The alert causes humanity to be evaluated by the Galactic Species Control Board, the New Species Enforcement arm of the Ur. The Ur is the Confederation of Sentient Species in our galaxy....

The governments of Canada and the United States begin to slowly reinstate themselves and attempt to suppress the anarchy that has swept their countries after the Three-Hour War. Once governmental control and peace are reestablished, the bigger problem of asking the Galactic government for a second chance is revisited. But before we can get humanity's death sentence reversed, we have to make the Galactic government listen to us. The problem is, no matter how hard we wave our hands and shout, all we get back is silence. As a last resort, a young woman volunteers to be sent on a suicide mission...