Pirates, peril, and a planet’s hidden secrets.
The Atria believes the fleet to be in an area with no inhabitants, but a routine mining operation turns into a nightmare when pirates attack. A handful of crew members find themselves marooned on an inhospitable planet.
Captain Asterion thought visiting the planet would be routine. Nothing prepared him for the vicious attack on the mining camp. Cut off from his ship, anxious about the people stranded with him, the fate of the fleet uncertain, his hope wanes – until Melas, the woman he secretly admires, proposes a daring strategy to boost their cry for help.
Once resentful of her assignment to this barren world, technician Melas now faces a bigger challenge: persuading the captain she idolises that her recommendations have value. With food running short and no sign of rescue, she formulates a desperate plan – one that could well prove fatal.
But what Asterion and Melas find on the planet has the potential to change the Interstellar Union forever.