A hideous accident kills the senior officers of UNS Hibernia—leaving a terrified young officer to save three hundred colonists and crew aboard a damaged ship on a seventeen-month gauntlet to reach the colony of Hope Nation. With no chance of rescue or reinforcement, Nicholas Seafort must overcome despair, exhaustion, guilt; he must conquer malfunctions, mutiny, and an alien horror beyond human understanding.

He must save lives. And he must take them, in the name of duty...