The Excalibur has been destroyed, the victim of insidious sabotage. Last seen on board only moments before it was blown to bits, Captain Mackenzie Calhoun was assumed lost with his ship. Now First Officer Elizabeth Shelby has been granted a command of her own, the U.S.S. Exeter, where she will discover exactly what kind of captain she is meant to become.

But what about Calhoun? Unbeknownst to Starfleet, the resourceful Xenexian officer escaped the cataclysmic demise of the Excalibur, only to end up marooned on the primitive outback world of Yakaba. There he eventually befriends Shula, a woman with the strange and inexplicable ability to summon rain for her parched and struggling frontier community.

Shula's powers, however, have made her the target of jealous and avaricious enemies. They will stop at nothing to seize control of her special gifts - or destroy them forever. Trapped on a hostile world, unable to contact Starfleet or even let Shelby and the others know he is still alive, Calhoun is drawn into a life-or-death struggle against relentless foes.