When Beka Valentine's ne'er-do-well brother, Rafe, limps onto the Andromeda Ascendant in a stolen junker, he asks Beka to go with him to find their mother. Beka knows Rafe's plan is nothing but trouble.

And the Andromeda has trouble already. Captain Dylan Hunt is trying to conclude a delicate negotiation betwen Nietzscheans and Humans. He knows that one false move could lead to another Human-Nietzschean bloodbath. And he needs every level-headed crewmate he's got. That means Beka, who, for all her emotional Sturm und Drang, is still the best pilot in three galaxies.

But Beka can't resist the chance to find her long-lost mother, who went on a quest years before to find the technology of the lost Vedran race. Only, if she and Rafe find their mom and she has the Vedran device, will they be able to control it? Or will it destroy the universe as we know it?