There's only one man who makes Dr. Karin Vexley supremely uncomfortable, and he has just transferred to her ship. Finding out this nasty bit of news, is a revelation and a warning. Karin wants to shut out the former and ignore the latter. The child prodigy has packed a lot of accomplishments into her tender twenty-one years, but shutting out the man who says she looks like a gorgeous angel, is not going to be one of them.

Today, Karin is a Chief Medical Officer on the latest Devon-class prototype starship, the UGS Trevor Meridian. Her friend, Kitaya, serves beside her. Their current mission is as curious as it's troubling.

And those who are waiting in the wings for the Meridian to carry out her questionable mission, aren't concerned with ethics or casualties.