After a deep-space battle with a deadly enemy, the battlecruiser USS Vanguard, a four-hundred-meter-long United States Starship captained by Aragon Brody and his new first officer, Tamyra Corbett, finds itself inexplicably displaced over four hundred years into the past. They now orbit the pre-technology Earth of 1886.

Since time travel has never been done before, they have no idea how it happened. Unfortunately, they have bigger concerns than trying to figure out how they got to the nineteenth century. Having suffered crippling damage in the fight, the huge warship is stuck in a decaying orbit and, unless the crew can make repairs, it will crash to Earth in a matter of weeks.

The ship's repair requires molybdenum, an element found in the mineral molybdenite. According to historical records, molybdenite can be found in the Arizona Territories. After her team is attacked while looking for the mineral, Tamyra realizes they're going to need help from some people from the nineteenth century.

Not the trusting type, Tamyra will have to learn to trust her life and the lives of Vanguard's officers and crew to an ex-convict with a dark, mysterious past and a notorious Apache renegade. Unknown to her, the United States Army has just dispatched over five thousand cavalrymen to catch them both!