Twelve thousand years later, low on reaction mass and with 20,000 colonists aboard, Ark One is coming in hot. Captain Sandra Jensen and Astrogator Dooley Peeters have a plan to save her. There is the question of how they will be received, on an Earth that has returned to barbarism. That is, if they can slow her down enough to get a shuttle away..From what they can see, North America is headed for war. As if that wasn't bad enough, Dooley has an insane crush on 'The Ice Queen,' Captain Jensen.