Time is running out.

To her partners at Aether Exploration, Ariane Kedros is the daring pilot of their prospecting ship. She is also a reserve major in the Autonomist military—accepting mysterious assignments to fulfill her duty. To the Terran League, she is a war criminal—guilty of piloting a ship on a mission that obliterated an entire solar system.

Amidst an uneasy peace between the Autonomists and the Terrans, Ariane and her partner, Matthew Journey, have discovered alien ruins on a remote planet, ruins that bear evidence to an ancient and highly advanced technology. But their discovery has drawn the interest of high stakes players from every corner of the universe, including that of the rogue leader of a fringe Terran sect. His people were ruined by alien technology, and to avenge them he's managed to get his hands on a temporal-distortion weapon. Now Ari must find a way to stop him, before they all become ancient history...