Lt. Marya Andreison just wanted to get her career back on track. After years of crap assignments and missed promotions, she finally got the deep-space posting she always wanted, only to find bigotry and intolerance are universal.

But when an alien transmission only she can decode comes through an unauthorized wormhole, her situation goes from bad to worse to awful. Now she's on the run, with only her wits, her wedding rings, and a downloaded message that could start an intergalactic war.

All Marya wants to do is get back home to her family. And if she has to burn down what's left of civilization to get there, that's exactly what she's going to do.