Commander Scott McNabb and his crew find a lost experimental quantum device in a derelict spaceship while on a survey mission in the asteroid belt. They soon discover that ownership of this technology would shift the balance of power in the colonized worlds, leading to a system-wide conflict. When word of their discovery gets out, the crew find themselves in a fight for survival that takes them across the solar system, from the asteroid belt to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and from the Martian city of Jezero to an irradiated wasteland on Earth — all this in a time when artificial intelligence has almost outpaced our own ability to control it.