Lieutenant Sheli Chowdhury, Warner Space Marines, arrives on Humboldt with no greater objective than to complete her Combined Fleet requirements. She doesn't know why a criminal investigative unit would ask for a combat Marine to fill an investigative position. With no security experience, it makes no sense, but sometimes military life is just that way. So, she will just have to keep doing her job until she can figure out why she's here.

After spending weeks investigating seemingly unconnected problems, all she has are confusion, a mystery, and pieces of a puzzle that refuses to fit together.

In the middle of her confusion, she is caught unprepared and she barely escapes an ambush she never anticipates. Finding herself in the midst of a shooting war, her troops look to her for answers she cannot give them. She understands less of the big picture with every new piece of evidence she uncovers.

All she wants is to do her duty and to bring her people through the conflict alive, but every betrayal makes that less likely. In order to keep her people safe, she must deduce who she can trust. The more she learns about what is going on, the less clear the answer becomes.

She has to believe someone, but trusting the wrong people might lead to death for her and everyone around her.