Ensign Lahira Ocean is the chief navigator of the Human battleship, the George Washington. Born on the world Magellan, she hails from a wealthy family, and joined the fleet as a precursor to her future as a trade magnate. Aside from astronomic charts and hyper-drive calculations, she studies history as both a pastime, and a lens to understand her life's path. She regularly muses about retirement, despite her incredible skill at military affairs. Fate intervenes when scanners on a Human-held planet, Hudson, pick up an approaching group of alien ships. The George Washington is deployed to supervise this initial contact, but the greeting Mankind gets is as horrifying as it is stereotypical of a 20th or 21st century science-fiction epic Now, Lahira has little choice but to accept command of a brand new generation of star-ship, a cruiser called the Messenger, and is charged with recruiting subordinates of her own. Bringing together a hard-nosed specialist in military doctrine, a free-wheeling former space pirate, a nonchalant communications expert, and hosting her former academy rival as her own chief navigator, can the now-Captain manage to survive her own crew long enough to face the alien menace? What has made these foreigners so ready to wage war against any organic species it meets? Is she up to the task of leading the Messenger on a counter-attack against these mysterious marauders which humanity calls The Orphans?