When the launch of the new A2e rocket goes terribly wrong, panic grips the entire world - because this rocket has a nuclear reactor on board. From the moment the A2e crashes, that nuclear reactor is on a countdown to meltdown. It will reach a supercritical state within a matter of days. The reactor is at the very depth of the Pacific Ocean, and the desperate race to retrieve it begins. Dane Brande, maverick but world-leading oceanographer who, with his highly-skilled, international team of experts and cutting edge equipment, may be the world's best hope of salvation, yet he is stymied at every turn by bureaucracies foreign and domestic. Will Brande succeed or will he, like others, lose his life in the search for the lost rocket and its terrifying cargo?