Veronika Taylor Morgan knows interstellar mining like the back of her hand. But when her young son Ori contracts Delirium, she decides to sell her interstellar mining company to care for him. Her husband, Niles (a brilliant doctor), and his World Health Continuum team have failed to find a cure for Earth's worldwide pandemic, Delirium, an Alzheimer's-like disease, which has plunged the average age of losing your mind into the '30s. Earth's civil institutions are crumbling, and unless a cure is found soon, this time, humanity is truly in jeopardy of extinction. When Mysterious radio signals are detected from below the ice in Antarctica, Dr. Morgan's team gains entry into a celestial spacecraft. There they find the remains of a very tall race of ancient aliens. Their expanded DNA will serve as a cure for Delirium-if they can locate a living source. It is then that an encrypted message from the planet Nemesis arrives, offering humanity help. The League of American State requisitions Veronika's flagship Assurity for the required journey. Veronika reluctantly agrees to help refit Assurity at Cassini Sol Station for the never-before-attempted voyage to the hidden planet Nemesis. When the captain of Assurity becomes infected with Delirium, they hopefully await a replacement. Unexpectedly, a devastating solar flare pushes the date of departure from days to hours. As Cassini scrambles to find a replacement captain, Veronika devises a risky escape for Assurity. If they wait, it will take months before they can attempt another mission. Tactless and short-fused-Veronika's people skills are unnerving. Not afraid to take what some consider to be calculated risks-most deem her reckless. Yet, with time running out and torn by her responsibility to care for her desperately sick son, Veronika knows Assurity is the only ship capable of following the map to a cure. Skeptical of anyone else's ability to perform a job correctly-especially androids-and deathly afraid of cryosleep, she must overcome her inability to trust and work in concert with others--if she takes on this critical mission. Will she captain this collection of rookie twenty-year-olds to save humanity's genetic blueprint from extinction?