SRS

Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins has finally realized her lifelong dream: She’s completed a nerve-bending qualification flight for a pilot’s license. Her timing is far from optimal, however. Faster-than-light travel has only recently become a reality, and the World Space Authority is still learning how to manage long-range missions safely. To make matters worse, efforts to prepare two planets for colonization are killing off native life-forms, outraging people on Earth.So there’s not a lot of demand for space pilots.

Thousands of years after an entire colony mysteriously disappears, antiquities dealer Alex Benedict comes into possession of a cup that seems to be from the Seeker, one of the colony's ships. Alex and his assistant, Chase Kolpath, follow a deadly trail to the Seeker, strangely adrift in a system barren of habitable worlds. But their discovery raises more questions than it answers, drawing Alex and Chase into the very heart of danger.

In the 23rd century, Earth's scientists finally unlock the secret of faster-than-light travel, and humankind begins journeying to the stars. Unfortunately, the travel comes with perilous risks. While exploring the galaxy and looking for habitable worlds for human colonization, the United Earth Space Force exploratory ship Copernicus is destroyed by an encounter with an unexpected meteor storm as it orbits a newly discovered planet 12 light years from Earth.