A brutal centuries-long war against sentient machines has finally ended and humanity is spreading beyond our solar system. The Union State Fleet vessel Vanuatu has been sent to terraform and colonize two worlds in orbit of a sun seventy light-years away. After eighty years of hibernation, the crew awakens from their deep sleep and arrives to find that both planets are completely different from what they expected. Instead of a pair of frozen desert worlds, they discover that both planets are water worlds. Two unimaginably vast oceans, completely unbroken by landmass, filled with strange new forms of exotic life. On the smaller of the two ocean worlds exists a race of intelligent yet primitive squid-like beings living a nomadic lifestyle. After making first contact, a debate soon erupts aboard the Vanuatu. Should they follow their orders to relocate the aliens, or should they risk everything by disobeying? The fate of humanity’s collective soul rests in the hands of the young and capable Henry Forger, a communications officer who is unwillingly thrust into the middle of this dilemma. Henry must decide where his loyalties lie, and ultimately what the future character of humanity should be. On hiatus