Two college students take a six-month internship on starships which launch them into an adventure neither expected. When two beings possessing super-technology rampage across the galaxy killing star system after star system, they bring a ruthless galactic empire into violent conflict with the unprepared human race. Marooned in deep space, in orbit around a black hole, Gail Parker becomes the only hope for humanity when she stumbles across an immensely powerful ancient machine that has the ability to do the unimaginable.

This novel tells the story of the beginning of the human/Qwelleron interstellar war later chronicled in six short stories in The Puppy of Doom and Other Stories.