China’s bold attempt to land a scientific space probe on the far side of the moon ends in spectacular failure…or does it? While the CIA struggles to answer this question, the US Air Force stuns the world with an unprecedented shuttle launch to deploy a national security payload to Earth orbit. But when the retrofitted Atlantis fails high above Kennedy Space Center, Commander Jack Harden’s future is quickly derailed. As military satellites fall from the sky and America’s electronic infrastructure is threatened by a mysterious electromagnetic “storm,” a young president is suddenly forced to restart the covert rocket program he had cancelled not long after taking office. NASA may be grounded, but the reluctant ex-shuttle commander and his two unlikely copilots soon find themselves on a collision course with the moon, all in a last ditch attempt to destroy China’s secret weapon—the Assassin’s Mace.