A strange virus is spreading through the Locality, transforming people into twisted, animal-like versions of their former selves. TORINA JADUS, Minister of Medicine and Health, sets off on a dangerous journey across space with her loyal team to work on a cure with one of the galaxy’s greatest medical minds. Planets and entire star systems are quarantined or destroyed as governments struggle to contain the outbreak. With civilization on the verge of collapse, will she be able to save her people, the Tuulan For? To their human neighbors, who are immune to the plague, this seems like a distant problem. But the peace and quiet is disturbed when a mysterious alien vessel is shot down over a remote human world. The brief but violent encounter reveals them to be the vanguard of an alien race bent on the extermination of the human race. SIMON MARSTON, newly-promoted captain of the Navy ship Pericles, and his untested crew must learn how to use the information obtained from the alien ship to save the Human Interstellar Commonwealth before the enemy can complete their genocidal campaign.