Ruby Ward serves as a Hoplite peacekeeper tasked with upholding Sibylla’s order. After a stretch of welcome calm, her squad is caught completely off guard by a harmless protest that ends in an execution and a one-way trip to the fertiliser heap.
With the help of a pioneering AI, thousands of starry-eyed pilgrims blast themselves out of the solar system in search of a new home. But things go disastrously wrong on the starship Olympia when a deadly malfunction forces the settlers to decelerate in the vast reaches of outer space with nothing but what the gods and innovation can provide.