A young midshipman strives to maintain her position aboard the space cruiser Essex but ends up betrayed and stranded on the alien planet River. What to do? She gets kidnapped, fights her way free, and battles across twenty-five hundred kilometers against aliens and humans who all want her for their own reasons, some of which could be fatal. Meredith Stewart starts out to find her way back home, but along the way, love and duty turn a fight for personal freedom into a fight to save an entire planet.
