Captain, a title Jason Cull had never really imagined he'd own. The Freedom's launch may have been a disaster, but Mr. Lucas had still been there to keep the crew focused and tell them all what to do. Well one single botched mission had taken care of that, and now the others had voted to put Jason in charge. Great. Now all he had to do was literally figure out how to save the world. At least Lucas had left him with a vague idea of what to do next- find the Bettarians, the aliens who they already knew were at war with the Grath, and strike a deal with them to win back the Earth. If only Jason knew where to find them. The Bettarian's empire may be huge, but the universe was turning out to be one pretty infinite haystack. And as simple as Lucas' plan sounded, it glossed over the one question that soon made it clear to Jason how much of a fool's errand this entire mission really was. What could one ship full of refugees from a backwards planet possibly offer a vast and ancient alien empire in exchange for their assistance? Especially when it turned out that empire had much bigger problems than the Grath.