Blending hard science fiction with suspenseful military action, this novel is an exotic adventure set in a future colony in the Alpha Centauri star system. Finding the crew of a remote space station wiped out by a killer virus, the captain of a patrol vessel imposes a quarantine lockdown. But a fearful crew attempts a mutiny to flee with the ship, threatening to spread a pandemic across the nearby planets. Courage and duty clash with panic and desperation in a perilous struggle to survive.