"Well over a millennium in the past, men and women fled Earth. Escaping Armageddon. What they found--lost in some forgotten corner of the Milky Way Galaxy--was the Waywork: an alien superhighway system between a closed sphere of stars. Now, the five Starstates--which rule all that's left of humanity--are poised on the brink of another terrible war. And three unlikely people--the daring daughter of a royal family, the reluctant son of an interstellar shipping magnate, and a disgraced flag officer seeking redemption--must come together to race against the forces of their greatest foe. Because the Waywork may at last be ready to give up its secrets, and one woman--a merciless autocrat, from the Waywork's most brutal regime--is determined to ensure that she controls it all. It's a clash of civilizations, as the future of the human race hangs in the balance!"--Provided by publisher.