By 2255, the age of starflight is over. The Academy of Science and Technology has collapsed, and the only efforts at space exploration are carried on by privately funded foundations.Then a young physicist named Jon Silvestri comes forward, insisting that an abandoned prototype for a much more efficient star drive is workable. Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, now a fundraiser for the Prometheus Foundation, persuades the group to back him - and he is proven right. The new drive works. The Cauldron - the very core of the galaxy - is now only three months away.At long last, the mystery of the deadly omega clouds that have devastated the galaxy for centuries can be penetrated. Soon, a handful of brave men and women begin a journey fraught with danger, into the heart of the Cauldron where the truth about the clouds can be found.And Priscilla Hutchins is one of them... Read Less