Dr. Gideon Warner had spent most of his career trying to find or create a doorway to the past.His theories and speculations on time travel consigned him to Outer Darkness in the scientific community. He began to despair of seeing his dream of a portal to the past ever coming true. A chance discovery of a temporal rift on Terra suddenly put the achievement of that dream within his reach.

With the help of a mainstream scientist working for Earthfleet he convinced the president and Solar Council to fund the project he named Project Timestream. To avoid opposition and hysteria only five people know the real purpose and goal of the project.

The project has only one military person: Bryan Casey, Chief Engineer of the star cruiser Atlantis. Like everyone else on the project Bryan is sworn to secrecy. The Speaker of the Solar Council brought ill news when he visited to check on the project's progress with politicians of both parties pressing him and the president to brief them about the project's purpose. All the while, they have been threatening to go public with their complaints if they are not added to the "need-to-know" list. Despite having a team of stellar scientists, engineers and techs, the project gets off to a rough start. With the help of Assistant Project Director Amara Taft, the project gets fully on track. Just when it seemed that everything couldn't be going better Warner learns of a serious threat. Someone from the team has rigged a fusion reactor to become a fusion bomb. Time is ticking.