With all other claims to the Stradivarius nullified and all command requirements met, Orion has somehow found himself captain of a starship.
He's assigned his brother Syzygy the role of First Mate and recruited Echo, Galek, and Arcana to fill the other officer positions, but now the team must navigate the daunting task of actually managing a spaceship—something none of them are exceptionally well equipped to pull off. Galek works to turn a crew full of nannies, asteroid miners, and garbage men into a passable security force, Echo is trying to stock a serviceable med bay—without using all the drugs herself—and Arcana is busy doing… well, no one's really sure, but it involves a lot of reading.
While the team hastily attempts to bring order to the Stradivarius, acquire more supplies, and push for Echelon 2, the gnoll Apprentice Shaman Kas-Rin Witchmane makes moves of her own. The Empress has demanded that Kas-Rin hunt down the soulforged android so that he may die a long, slow, painful death. Though the Apprentice Shaman's mission is life or death—for both herself and her quarry—she still works to further her own schemes, especially her designs for a certain dark-haired Time Magic user.