When Dr. McCoy grumbles once too often about the way the U.S.S. Enterprise(TM) ought to be run, Captain Kirk decides to leave the doctor in command while he oversees a rountine diplomatic mission. Kirk beams down to a strange planet nicknamed "Flyspeck" to negotiate its admission into the Federation, leaving Dr. McCoy to enjoy his new authority.

However, the doctor soon learns that command is a double-edged sword when Kirk disappears without a trace. Desperately trying to locate his catain, McCoy comes under pressure from Starfleet to resolve the situation immediately. Matters go from bad to worsewhen the Klingons arrive and stake their own claim on Flyspeck

Then another, more deadly power threatens them all, and suddenly Dr. McCoy and the Starship Enterprise find themselves pitted against an alien fleet in a battle they have no hope of winning.

Diane Duane is the author of The Door Into Fire, which was nominated for the World Science Fiction Society's John W. Campbell Award for best new science fiction/fantasy writer two years in a row. Duane has also published more than thirty novels, numerous short stories, and various comics and computer games, several of which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. She is best known for her continuing Young Wizards series of young adult fantasy novels about the New York-based teenage wizards Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguez. The 1983 novel So You Want to Be a Wizard and its six sequels have been published in seven other languages.