Penelope Mercer was a renowned theoretical physicist, and a hobbyist engineer. Notorious for being difficult to handle, she's been blacklisted by the scientific community and fired from multiple labs that continue to develop her work on faster than light (FTL) propulsion. Desperate to continue working on her ideas, she turns to the Sol Navy, the largest contributor to research funding on the topic. While the Navy does have a research arm, Penelope knows they would never accept her and she had no interest sitting in a corner shuffling paperwork, so she enlists.

System Elements appear later in the book.

LGB relationships (TQIA+ not currently appearing).