Without notice, an insane military Commander of the Reunified Soviet Empire releases every Soviet weapon simultaneously from the largest nuclear arsenal on earth.  It is an all-or-nothing gamble to regain former glory and achieve instant domination of the planet.  What he does not realize is that the automated nuclear defense systems of the West will retaliate instantly and doom the entire planet and its inhabitants to a complete destruction far worse than anyone’s most hellish nightmare in an extinction level event. 

Aaron Seven has one chance to save a handful of humans trapped beneath the radioactive clouds of the planetary war, enveloped in the deadly blizzards of nuclear winter.  Their only hope is if Seven can resurrect an antique rocket from a Kansas silo, get aboard the US Space Station, commandeer its interplanetary spacecraft and depart the earth forever.  His desperate, impossible plan is to reach the only known facility left in the universe with a regenerative life support system – the American Mars colony on the Elysium Plain of the Red Planet.  The only launch window for two years is about to close.  With inadequate supplies and an unknown saboteur on board, Seven has no choice but to depart earth orbit for Mars.  His time has run out… 

In this fast-paced Aaron Seven adventure, misfortune, time and the vast distances of interplanetary space conspire to wage war against Seven and his tiny cluster of survivors.  Whether or not they survive the abyss of space and reach Mars will determine the fate of human survival on both planets.