The TESS series continues with Admiral Bear McMoran continuing to fend off people and organizations bent on destroying the fledgling Terran Exploratory Space Service he founded with his teammates. His former Q-Kink team are now wrestling to control the burgeoning structure of a true space organization capable of moving mankind further and further off planet. McMoran along with Admirals Wong and O'Hara are discovering that doing so means dangers from larger and larger enemies who desperately want TESS secrets - ultimately embroiling TESS in a Chinese Civil war just to rescue their test pilot, Colonel Jeeter. The TESS secrets they guard are themselves growing too...as an unexpected player within TESS discovers a new use for the Petrovski Effect that is beyond the space drive - a critical tool which if leveraged soon enough may turn the tide in a final, climatic battle of survival.

Phelan ‘Bear’ MacMoran is a contractor and former army officer who is put in charge of a small top secret skunk-works team called Q-Kink that must think outside the box to solve a problem for building radios that can communicate with fleet submarines underwater. A quirky grad student on the team manages to design and have the team build a machine based on radical principles that is so far outside the box that it doesn't operate quite as planned. Mounting the new gadget in an aged airframe that fits their limited budget the team tests it only to find themselves in space. As they report their incredible discoveries Bear quickly realizes that inimical forces inside and outside the US are suddenly trying to destroy his team, steal the technology and stop them forever. Frantically mounting the new drive in a jury-rigged hull Bear’s team attempts to launch both a remarkable new space ship and a brand new organization called the Terran Exploratory Space Service (TESS).