The Santa Mica is an out of date ship kept running through the hard work and innovation of its crew, while hauling cargo and serving as a training ship for newly commissioned Captains. These captains are typically scions from wealthy corporations, which is why the crew is baffled by their latest Captain, Cirilo Webster, who earned his rank serving several years in the corporation's "security" division. Everyone knows the security division primarily exists to maintain Santiago Corporation's monopoly on FTL ships if bribes and threats fail. No one trusts them, least of all other former members like the Santa Mica's Security Chief. Webster finds earning the trust of the crew tough going, especially the Shipmind Nephil, an artificial intelligence so old they're the only one in Santiago that has managed to pay off the "debt" of their creation. A trip to a remote planetary system after their usual cargo hauler failed to arrive leads to a pirate trap, a cybernetic combat robot that might be developing a personality, and ferrying a group of Santiago hating academics to a planet with mysterious alien ruins. Forget the secrets, explosions, and aliens, never set out on a six month trip with a malfunctioning coffee machine.

This standalone book is a mix of things like Star Trek and The Murderbot Diaries although more serious than those lighter and sarcastic series, respectively. The story first focuses on the Webster earning the trust of the crew and Nephil. Along the way the reader is introduced to the world building and Santiago's good and bad points. Amazingly, given the general corporate cynicism there are good points. Surprisingly, the corporation acknowledges that their cybernetic soldiers do occasionally develop self aware personalities and supposed to be added to the regular crew with salaries, although they must still work off a creation debt like Shipminds. This is the opposite of how corporations handle things in The Murderbot Diaries but that regulation is more often ignored by the crews. The character of Six adds a lot of dimension to the story by examining the differences between human crew and A.I.'s.

The main plot shows up later as the Santa Mica takes on an archeological expedition to alien ruins that may be the first left by another star faring race rather than those of indigenous populations. The expedition wouldn't be possible without the Santiago ship and yet the scientists are obviously hoping to find evidence leading to a new FTL technology which sets them against Webster's crew. The archeological mysteries are unique enough to keep that story line fresh and the inevitable danger draws in aspects of scientific research, military training, some big explosions, and the universal ideas of self-sacrifice and grief.

Stewart says this isn't the start of a series at this time, but maybe the inspiration will strike. Reviews are very positive although there are apparently some technical issues with the narration so the audio version is only coming in at 4.3 stars.