In the year 2154, sixteen year old Tycho McGrath is an advanced genetics student at the prestigious John Brooke Academy in Tampa. Life seems fairly dull, until he accidentally discovers that in less than a week, a recently designed bacterium known as the Orion Strain will almost certainly wipe out every human being on earth. Tycho and his friends quickly form a desperate plan to steal an experimental spacecraft and flee to the partially-terraformed Moon, hoping to ride out the plague till it's safe to come home. But the survivors of Earth soon discover that the Moon has its own dangers. Horrific storms, radiation poisoning, and mutant insects all lie in wait, and worst of all, the betrayal of one of their own. Can Tycho and the others find their way back home, or will they be trapped forever on the dying Moon?