Sean is a typical eleven-year-old boy. He goes to school, spends most of his free time playing Stratagem (a futuristic game) with his friends, and lives with his mom. That is, until his world is suddenly turned upside-down by his mother's unexpected death. Sean is taken away from his home, his friends, and the only life he has ever known, and sent to live with his estranged dad aboard a deep-space exploration vessel. He has to deal with a blustery captain, grouchy scientists, and a dad he barely knows.

And then things get worse.

The spaceship enters a region of space where the laws of physics have changed: light behaves differently (meaning the ship's sensors no longer work), gravity has changed, the shields no longer protect the ship from asteroids, and the packaged food begins to spoil. How will they detect objects without the sensors? How will they move in the weird gravity? How will they stay safe from asteroids? And how will they find their way back to normal space? Sean and the scientists must answer these questions before the ship runs out of food... or gets destroyed by a rogue asteroid.