Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and played
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me. The King’s son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring—then like reeds, not hair—
Was the first man that leaped; cried “Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here.”

– ‘The Tempest,’ Act 1, Scene 2, William Shakespeare

The Blood Dilithium Crisis unfolds across the Gradin Belt, its manifestations turning political stability into chaos as its effects on telepaths leave swathes of the populace tormented. Into this upheaval Endeavour is sent, with old allies returning to help them face whatever challenges they find on the far side of the galaxy.

The crew is shaken when they come across a derelict freighter with blood dilithium aboard, its Brenari crew reduced to savagery and violence at their cargo’s invasive whispers and influence. But worse is an ensuing confrontation with a warship of the xenophobic Devore Imperium, who seek to expand their borders and continue their cleansing of any and all telepaths. Endeavour can stop one ship, but not a whole fleet, and not a whole navy – especially not when they learn the Devore seek an ancient device dating back to the days of the fallen Vaadwaur Supremacy, a psionic resonator once used to suppress Brenari slaves. What was once a tool of control in the hands of the Vaadwaur could be, in the hands of blood dilithium-possessing Devore, a tool of genocide.

To find this lost device before the Devore, Captain Rourke and his crew must embark on a hunt stretching across the vast reaches and dangers of the Gradin Belt – and not, themselves, succumb to the chaos of blood dilithium.