This book is the first in the Kelvin timeline of Starfleet Academy books but it is the second story in the series with the Edge being the first. A black fog hangs over San Francisco and in that fog is small machines that want to learn the inner workings of all of the species of Earth. These small machines have been causing trouble for the SFPD and one night Jim Kirk faces them but at the end of the conflict a Borg cube appears and heads back to the Delta Quadrant of the galaxy. Yes one hundred years before the Enterprise-D encounters the Borg in system J-25 in Q-Who the Kelvin timeline Kirk and McCoy battle Starfleet's greatest villain before Kirk even takes command of this timelines Enterprise 1701.