April 2006: Commander Dawn DeFaller, captain of the British destroyer HMS Wildcat, is on course for a NATO exercise in the North Atlantic. But en route she receives unexpected new orders to report to an American Rear-Admiral for re-assignment. Her new mission is to participate in a daring experiment in which her ship will be instantaneously trans-located half way across the globe, using a novel warp field technology.
But a serious error occurs, and Wildcat is instead projected 230 years into the past, to the time of the American Revolution. There, off the coast of Boston, Massachusetts, she encounters the frigate USS Connecticut of the American Continental Navy, under the command of Captain Matthew Revere. Revere performs his sworn duty as an American officer and opens fire on Wildcat. Dawn is forced to defend her ship, resulting in the loss of Connecticut and all hands, save for Revere himself.
On Wildcat's return to the present with Revere aboard as a prisoner, the misunderstanding comes to light. But before a decision can be made regarding his future, a freak quantum event hurls Dawn and Revere into a sinister alternative version of 2006. A version in which France won the battle for the North American continent during revolutionary times, and over the space of two centuries developed into an unrivalled totalitarian superpower, hell-bent on mastery of the planet. A superpower dominated by a harsh and cruel form of fundamentalist Islam which robs men of their freedoms, women of their basic human rights, and neighboring nations of their very existence.
The two captains discover their only hope for a restoration of the world they know and love is to return with Wildcat tothe late 18th century, and somehow stop the forces of France in their bid for victory in North America.