Four months ago, the Crickets — the Chhrt'ktk't, in their own language — had abandoned a mobile shipyard with a burned-out hyperdrive core in Sol system, as a decoy. They hadn’t told humanity about the decoy part. Then they had picked Alex Holder to operate it, simply because he happened by chance to be the first human they found who could — because that would make it a better decoy.
In perhaps as little as five years, the Khreetan would be coming. The Crickets hadn’t intended for humanity to know that, either.
Alex had those five years to build a defensive fleet from the spines out, recruit crews for his ships, and find enough humans who could reach full rapport with Cricket tech to command and control them — and get all of them trained to work together despite their national differences. All this, while at the same time he tried to share the Crickets’ scientific knowledge, distribute their technology where it was most desperately needed, and somehow still keep the peace.
Fortunately, he had help, and he was beginning to find more people who could fully link with Chhrt'ktk't technology.