When a childhood accident leaves Tony with a remarkable ability to hear dragons, he finds out that on Pern, the dragon chooses. Whether it comes to being a dragonrider or becoming Weyrwomanleader, he has a bumpy flight ahead.

Jake Jensen is sixteen when he meets Tony Stark at MIT. He's nineteen when he joins the US army, and twenty-four when he becomes a Loser. Becoming a Loser is also when he happens to discover that DADT might apply. But that is not where this story begins. It begins on a cold, winter morning in Massachusetts, when a little girl with hair the colour of cornflakes meets her newborn brother for the first time. (In which there are evil toasters, all-around nerdiness, and ohana ).