JOHNNY ANDRETTI IS A PLUMBER. HE'S ALSO A HITMAN. EITHER WAY, PEOPLE CALL HIM WHEN SOMETHING NEEDS FIXING. Now Earth needs fixing. The Thalyrians are coming, and humanity is facing an enemy it cannot defeat. Their ships are stronger. Their weapons reach farther. Every conventional calculation ends the same way: Earth loses.

But Johnny has spent his life finding the hidden weakness in things everyone else thinks are unbreakable. Pipes. Machines. Organizations. People. Why not an empire? While Earth's forces prepare for war, Johnny goes looking for the seams, backed by soldiers, spies, criminals, and the unlikely intelligence network of the Space Plumbers' Union. And deep inside enemy territory, the officially dead Susan Dunning is applying pressure of her own. The Thalyrians know her only as the Shadow Officer.

The Thalyrians came to conquer Earth. They should have brought a plumber. The explosive conclusion to the Plumbing Space trilogy.