Gary Wright is a good-hearted young man yearning for adventure, having dreamt of space exploration and heroism his whole life. When Gary's frighteningly ill-tempered uncle, Colonel Virgil Cross, arranges a job for him aboard Terra One, humanity's very first and most decrepit space station, Gary's life turns upside down, and the rest of the galaxy flips with him. The one problem with Gary is that he's a complete and utter moron. In fact, the last thing he says before destroying the moon is, "Oops".

Suddenly caught in the middle of a galactic catastrophe with more adventure than he can handle, Gary is fleeing two of the galaxy's most powerful and least forgiving empires in a broken and unpredictable ship, encountering many diverse friends and enemies along the way including: Shii'an, the confident, tentacled rogue with a permanent smirk etched on her face; Korg, a dour, purple goliath who just wants to tinker with machines; Megatroll, the most dangerous computer worm in history trapped in a robot vacuum cleaner; Mon Arun, a shape-shifting reptilian saboteur; and Queen Morgaan, the omnipresent insectoid mother of a trillion mindless drones and a single daughter she'll protect at all costs.