captain laurent zai of imperial frigate lynx must rescue the child empress sister of immortal emperor worshiped by 80 human worlds for 1600 years enemy rix are machineaugmented humans who worship ai compound minds separated by light years bound by an unlikely love zai and pacifist senator nara oxham face the rix and hold the fate of the empire noelle a hopeless romantic just knows that her gifts have to be from her senior crush and geeky froggy thinks the game is the perfect way to get superpopular celia to fall for himexcept she thinks his gifts are from jake the schools resident bad boy and starts to crush on him romantic mishaps abound but all is revealed the night of the winter dance where theres more than one surprise waiting under the mistletoe