For the last six standard months Jazz Healy has been scouring the Independent Fringes for her father. He's been missing, presumed dead, for over a decade. But new information has come to light and Jazz is determined to leave no asteroid unturned.

However, the same troubling questions keep popping up. If he still lives, why has he never come looking for her? Twelve years, and not a single comm? Other things weigh on her, too. Like how she feels about Darren Tollett. Not long ago he knocked her unconscious while trying to steal some valuable cargo. Now is she, if not in love, in quite-like with him?

Those dilemmas are soon on the backburner, though, as Jazz finds herself entangled in the political machinations of a royal family. She and Tollett will need all their wits, and maybe some luck, to get themselves out of this predicament in one piece.