The third of the Sandy Pike series, following Pike's Passage, a Finalist for the BookLife Prize. Sandy rejoins the Alliance Navy as they look to recover planetary systems lost after their surrender to the Hegemony of United Worlds and the subsequent civil war in the hegemony. Alison Lynch recovers from her traumatic experience at the hands of the Graz Syndicate and finds herself in the middle of the hunt for an escaped psychopath.