Returning from an evening spent in Mars City visiting relatives he didn't know he had, Timaset Skooch arrived at the local space port to find the loderunner Celeste, his new acquisition, stolen. A few minutes later, the crew of his slightly run-down (and missing) ship, returned from a nearby pub, blind drunk, puzzled, and now unemployed as well.

Ever since he'd decided to quit being a P.I. and to try his hand at running cargo across the Outblack instead, things had just blown up in Skoochs' face one day at a time (Florpavian Flamebirds tended to do that occasionally). Between the labor disputes and accidental deaths among the crew (who believed in settling disputes internally) Tim had developed a headache worse than the ones he used to get from getting kicked in the head. Things had way more complicated than he'd expected, and now the he and the odd-ball crew of the slightly run-down loderunner found themselves in the middle of a kind of cat and mouse game with some cloaks and daggers thrown in for good measure.

He was sure it had something to do with the 10,000 credits he'd been offered to transport two passengers to an asteroid in the rings of - um, Jupiter (as soon as possible, no questions asked) by a middle-man with no neck and a tendency to smile a lot. Trouble was, now the Martian Mob - or someone - seemed to be out to kill them all - and he was beginning to really regret winning that card game...