Travel around the Horse-shoe Nebula can be dangerous - unpredictable ion storms and huge solar flares can knock out a ship's system, and can appear with only a few hours' notice, causing crews to have to make a run for the nearest shelter. The alarm has sounded just as Harry Minto, bounty hunter, is taking the notorious criminal Blake DelGardo to face justice at the Centre of Law on Alpha Draconis IV. The only shelter within range is Rock Ridge Station, a small, rarely used mining outpost on the edge of the Nebula. But Minto and Blake are not the only people seeking shelter, and not all of them are who they claim to be.