If war shapes the universe, truth destroys it. A criminal becomes a leader, hiding a tiny colony of survivors from the savagery of twisted men. A smuggler harbours refugees from a brutal attack on their defenceless village. A young boy, wracked by loss, now seeks revenge. A servant of the Magistratus, a lawman who once believed in justice, searches for the truth behind the planet his masters will kill to hide. A stim-addicted navigator, haunted by her past, wants answers. Why she was chosen to ride with a salvage crew destined to die in a remote, nameless part of space. And a spy is blackmailed into informing against those he serves. What he knows could bring about the end of the Republic. All will be drawn together by hidden forces, and their lives shattered by cataclysmic events they can neither predict... nor escape.