He loves returning to his roots as a farmer and believes in the connection and goodness of all things. She knows that love is not forever and the universe will find a way to devastate you when you begin to trust anyone with your life. After her indentureship to the pirate Hellebor was paid by Kash Trider, Lehana and Kash started a new life with different names on a bucolic ag planet. As Nisa Star and Kieran Sulien, they and the two children are thriving and the Raeaa colonists have embraced them as one of their own. But the agricultural life in every Rim ag planet is put at risk when a virus begins decimating the crops and then infecting the people with a wasting disease—a disease that can kill an entire population within a few months. As Rim scientists rush to find a cure, Nisa and her ship are called to take trial vaccines to every impacted colony. What seems to be an easy run to save the Rim is thrown into peril when KaCorp makes a power play to corner the market and sell the vaccine only to colonists who can afford their exorbitant price. They’ve forcefully taken over the research facility and destroyed all the equipment. The scientists have been imprisoned and their work stolen. Worse, to distract Nisa from her mission, someone has kidnapped Kieran and he is dying alone on a poisoned planetoid she can’t find. Thrown into a fight for the lives of all those on the Rim, Nisa must make heartbreaking choices, face the call of revenge, find a way to her own redemption, and ultimately learn to embrace the gifts of the cryoborn. To win she must learn to trust her life and those of her family not only to those she knows, but to complete strangers…the one thing her entire life experience has taught her never to do.