Mars is now the fifty-second state. There was a vote, but someone is claiming it was rigged. Sanos was appointed the state's top cop by the president because he kept him from being embroiled in a scandal. He will have to deal with a governor who wants to be elected for life, a black market on water, a missing miner, and the Russians who want to use Mars as a burial site for all their nuclear waste. He believes in law and order, but that doesn't apply in politics.