Anna's success as the Eastar NIA station chief has catapulted her into the position of Director of NIA Stations. Anna is uncomfortable with the promotion and bored. She has a master chief secretary, a lieutenant aide-de-camp, and fifteen commanders and their staff to do the work. But she suspects not all of her commanders are happy with their new, very young admiral or are doing their jobs. But she has no way to observe those commanders as their stations reside on distant systems.

A personal request from Admiral Webb to look into a friend's missing daughter solves the bored problem and provides Anna an excuse to tour her NIA stations. While dealing with resentful station chiefs, she discovers women who meet a very specific profile are being kidnapped across the UAS. Anna manages to unravel the mystery, but because of the profile, she finds stopping the criminal organization and freeing the kidnapped women will take years, during which time more women will be kidnapped and fewer will survive to be saved.

Unless ... Anna is willing to disregard the laws that safeguard the innocent and that are protecting the criminals and very influential people the criminals' activities support. Actions that will open her to prosecution and life imprisonment if plots to retire her early and permanently don't succeed first.