Once a rehab guard, Kobalt is happy to spend his days now serving as supercargo on the merchant ship the Lucky Number. His days of keeping criminals in line and taking ridiculous, alcohol-fueled vacations to the coliseums of Bangkok are well and happily behind him.

That doesn't mean his life doesn't occasionally still come with excitement, however. The seven day pass he was looking forward to enjoying with plenty of peace and quiet is now threatened by signs of a possible smuggler, and where there's smugglers, there's people willing to do whatever it takes to get their contraband to where it belongs—including kill.

His world is thrown further into upheaval when the hunt for a smuggler brings him face to face with a man he never thought he'd see again: a former prisoner that Kobalt once thought about in ways no guard should.