2099 A.D. With billions around the globe jobless, a spiraling crime rate, and an unquenchable demand for offworld human labor and soldiers, Earth's rulers implement voluntary and forced transportation to other planets. Among those compelled to go offworld are criminals and the unemployed. Serve your sentence and maybe you will get the coveted "Second Chance at Life the Way It Should Be."

Alexander Cray is just another piece of human flotsam lost among the hopeless majority of humanity's teeming billions. The odds are against him and getting worse. He's had at least one memory wipe and his wife and former life are both lost to him forever. When he is sent to the hell planet known as Bacchus III, he knows his chances of survival—let alone a Second Chance—just got slimmer.