Secrets can both protect and destroy. Building an alliance against the interstellar Damarg pirate threat, Colleen Yrden must decide which secrets to keep and which to reveal.

Meanwhile, she has hired Turhan Maxwell, an engineer, as head mechanic at an Yrden asteroid mining venture perilously close to Damarg-claimed space. Though warned that the man appears to be hiding something, Colleen gives Maxwell his chance, knowing that adding one more hazard to an already hazardous operation might bring the whole thing crashing down.

Maxwell, wanting nothing more than to fade away, finds himself dragged further and further into Yrden Family affairs, and his very job threatens to expose what he desperately wishes to keep hidden. Events, however, conspire against him, and he will have to decide whether to keep on running or to stand and face his greatest fears.