The frontier can be a dangerous place.

Its worlds are remote and yet uncounted—an entirely new region of space to explore, lending curiosity to those seeking both fortune and adventure.

But it's no place for soft hands or kind words. The frontier is home to both the desperate and the accused. Its planets are half-settled and often devoid of any governance or law.

And that's exactly why Tucker Mass is headed there.

However Tucker isn't quite the man he once was. Time's been wearing holes in his boots... and his memory too. He's also got more than a few aches that aren't going away, he's a bit rounder in the midsection than he'd like to be, and he really aught to see a doctor... about a bunch of stuff.

But he isn't gonna.

Instead, he'll try to convince his last remaining friend to give up her life on earth and travel three years across space to a dustbowl world, right on the edge of the frontier. She won't like it one bit, but maybe if he can offer her a decent paycheck and pry her curiosity open some, she'll come along. Someone will need to keep him sober and out of trouble.

Seth is a brave new world. Dangerous and isolated. A planet of one continuous desert and very few redeeming qualities. The land is cracked and dusty. Salt and reddish grit fill the air, sticking to the back of the throat and drying the mouth.

But out there in the wild and unexplored plateaus lands, out beyond the dust flats and the vacant border towns, perhaps she can find something worth her troubles.