Kuiper Station is a decommissioned asteroid mining facility set adrift in the universe. Reinstated by pirate captain Shass DeWinter, the station has been given a new lease on life, but it is not a lease that repays favourably. In the nearby asteroid field, criminals on the run harvest valuable minerals for the captain, while drug labs churn out illegal stimulants destined for the black market.

Amongst all of this lawlessness a few Kuipertonians try to carve a legitimate livelihood out of the chaos. One of them is Bob, the skilled Master Technician who manages to keep the station's ring spinning and the fresh water flowing. On occasion his skills are called upon to break into the redirected freighters that stop over at Kuiper to be plundered. One day Bob decides that an item destined for the captain is too good to hand over. His desires set off a chain reaction of retribution that he, and those around him, might not survive.