After the events of the abortive caravan run out to Pluto, and following the death of their pilot and the damage to the Albatross, the crew find themselves in the lull of the storm. Now safely ensconced in the legal fiction of the Jovian Economic Defence Organisation (JEDO), the Martian and Earther backed commonality of the moons of Jupiter, it is time to heal old wounds and repair those things that are broken.

The Tross is laid up in the EuroStar Shipyards, a once respectable and groundbreaking dockyard a half-century before, and now running to seed at the far end of a vacuum train tube on the outskirts of Belle Terre on Eupora. Europa and Ganymede are the two most populous satellites in the Jovian system, boasting geomagnetic fields that protect from stellar and local radiation. Food, water, pregnancy and cutting-edge biotech research is done here. It was also recently the site of the Earth/War War that was sparked off by a rouge Protogen researcher using kidnapped children.

In the shaky peace that follows, Earth and Mars are keeping their distance. It is a time of change in the Solar System, but everyone is keeping a wary eye on Venus as blue lighting skitters around the crater Eros made. The times they be a changing...

But that doesn't change the fact the Charon Courier Corporations accounts have been unfrozen, allowing the maintenance budget to be used up and wages paid. Things might be their darkest, but so is the morning on Luna right before the dawn.