Tragedy leaves Diego in a desert wasteland on an alien world. Terrified now of the life he dreamed about for so long, he tries to settle in and forget the past. Once again, his mechanical aptitude earns him a place among strangers, but as before it cannot last long. He does his best to learn the ways of the frontier, but a city kid can only adapt so much. And his mistakes are the kind that cannot be simply left behind. When they creep up on him again, he realizes he must return to the stars -- but it's going to be a long, hard climb out of the frontier planet Orron's gravity well.