An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here.Bobby Sneyd, CEO of New Frontiers, Inc, is worried. The company has fallen on hard times, in part due to the activities of a bidding cartel on Terra. Sales are down, transportation income is down, and the prospectors are no longer able to find the valuable metallic asteroids the company depends on. And as always, jealous nations on Terra look toward Mars, and plot. To take over, to stamp out the upstart nation! The prospectors have become restless, angry with the company. For the moment, they lack a leader. But they're about to find one, arguably the last person any of them would have chosen. But not all will follow him. Despite everything the Republic has been able to do, a criminal class has emerged. For a time, they preyed on the unsuspecting prospectors. But then they turn to an ancient practice: piracy. Will the human expansion into space, once so promising, collapse, defeated? By a combination of human greed and an old criminal endeavor? Or will Chuck, the former NFI chief executive, be able to work with the prospectors to counter this new threat?