It's always darkest before the light...

Defeated in battle, the fractious alliance of Goltar, Spine Patriots, and the Midnight Sun Free Company are chased across the Spine Nebula by the Endless Night and their sea monster allies, the Tyzhounes.

Abandoning the nebula is not an option. For the free trader skipper, Lenworth Jenkins, the people of its fifteen tormented worlds are the cause he's been searching for all his life.

The Midnight sisters, Sun and Blue, can't abandon their people trapped in the nebula or its fabulous prospects of wealth and opportunity.

On a water world behind enemy lines, Branco, the former Binnig spy, is dying. Can he make a difference one last time?

As Endless Night stretches across the nebula, those who still resist must dig deep and believe that however dire the situation, this is the dark before the light.