The passenger ship Edirimus is on-route from Permeir to the Delfon system. The passengers include:
- Braxi, a rising bureaucrat and trade broker
- Falthien (Fal) Sunbearer, a former slave with a variety of skills
- Haywire, a sentient AI in humanoid form
- Magni, a staggering man with a shadowy past
- Valara (Val) Longstar, an oracle filled with mystery
Following the call of an emergency-band beacon, the Edirimus’ captain, Minos Dret, informs his crew and passengers that interstellar law require they lend assistance to the deep space communications station Timoshenko. Hours later, as they arrive, they find a number of the station’s crew have armed themselves and attempt to barge their way through the airlock.
Haywire attempts a hack into the station’s comms to feed the internal communications into the ship. Val is able to utilise her Psionic abilities to foresee a shootout involving both crews. Val warns Minos, who readies his crew. Moments later, an armed Ivon Repner of the station’s command is shot dead in the chest by a ready Minos. The armed militia is quickly dissuaded as the crew and passengers of the Edirimius offer to assist with the station.
After being directed to assist in the Engineering bay by a dispassionate woman named Edren, the passengers discover the gravimetric generator deep in the station has begun to fail. Without technical skills, they improvise, and Braxi leads an inspiring speech to the disheartened and weakened engineering crew to repair the problem as quickly as possible.
Haywire is able to investigate the station’s grav-lifts, which can now operate on all but one floor, and everyone investigates a missings persons report for a little girl. Finding the girl, the passengers are also able to fix the last floor of the grav-lift which is fully operational.
The passengers speak with the senior officers of the station who thank them for their assistance, and they are sent off with a crate of various food spices and Perisian Pale Ale. Sometime later, back on course, they arrive at the Spaceport on Peris, agreeing to work together under the name Avocadians.