Something strange is going on on Las Rafagas. When Gus-a name the beamslinger is only borrowing-arrives on the fuel mining station floating in the clouds of the gas giant Aeolus looking for a robot bountyhea, she finds the great mining rings still and not functioning. The town has been largely abandoned by its people, and the greedy administrators, Laszlo Leconte and his sons Junior and Aaron, like it that way. They have their own plans for the town. Gus has her own problems and wants nothing to do with the remaining townsfolk, and when rancher Oscar Vega asks for her help fighting back against the Lecontes she refuses. But as the strangeness begins to pile up, and she learns that some of the natives-short, spider-like beings-have mysteriously vanished, Gus is forced into action. Surrounded on all sides, Gus must confront her own deep-seeded greed and learn what it means to fight for something worth dying for.
