Captain Velocity Jones and her former ward, Brontë Ikeda Verde, have settled into their new lives as agents for the Pirian Fleet. Now the holder of the Primary Seat of Ikeda House is dying, and Brontë's estranged mother wants her daughter to inherit. Velocity reluctantly agrees to go with Brontë to the Ikeda station of Wole Villars, leaving her crew behind on the newly independent planet of Durbin. But the Combine families aren't about to let Durbin go without a fight, and the politics around the Ikeda House succession are even more complex - and deadly - than Velocity and Brontë had anticipated.