After seven years of captivity at the hands of interstellar pirates, Star Rigger Renwald Legroeder escapes to the Centrist Worlds, thinking himself free to return to rigging.Instead, he finds himself a target of a conspiracy that stretches across light-years - from the Centrist Worlds to the pirate stars beyond - a conspiracy that has survived interstellar war and claimed the lives of millions, both human and alien.Legroeder's only hope of escaping the clutches of the conspiracy is to embark on a suicide mission that will plunge him back into the heart of the pirates' stronghold in search of a legend - the phantom rigger Impris, a long-lost ship known as the Flying Dutchman of space.Awaiting him at the stronghold is a universe of danger, a cybernetically advanced underground in the dark heart of the conspiracy, and a woman who could prove his downfall...or his salvation. Read Less