This page includes summaries of all chapters leading up the the current one. Its purpose it to maintain continuity by refreshing readers' minds about what has come before. Since quite a bit of time passes between each installment, I hope this will make it easier for readers to get back into the story more easily when new chapters are posted.
Due to a meteor headed for a nearby star, the inhabitants of the Golgotha asteroid are being evacuated. The asteroid is home to mining camps, a penal colony, and a small orbiting space dock. The meteor had been detected several weeks prior, but calculations of its impact time were inaccurate. A well-planned evacuation fell through as the last wave of transports had to abandon the rescue when it was learned that they could not arrive in time. The final transport has been loaded far over capacity to save as many lives as possible. Those who remain will die within a few hours. Tensions have reached a dangerous level.
The story opens aboard the space dock as the crew awaits the last shuttle to arrive from the surface, carrying a preacher who had visited the prison. The outgoing transport pilot says he will leave in 20 minutes, with or without the preacher. As the time draws near, the shuttle is spotted and Cory, the station manager, goes to the shuttle bay to escort the preacher to the delayed transport. Cory finds him beaten unconscious aboard the shuttle.
Cory and the crew race against time to deliver the unconscious minister to the outbound transport. They are successful. Cory and a young man named Tyrell talk for a moment about what they know will soon happen to them. Cory accepts his fate, while Tyrell refuses to give in. A call comes from Ramon, Cory's most trusted crewmember. He has found evidence that the shuttle contained a stowaway--an escaped prisoner who assaulted the minister.
Cory calls Ramon to his quarters. Ramon has already contacted the few remaining prison guards who were not evacuated from the prison, and has learned of a full scale riot below. Cory wants to know who assaulted the minister and why. He couples his desire for justice with his need to keep the rowdy crew occupied, and announces a manhunt.
Ramon dispatches search teams and pairs himself with Tyrell. Before they leave, he detects a coded message that was recently broadcast. The sender turns out to be--not the intruder--but Cory directing his life insurance payout to Tyrell's impoverished family. Tyrell and Ramon debate whether it is better to accept one's fate calmly or go down fighting.
Jackknife, the station bully, includes the kitchen in his route. He and his partner, Lopez, stock up on alcohol.
Ramon and Tyrell search the crew quarters and encounter Biggs, an enormous and dangerous, drunken miner. He orders them to leave, but wants to be informed when the convict is caught, due to a longstanding inmate/miner feud that resulted in a friend's death.
Afterward Ramon and Tyrell get into an intense argument, in which Tyrell accuses everyone (especially Cory) of being against him. Ramon bites his lip and says nothing about the communication he discovered in the previous chapter. Tyrell declares that the search is a waste of time, says it's now every man for himself, and abandons Ramon.
The drunker Jackknife gets, the more he bullies poor Lopez. As they investigate a darkened cargo bay, Lopez encounters the intruder. He outmaneuvers the crewmen and locks them inside the bay, injuring Jackknife who flies into the steel door just as it is shut. When they manage to turn on the lights, Lopez produces the shirt he ripped off his opponent. It belongs to Isaacson, a vicious death row convict. Due to a long history of hatred between inmates and miners, Jackknife predicts a bloody payback.
Cory frees Jackknife and Lopez. He orders the bay sealed off and the surrounding area searched. With little to lose and a lot of booze in his system, Jackknife refuses to take orders any longer. Cory sees he can't win, so he instead requests Jackknife's help. Jackknife agrees, only so long as Cory's plan helps his own agenda, which is to pay back the convict for past offenses to the miners.
Cory gives instructions to Ramon and stays to guard the bay door until Jackknife can return with locks to seal it off for good. As he waits, he reads a secreted letter from a lost love. Then he hears a noise from a nearby bay.
Cory misjudges the source of the sound and chooses the wrong door. He winds up in a testing bay, separated by a glass window from the adjoining control room where the intruder is. They face off in relative safety, each prevented from reaching the other. Cory is chilled by his lack of regard for human life and veiled hints toward what will come next.
As he realizes Jackknife is not coming, he attempts to rush out of the bay and into the other room before the inmate can escape. Before he can reach the hallway, bay decompression is commenced. The door seals and Cory is left with only a few minutes of consciousness. He struggles to shutdown the process or contact the crew, but blacks out.
After a leisurely stop at the kitchen, Jackknife decides to finally bring Cory the promised locks. He finds a decompression sequence in process and enters the empty control room to investigate. He sees Cory through the glass and starts to abort the process, hesitates, and then decides to do nothing.
Ramon arrives on the scene and spots Cory through the window. Jackknife feigns surprise and halfheartedly helps Ramon as he pressurizes the bay and rescues Cory. Cory is seriously wounded, but regains consciousness. He tells Ramon that Isaacson, the inmate, is planning an attack on the transport with the preacher onboard. Ramon detects a tremor in the station and contacts his men on the other side. They inform him that the surface shuttle has been hijacked and is now headed toward the fleeing transport.
Ramon meets his men outside of the shuttle bay. He closes the outer bay doors and repressurizes it by the time Cory arrives. They enter and hatch a plan to use the onboard video system to catch Isaacson off guard so Cory can distract him while Ramon resets the shuttle's autopilot and instructs it to return to the station. Cory opens the link and is shocked to find the shuttle piloted not by Isaacson, but by Tyrell Richards.
Tyrell is caught off guard, but soon regains his nerve and lambastes Cory for a long list of grievances, some justified, some not. Cory retains his composure and restates his long-term feelings of fondness and respect for Tyrell and apologizes for not giving more attention to his escape plans. This cracks Tyrell's defenses and he dissolves to tears, apologizing to Cory for all the angry things he has said, both to his face and also behind his back to Ramon. Cory congratulates Tyrell for succeeding in his escape, releases him from any further obligation to the station, and wishes him well. As he closes the channel, he notes the crowd of men gathered at the window. The now-visible asteroid nearing the star indicates that only an hour remains before impact.
Cory appeals to the crewmen to continue cooperating with the search and they seem willing to do so. Just as they prepare to voice their support, Jackknife broadcasts a stationwide message. He announces that he has cornered Isaacson and promises an excellent show. The crew abandons Cory in a mad dash to meet Jackknife. Ramon and Cory follow.
Ramon tries to reason with Jackknife and explain that they need to interrogate Isaacson and learn about the bomb he acknowledged to Cory. The station or the transport or both are in serious danger unless they learn what he's done. Jackknife is only concerned with quick revenge, though. He catches Ramon off guard and deals him some punishing blows.
Ramon and Cory enter the docking bay, aware they are physically incapable of opposing an entire room of frenzied crewmen. Jackknife begins beating Isaacon mercilessly and they see their only hope of learning what Isaacson has done vanishing quickly. At a critical moment, Cory drops the lights and this disorients Jackknife. Isaacson siezes the opportunity and catapults him deep into a nest of packing crates. Lopez follows and, out of sight from the others, sees his chance to both help Ramon and payback Jackson for his cruelty. A few well-placed shots from his steel-toed boots finish Jackknife off.
Ramon rushes to Isaacson before anyone else can claim him and warns the others to stay back. Once Isaacson is able to speak, he agrees to tell Ramon everything. At that moment, the door opens and Biggs, the drunken miner, bolts in. Determined to avenge the death of a fellow miner killed by the prisoners, he charges.