Planetfall made, Project Columbus is a success... of sorts. Old grudges have traversed the gulf between Earth and Demeter, building a wall between the crews of Michael and Gabriel. Darius Owens resigns his commission, washing his hands of Colonel Eriksen's schemes. Yet former-Lieutenant Owens is drawn back into the thick of the conflict and forced to make a choice: to ignore the abuses he witnesses or lay everything on the line to save two innocent men. As Cal McLaughlin begins a shaky new life on Demeter, the Air Force brat realizes how ill-equipped he is to help out. Wracked with guilt, he invests everything in a venture beyond the pocket of civilization. Yet the wilds of Demeter soon prove to hold more blood and heartbreak: Cal's seemingly constant companions. Marooned on the deadly island, the survivors of the Raphael crash site have faced constant struggles. Captain Kimura's illness has kept her physically isolated and frustrated as she tries to hunt down a killer through her proxies. As tensions mount among the refugees, Haruka manages to claim justice, but machinations from an unexpected quarter threaten to unbalance the shaky foundations of the settlement.