Kale Drayton knows his place. As a Ringer born on Titan, he's used to keeping his head down and his mouth shut - no matter how much the Earthers abuse him or his own kind berate him. So, when he's caught stealing from a wealthy merchant, he's lucky to be sentenced to low-paying maintenance work on a gas-harvesting ship instead of life in a cell... or worse. But when his mother is quarantined, Kale finds himself backed into a corner. To pay for her medicine, he needs money - the kind of money he'll never make sweeping floors and cleaning ships. When he receives a mysterious offer asking him to do a simple job in exchange for his mother's treatment, Kale takes a chance once more. All he must do is upload a program onto his employer's ship and all of his problems will disappear. What starts as a straightforward smuggling gig soon reveals its shattering repercussions. The people who hired Kale are more dangerous than he suspected - and he's more important to them than he ever could have imagined.