When corporations go to war, standard business practice goes out the window. Astro Corporation is led by indomitable Texan Pancho Lane; Humphries Space Systems by the rich and ruthless Martin Humphries - and their fight is over nothing less than the resources of the Asteroid Belt itself.

As fighting escalates, the lines between commerce and politics, boardroom and bedroom, blur-and the keys to victory will include physics, nanotechnology, and cold hard cash. The lives of thousands of innocents hang in the balance, including the rock rats who make their living off the asteroids and the inhabitants of Selene City on Earth's moon. As if matters weren't complicated enough, the shadowy Yamagata corporation sets its sights on taking advantage of other people's quarrels, and space pirate Lars Fuchs decides it's time to make good on his own personal vendetta.

It's a breakneck finale that can end only in earth's salvation-or the annihilation of all that humankind has ever accomplished in space.