Henry (The Skipper) Jones is a hardbitten space buccaneer grown cynical before his time. He operates on the very edge of legal trading and sometimes just a touch beyond it. Then one day he pushes his luck too far and is fired upon by a heavily armed interplanetary customs cutter whilst running guns for a civil war in an out of the way solar system. With most systems fried and his engines failing he is forced to crash land on an undeveloped planet in order to avoid capture and arrest.

His arrival on the surface sets in motion a series of events that not only sets him on a new path that threads its way erratically through the galaxy until eventually he learns the true meaning of love and fulfillment.