The continuing story of April, Jeff, and Heather after they conspire to rebel against North America and their efforts to find friends and a safe haven in the stars. Continuing to close the time gap to the later Family Law series of books. Heather and her peers impose a ban on armed ships beyond L1 in the Solar System and a prohibition for explorer ships going interstellar heavily armed. There are continuing stories of future characters still stuck on Earth. Heather has a lot of help from her friends but it isn't easy being the queen.

April returns home from her trip down to Earth unhappy with what she accomplished. Papa-san Santos is finishing her rescue of the Lieutenants, Her traitorous brother is dead, and so many things are uncertain. The Chinese and North Americans both continue to give her and Home a hard time. But April, Jeff, and Heather are gathering allies and power. China, trying to steal Singh technology, gets its hand slapped badly by Jeff, and the Patriot Party in America is damaged, but not gone. Their project on the moon is not so easy for North America to shut down, especially with the Russians helping. Heather proves able to defend it forcefully. They really didn't know she owns a cannon. The three have their own bank now, Home is growing, and April is quickly growing up into a formidable young woman, worthy of her partners.

When Lee Anderson and her parents had discovered a new world teeming with life, it had been the dream of every explorer: they were rich beyond their imaginations. But tragedy had struck when a herd of creatures overran their camp and killed her parents. The only other adult in her life had been their partner Gordon, who adopted her as parent. Which didn’t turn out to be easy, because he wasn’t human. He was a large intelligent alien and to Lee he was Uncle Gordon, but neither his race—the Derf—nor Humans were gracious about accepting their family relationship. After various misadventures and strife they made others accept it, and also found that while they might not share blood, they both had exploring in the blood. Unhappy in civilization they decided to explore again—going really deep this time, far beyond established frontiers. They’d met other alien civilizations, made claim to new sources of wealth that rivaled their previous claims in value, and then headed home to present their new claims on Earth. But a lot of things didn’t make sense. Warnings came from their Fargoer allies that not everything on Earth was as it seemed to be. This is the story of their return voyage, and the unexpected mysteries in what they had left behind.

In the first book of this series "Family Law", Lee's parents and their business partner Gordon found a class A habitable planet. They thought their quest as explorers was over and they'd live a life of ease. But before they could return and register their claim Lee's parents died doing a survey of the surface. That left Lee two-thirds owner of the claim and their partner Gordon obligated by his word with her parents to raise Lee. She had grown up aboard ship with her uncle Gordon and he was the only family she'd ever known. Him adopting her was an obvious arrangement - to them. Other people didn't see it so clearly over the picky little fact Gordon wasn't human. After finding prejudice and hostility on several worlds Lee was of the opinion planets might be nice to visit, but terrible places to live. She wanted back in space exploring. Fortunately Gordon was agreeable and the income from their discovery made outfitting an expedition possible. Lee wanted to go DEEP - out where it was entirely unknown and the potential prizes huge. After all, if they kept exploring tentatively they might run up against the border of some bold star faring race who had gobbled up all the best real estate. It wasn't hard to find others of a like mind for a really long voyage. This sequel to "Family Law" is the story of their incredible voyage.