Falina Redding accidentally sees a computer readout she shouldn't. The codes could cripple three quarters of her boss Amos Armat's illegal operations. So naturally, his deadly enemy Morgan Velosi wants those codes - so much that he has Falina kidnapped and taken to his private pleasure city of Sinaloa, where memory expert Carl Morphus will obtain the codes. Armat can't touch her there, so Armat offers the Earth Defense Directorate an unusual trade: if they can rescue Falina, he'll turn himself and evidence of his illegal operations over to them. But why is he so invested in the life of one employee?

The Legion's plan stands revealed. Criminal mastermind Seton Kellogg has devised a means of sabotaging the contra-terrine generating plant that supplies New Chicago with power. Mostly automated, the plant is well-equipped with defenses to prevent exactly this sort of event, but Kellogg's tactical genius and the powers of each member of his lethal fraternity can overcome these, or so he believes. Buck must return to Earth and prevent the Legion from carrying out mass murder. But when he arrives, he discovers them fleeing, having already managed their sabotage...