When Janet Pilgrim's boyfriend was killed in a training accident at the space academy, she thought she was going to be thrown out. Instead, she soon found herself shipping out as a junior astronaut on the forty-year old spacecraft Windy City bound for Mars. But freighters and passenger ships aren't the only craft plying the spaceways. When the Windy City is attacked by pirates on the way to Mars, Janet finds herself in more danger than she could ever have imagined.