Reed Ashford is a marshal for hire in the Arid Zone wilderness, the only law under Solstara’s bloodred sun. The one who wards off the monsters or recovers the bodies from the shadowy tundra when it’s too late.

After a routine job‑gone‑sideways thrusts him into Rhea Harper’s political gambit, he’s forced to accommodate to the idealistic councilwoman’s dream: Establish a pair of electromagnetic field projector stations across the thin strip of livable planet. Turn a swath of the radiation‑raked desert into flourishing ground for future generations.

Reed’s hard-learned truth? The only good you can do is whatever you accomplish alone. Most likely with a rifle. Rhea’s? The opposite. No, worse, some idyllic version: True change only happens when you build together. Admirable thought, but one that can’t survive humanity’s base, self-serving nature. Much less political upheaval, roving apex predators, and gangs of marauders.

Or can it?

Harper’s a gambler. These planting attempts almost never work. But if this one did . . . 

Hope is dangerous. It’d make a gambler out of Reed too.