Spots 
Success on Sargol requires the crew of the Solar Queen to coat themselves in pungent, scented paste to respect native Salariki sensitivities. Free Traders survive on respect and adaptation where ruthless mega-corporations rely on brute economic leverage. When an Inter-Solar Company representative crash-lands the trade council to claim the rare Koros gems, adherence to local custom becomes a Trader's sharpest weapon.
Chapter I → Chapter III
Bargaining stalls when synthetic luxury goods fail to move the Salariki, who value raw aromatic woods like lacquel bark over chemical perfumes. The death of Chieftain Paft to predatory water reptiles known as gorp threatens to ignite interclan chaos and destroy trade. By sending young crewmates Dane, Rip, Ali, and Jasper into the shoals to join a ceremonial gorp hunt, the Traders transform from alien peddlers into trusted blood allies.
Chapter IV → Chapter VII
En route to Terra, mystery illness strikes crew members Frank Mura and Karl Kosti, inducing blackouts, red neck eruptions, and unresponsive stupor. Medic Craig Tau isolates the victims, but because neither consumed Sargolian food, terror spreads through the cramped bulkheads. In deep space, a single unaccounted microbe or toxin turns a functional starship into an isolated trap, threatening shipwide quarantine and total destruction by space patrol authorities.
Chapter VIII → Chapter X
Facing starvation and quarantine, the crew raids an Inter-Solar asteroid station for hydro-garden supplies, leaving behind legal payment vouchers instead of resorting to piracy. Reviewing archived photographic scans of their original garden, they discover stripped stems left by an alien pest hidden inside aromatic Sargolian wood. The catatonic illness stems from a venomous parasite rather than an infectious plague, driving the crew to bypass Luna's quarantine and target Terra directly.
Chapter XI → Chapter XIV
Landing secretly in the radioactive waste of Terra's Big Burn, Dane kidnaps civilian Medic Hovan to secure an impartial medical diagnosis. Hovan confirms the affliction is a reversible animal narcotic, proving the ship poses no biological threat to Earth. Realizing official channels will suppress their defense to protect corporate interests, the crew prepares to land at Terraport and hijack the global Video network to broadcast their evidence.
Chapter XV → Chapter XVII
Interrogated at Patrol Headquarters, the crew faces severe fines, demotions, and potential exile for breaking planetary quarantine. Cargo-master Van Rycke maneuvers through the crisis by selling their Sargol trading rights to Combine, Inter-Solar's fiercest corporate competitor. The move secures twenty-five thousand credits, quashes the plague charges, and wins the crew a safe mail run between Xecho and Trewsworld, preserving their freedom on the galactic fringe.
Chapter XVIII
Free traders navigate corporate sabotage, alien ecology, and quarantine paranoia to clear their ship of deadly plague charges.