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A man is revived from ship-failure hibernation. It should be the happy conclusion to the use of a unique cryogenic survival system, however, the sleep of Marco Ledger has not spanned weeks or months, but an unprecedented period of 85 years. The dark events of his distant past still haunt him, and he is left with a series of puzzling memories that revolve around a space junkyard known as Stavenger Station. Once a drug smuggler, he is now a celebrity, but there is trouble on the frontier, and he is retained in the military as a starship commander.
Warships are on the move, and at stake is the only ship's dock in what will soon become a theatre of war. Stavenger Station, hidden deep in the Rim Nebula, is the hinge pin for invasion, and one woman, Arissa Barancour, stands between annexation and insurrection. She owns the largest private dock on the Station, and is the only one who might still command the rustic space-faring peoples of the system. Arissa is, at the same time, the only one still alive with a chance to reach Marco Ledger. Separated by a generation, she is the last relative of the only woman Marco ever loved.
The wheels of conflict grind too smoothly to suit an experienced trader, and Marco suspects that he is a pawn in some darker contest. His opponents are well defined, well equipped, and ruthless, but he begins to fear that he wears the uniform of his natural enemies. He is not entirely wrong. During the time he slept, the manipulation of events has been taken into the realm of programmable science, and he is a damaged weapon on a dangerous course.
The fates of Marco and of Arissa are bound to a young mathematician, the artificial intelligence unit of an old warship, a cadre of double agents, and a crew of misfit aliens. The imperial design of two great governments will run through that hollow asteroid known as Stavenger Station, and their powerful ships will be pitted against this sum of spare parts. The clash of two great powers will be settled according to plan, but the ancient forces of love and loyalty die hard. The odds were high, but imperfect, and the admirals have opened the door to that rare chance their schemes did not anticipate. After the dust settles they will discover the playing cards have refused to lie down, and they will have to fight the war they did not expect-the Van Winkle War.
