2408. Humanity travels between the stars through portals, leaving rebels and criminals behind on a destroyed Earth. Eighteen-year-old Blaze is one of the last seven hundred people fighting for life in a dying New York, struck by predators imported from another planet. Blaze had to come out of the shadows to help her father defend his position as leader in the battle against his longtime enemy, the Fiend. Now she must get used to her new role as an officer of a fragile alliance between the remnants of the Earth Resistance and the old criminal gangs. As a child, Blaze escaped a firestorm when London's power grid exploded - and soon a similar disaster will befall New York. In the spring, the alliance must leave the city or die, but people have to face a double problem. The escaped Fiend is hiding somewhere nearby, and his henchmen are causing trouble inside the units. When the hunting party does not return from the raid, the situation begins to get out of control, and the offworlders will have to play a key role in resolving it.