"Outside the moon lay low on the horizon, round and pale as the hangar's thousand interlocked hi-houses. Mink leant against the balcony's railing and looked down at the ocean some fifty or so feet below. A handful of small shuttle-craft twisted and tricked above the water; a lone multi-passenger airship thrummed away from the hangar, its shadow on the waves as big and dark as a whale. Far away, miles away perhaps, she could make out the lights of a mainland coastmaybe New Zealand, maybe Australiatwinkling above the shoreline."
The world's governments have banished their worst criminals to the lawless territories of the open oceans, where they must live in flying cities and floating islands, existing on the edge. This collection tells the stories of some of these sky-pirates - Atlantic-born terrorist Bouboucar Bottle, vindictive artificial intelligence RESYS, inexperienced smuggler Katya Sushi, genetic scientist Lole San Paulo, and Delphine Desangua, a member of Interpol.