From Introduction: The heroes wake up with a splitting headache, sprawled on the deck of the Blazing Star. They have spent last few hours unconscious, and their ship is drifting through space. The ship’s computer reports an incoming subspace call from Space Station Gemini. The last thing the heroes remember is they left the Station a few hours ago after repairing the ship. When the heroes answer the call they see the cadaverous, scarred, vengeful face of Gunthar Krull, an old enemy: "My friends! Finally, after all these years! I haven’t forgotten our previous encounter… How did you escape the law? Well, that doesn’t matter now, what matters is that YOU escaped while I spent FIVE YEARS rotting in a hellish prison planet! But now it’s payback time! When you docked on Space Station Gemini my minions hid a gas capsule in your ship’s air system. "The capsule released a virus that will kill you all in a few hours in the most… painful… way imaginable. I possess the only vaccine. But how will you get it? I’ll enjoy watching you die trying to recover it… and if you decide to die alone, in space, I’ll enjoy knowing you died begging for the pain to go away!"