Dag Miller is a self-described sailor-of-fortune with a questionable cargo business in the South China Sea and a crew of three, including a fierce-looking laconic but lethal Korean first mate and a natural-born sneak of an Indian engineer. The third virtual crew-member is the ship herself, a Fast Attack Non-displace-ment Naval Prototype called FANNY, a salvaged and refitted U.S. Navy hydrofoil capable of flying at speeds in excess of a hundred knots and getting the trio into trouble every bit as fast as it gets them out. Miller's current charter is a pair of U.N. Vulcano-logists out of Singapore who are supposed to be placing scientific monitoring equipment around a soon-to-be active volcano off the coast of Sumatra. But the volcano and the two suspicious scientists are the least of Captain Miller's troubles. Twenty-first century coastal pirates with automatic weapons and speed boats prowl the Malacca Strait from Sumatra to Malaysia hijacking ships and kidnapping crews. Human traffickers abduct teenage girls and imprison them in fortress-like brothels which occupy entire islands and operate with government sanction. In Singapore meanwhile, the richest and most powerful businessmen are being systematically targeted by suicide bombers until their wealth is turned over to a faceless well-organized society of fanatical extortionists known as The Scourge. With this background Miller meets the spoiled daughter of one such businessman; Ani wants to hire Miller and his crew for a "teeny tiny" bit of smuggling. And that's when the real trouble begins.