In the year 2217, ten years after the defeat and near annihilation of Martian forces during the second insurrection against Earth, legendary warrior and former Sergeant Jake "Hammer" Lane, of the Mars Marine Recon Force II, had long ago traded his weapons for drilling tools, to become a miner in the Asteroid Belt. He was just one of thousands of former citizens of Earth and Mars who had flocked to the Asteroid Belt in search of the new gold standard of the galaxy, HydraDioxidine3. More commonly known as HyDox, the mysterious ore, when combined with the alien technology discovered aboard a wrecked ship on Mars and reversed engineered, brought the human species into the faster-than-speed-of-light (SOL) era. In mere decades, humans were able to travel through not only the Sun's universe, but across intergalactic space. One day Jake and hundreds of other miners are at work deep inside an asteroid mine. Suddenly, a meteor shower destroys the mining facility and the protective terraforming shield surrounding the asteroid. Jake and the other miners fight desperately to abandon the mine and escape the asteroid. In a desperate race to the top of the mine Jake is the only survivor and barely manages to get off the asteroid before the entire facility is destroyed. Aboard the giant mining and military spaceship, he joins two other men to seek their own fortune as wildcat miners on the asteroid, Ceres. The three set off on an adventure that brings them in contact with roaming bands of gypsies, decedents of gypsy tribes on Earth. The adventure quickly turns to desperation and treachery after a giant who is a killer and former mercenary of galactic reputation, called Amasunto, escapes from a penal colony on Ceres. Amasunto, who has a predilection for eating his victims, is determined to escape from Ceres, and does not care how many he kills and consumes on the way off the asteroid. Jake once knew Amasunto as an ally who betrayed him and the insurrection. He must now fight against overwhelming odds to stop the beastly giant who destroyed his way of life and murdered his family.