The battle for Orrins Fort is a fairly easy endeavor; not one shot is fired and only Navee Ordor bloodies a blade. Taking this fort gives the Jarl Hawkins-an ex-geographer from the planet Earth and an ex-partisan from the planet Jubal, who is marooned on the planet Vanir-a warm base from which to help his friend, Will James, the King of Vanir, fight the invading Glassey armies. This is completed in blitzkrieg fashion, and, Jarl; his wife, Kiska; the great wizard, Kvasir; and the star reporter for Jarl's newspaper, Janis, began to search for any advanced technology left by the original colonists of the planet. Their quest is interrupted by the arrival of the Space Empire, and now Jarl-with the help of his friends-travels into space, where he fights to save one of the great, golden colonization ships and a supercomputer named Sam. Jarl learns the secret of the smoky quartz crystals, and he struggles to prevent the subjugation of the beautiful planet he has come to love by a brutal and all-powerful empire.