When Captain James T. Kirk faced a Court Martial in the eponymous Original Series episode he was defended by Samuel T. Cogley, an eccentric and computer-phobic lawyer who specialises in taking on lost causes and securing acquittals against impossible odds. Now, once again, a man's future is in Samuel Cogley's hands. The planet Anerher II sits in the middle of the Neutral Zone, and neither the Klingon Empire nor the Federation can claim it. Under the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty, the disputed colony world will go to the party - either Klingon or Federation - which shows it can best develop the planet. Then the fragile peace between the two rival colonies is shattered when Daniel Latham, head of the Federation colonists, is murdered, and Commander Mak'Tor, the head of the Klingon colony, is found crouched over Latham's body, a discharged phaser still hot in his hand. Sam Cogley volunteers to defend the accused Klingon, but when his investigation inadvertently provides the prosecution with a key piece of evidence and his courtroom tactics unexpectedly backfire, can even the galaxy's most brilliant defence attorney win the day...?