During the mid-21st century, Earth begins jettisoning its most unreformable criminals to Mars, the first waves falling out of the sky and dying before they hit the ground. The ships crumble in Mars’s atmosphere. They are designed for one-way travel only. G-g-grampa Jared was in the fifth wave of exiles. Family tradition says he was a political dissident, but family tradition lies. There are dissidents and innocents thrown in with the criminals exiled, but Jared is not one of them.

Earth has a space station on Mars until the shipments of criminals start, when the scientists are told to leave. But G-g-grandma Kayla stays. Her science is too important to abandon.

During the first few years, a few volunteer organizations send supplies to Mars. After the first two waves, the scientists realize that they can’t keep doing science and shift to agriculture, growing plants. They teach the people how to electrolyze buried groundwater for oxygen and refine raw materials for tools.

Dingo comes in the sixth generation. He is a leader. He machine-gunned a hundred people on Earth for not paying him protection. He kills seven people on the ship before even landing to signal he’s leader. He becomes leader on Mars through fear. Earth sent them here to die, so in order to survive, Dingo argues, they must repeat their brutality. He leads his party in an attack on the former-space station, and his army kill or rape the women there.

Jared finds Kayla in the wreckage and nurses her back to health. Together, they build a civilization. They learn to strip a ship of its parts before it even lands, so that they can give oxygen to the humans onboard.

Jared chases Dingo into the desert. He does not return. But Dingo does return wearing Jared’s clothes and using his name. By the time he returns, there is no one left to remember what Jared looked like, except for Kayla. But Kayla says nothing. Survival is paramount.