In book one, You Sexy Thing, Niko Larsen and a handful of the soldiers she once commanded have escaped the ranks of the Holy Hive Mind and retired to start a restaurant, the Last Chance, aboard the space station TwiceFar. The restaurant proves unexpectedly successful, to the point where a famous food critic, Lolola Montaigne d’Arcy deBurgh, reserves a table. Niko and the others are excited about the prospect of earning a coveted Nikkelin Orb, but the day of the meal a mysterious package arrives, containing Atlanta, an heir to the Paxian throne, with no knowledge of why she’s been sent in cryo-freeze to Niko. Just as Lolola is seated with visiting wealthy dilettante Arpat Takraven, things start exploding on the station and it’s torn apart by unknown forces.
The group, along with the critic and the package containing Atlanta, flee the station on You Sexy Thing, an intelligent bioship. Thinking itself stolen, the ship is headed to the nearest authorities in order to turn its captors in when Lolola circumvents its programming for her own purpose, taking the ship to a haven for space pirates, IAPH.
There, Niko encounters two figures from her past: her former lover Petalia and the pirate leader Tubal Last, who kidnapped Petalia long ago and has been poisoning them against Niko ever since. When one of the crew, pastry chef Milly, attempts to betray the group to win her own freedom, circumstances conspire to let her actions free them all, destroying the pirate haven, but not before Last has killed one of the crew, Thorn, a young were-lion whose loss devastates his twin brother, Talon.
Petalia chooses not to stay with the group. Angry and embittered at Niko, they leave the ship at Montmurray Station. The rest return the ship to its original owner, Takraven, who allows them to keep it for now, with the stricture that each year they’ll return to cook him a meal and tell him of their adventures.
All seems well until Niko receives a message. Tubal Last is alive. And he’s planning revenge.
In book two, Devil’s Gun, Niko and her crew find themselves at a malfunctioning Gate, a rare and potentially disastrous failure. They make the most of their time stranded there by creating a pop-up restaurant named the Second Last Chance.
Among the others stranded there are the ship and crew sous chef Gio had formerly been part of, belonging to Gnarl Grusson. Gnarl meets Talon seemingly by chance in the marketplace, and after taking the grieving boy out to a bar and commiserating over his murdered twin, Thorn, Gnarl persuades him to think about illegally cloning his lost sibling and later, secretly sends the technology for doing so to Talon.
An archaeologist named Jezli Farren turns up, claiming to be able to fix the Gate—for a price. She’s accompanied by Roxana Cinis, a paladin. When both disappear immediately after the repair, Niko assumes Jezli is gone, not realizing that the ship has taken them aboard as part of its new hobby, hourisigah, the architecting of dramatic events.
Meanwhile, Talon has given in to the urge to replicate his brother, even though he knows the attempt is both illegal and improbable. He hides the clone sac deep within the ship.
Discovered, Jezli convinces Niko that she knows the location of a weapon that can destroy Tubal Last. She takes them to its location, the perilous confines of the carcass of an enormous space moth. There they are intercepted by Gnarl, bent on revenge on both Jezli and Niko. He insists on accompanying them into the moth. Inside the moth, Atlanta is transformed and takes Roxana’s place while the other perishes.
Thorn’s clone is decanted and Talon realizes he has not recreated his brother, but brought an angry and resentful stranger into existence.
They secure the weapon and leave Gnarl marooned on the moth, only to find that the gun can only be fired by a Florian. They go in search of the sole surviving Florian, Petalia, and persuade her to fire the gun. But the effort fails—the gun can only seek a single target, and there seems to be more than one Last now.