Ravikanth Helio, a kidnapped orphan baby, is forced into service aboard the Golden Lady to mine asteroids with implants that make him what he is. A mining pilot. He's known nothing else except for the vids he's watched of other things in the galaxy. Vids of shows like the Giant Robot Planetary Competition. Something he enjoys watching, but would never want to enter.
Hemming Stolock and Angford Allice have other plans for the boy. They put him into the competition against his wishes. He is, after all, company property.
Now Ravi must fight, not only for the Allice Mining Corporation to potentially win the mineral rights to a dead planet, but he must also fight to stay alive. In the GRPC, not every pilot gets to go home.