A dark nebula hides dangerous antimatter ion storms and antimatter creatures that can eat ships. There is one safe passage through that nebula, but without the lighthouses most ships cannot navigate that passage.
Pirate Captain Mintea crash lands on planet in the middle of a deadly antimatter ion storm, and finds herself on ocean world and finds Gulliver type islands, of tiny people and giants, as well as a vortex where reality is skewed by the writers that live there. After escaping the vortex Mintea sails toward a distant port where she hopes to find a passage home by way of subspace.
A job that seems too easy for a former pirate is not what it seems when his childhood sweetheart arrives and he begins to find out all of the complications when he is told to install lighthouses along a dangerous passage through a dark nebula. Then he learns that there are creatures hidden in the nebula that can easily destroy his ship.