When a man he never met dies mysteriously, artist and Army veteran Neal Tate inherits a house in rural Hawaii. All goes well for Tate and girlfriend Susan in their new tropical homestead until Concord Space Systems wins a legal battle to build a rocket launching facility on the surrounding land. CSS wants to absorb Tate's property too but he refuses to sell, and his formerly blissful situation steadily deteriorates as CSS-headed by ruthless Japanese founder Hideo Kamada and former American astronaut Skip Schaefer-attempts to force Tate off his land. When the coercion turns violent Tate adopts a radical strategy to derail the corporation's plan to despoil a place he considers an irreplaceable treasure. But things don't go exactly as planned.