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.