Hotter on the Edge

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as factual. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be scanned, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the authors.

ALL THAT GLITTERS

Erin Kellison

Chapter One

A sleek, silver bird glinted over the dense, fog-covered growth of King's Valley. It cleared the blunted peak of the inactive volcano, better known as the Eye, and then flew the easy, canopy-clear route down the stoic Tear, a winter-dry riverbed that cut through the land and only welled to crying during the spring thaw.

"Here," Simon commanded, lifting his ocular to get a closer look at the ship. His breath gasped white in the cold air, but his nerves burned with anticipation. Finally, a reckoning.

The ship appeared to be a dragon flyer—a sleek, luxury spacecraft and therefore overkill for his purposes—but he wasn't about to complain about an even bigger payday. Ten thousand pax, minimum, in addition to the haul for which the flyer would be used.

Jace knelt next to him, a boom cannon propped on his shoulder, ready.

"Pretty little ship," Jace said.

Simon wondered about its occupants. Had to be another wedding guest for the
Love Match of the Millennium!
now swelling Sol City with corp aristocracy, cluster dignitaries, and celebrities. The excitement was followed everywhere throughout the sector, including Simon's burrow deep inside the mountain mines. The lovers, Pilar Sol and Hakan Frust, heir to the Frust Corp holdings, had been caught during a tryst. At the media's sudden (and convenient) intrusion, buck-naked Hakan protected lovely Pilar's modesty by artfully posing for a ravenous public who wanted a fairy tale, and all the melodrama that went with it. A woman must have come up with the scheme.

Probably Pilar Sol herself. Maybe her viper of a mother. The Sols believed everything revolved around them.

The dragon flyer's passenger was either late for the family functions, or only invited to the public ones. No escort, which suggested the latter. Someone wealthy, but not looked after. Possibly not expected. And too far from the city wall, some 80 km due west, to expect immediate aid from the call for help. At least, not before Simon and his crew got there.

"In one piece, please." Simon swatted at a razor bug lunching on his neck.

"That's not entirely up to me," Jace returned. "The pilot will have to cooperate." But he hunkered into his aim.

Simon stepped away from the mountain's outcropping. A shockwave of boom fire shuddered his bones, the warp of sound rippling through the air toward the dragon flyer. A cold ache in his muscles followed, and loose pebbles and dirt slid down the peaks and onto his hair and shoulders. He pulled hard at the oxy plugged into his nose to keep himself steady.

Jace snorted to clear his plugs, too.

Impact. The dragon listed sharply to the side, nose dropping at an ugly angle, tail flashing its feathers of fire as the engines flamed out.

"Nice," Simon told Jace. On his comm link, he cued Otis, who was on the ground waiting for word. "Flyer coming down on the Tear."

"Oi," O replied.

The dragon spun in the air, once, twice, still pointed downward to crashing death. Seconds to pull up. Simon's heart went
thud thud
, but he gritted his teeth to take it. No going back now. Gods, where were the ship's fail-safes? This close to the ground, landing should have been simple.

"Come on,"
he urged. He had enough blood on his hands.

"Not my fault," Jace said, standing. He lowered the still-humming weapon to his side.

The dragon finally flattened its earthbound careen, altering its course from the smooth safety of the Tear channel to burn along the treetops for a click. The canopy swallowed the ship without a sound.

Gutsy move. Took nerve for the pilot to chance an alien jungle rather than a safe landing on the Tear, where his net worth would keep him alive. If that flyer brought cash, then its passengers would bring in more. More trouble too, but Simon could be cheerful about that, as long as at the end of all this he was far, far away from Sol.

No smoke—a good sign for Simon's purposes. The ship should be intact.

The razor bug was back, with sharp friends. Simon swatted again, but the welts were already rising.

"Looks like we're going into the green instead," O said.

"Looks like," Simon returned, then added, "Make sure to bring breathers for our guests."

Natives had nose plugs to increase O
2
intake, but these off-worlders clearly thought that they could survive on any terraformed planet.

Not this one.

***

Mica Sol had her bare foot on the main telemetry console, tongue between her teeth, her steady hand applying a coat of scorching magenta to her third toenail. A small atmospheric bump jarred her. She cursed, scraped at the smudge, and then leaned backward to view the sim projection of her flyer's dip into the Tear—yeah, all good—and went on to piggy number four.

Something she'd eaten during her fieldwork on Encantada had turned her nails corpse gray, so a little cover-up was necessary. Pilar, their mom, and some woman they'd hired to dress the family had warned her that from the moment she arrived, all eyes would be on the unmarried big sister. She'd been touted as the intellectual, hardy one, with accompanying images that made her look like a huffing, dirt-grubbing troll. What of it? She'd been four years into the survey at the time and had settled deep into her dirt. At least they hadn't captured and transmitted her smell to the masses.

Damn Pilar. Yes, there were showers on the transport, at the dock, and on the flyer. And yes, Mica had availed herself of their use at each stage of her journey home. She'd even bought some clothes.

The pinkie toe, and…done. She might be presentable after all.

A warped, rushing noise brought her head around again.

A burst of black light blanked her vision. Pain spiked her temple. The floor grates were suddenly under her hands, so she must have fallen.

She found the seat of the pilot's chair and hauled herself up, deadlights floating in her vision. Her heartbeat was wild. Magenta nail polish splattered the console like glossy blood, its chemical scent triggering the gorge in her throat. Her dragon careened. The sky was absent, replaced by the dry channel of the Tear spiraling toward her.

Terror shocked her cold.

A boom. Had to be. The dragon's system plasma had curdled.

The neuro, or brain of her dragon, had already reidentified the horizon line, though the line vectors still spun on the main screen, calculations rapidly changing. The boosters fired to level and land.

Only one group on Sol was this ruthless—scavengers. What they'd done to her great-aunt Maya still gave her nightmares. But they were the only ones who'd have this kind of weapon. Who'd dare to have one. Possession of a boom cannon was a death sentence. Which meant—adrenaline surged in one hot flush—she could not land on the Tear, which would be ship safe, but fatal otherwise. Her fear condensed into a single, nerve-snapping course of action.

She slapped the console to override the ship's safety and put her hand on the tremble to redirect the landing.

The canopy, where she'd at least have a chance. She'd cut her teeth exploring this jungle before finding other, more alien terrain off-world. She could handle this. Nevertheless, her sudden sweat turned icy.

She headed for the trees. Those branches were pliable. Would give before breaking. Would protect themselves from damage, as they did through the long, cold months of stasis. And therefore would not rip the flyer apart, either. She hoped.

Her view of the trees went from a green and brown mottled blanket of color to individual, sharply delineated leaves. Branches reached like spindly hands to grab the flyer out of the air.

She braced through the whipping screech of her flyer's descent. Growth everywhere. She was tossed to the ceiling. Slammed into it. Her shoulder screamed. Then she shot down to the floor again. The ship collided with a trunk and whipped to the side, before settling, too quiet, mid-cartwheel.

Mica gritted her teeth and swallowed her vomit.

Move.
They'd be coming.

If she died, then her pride had killed her. She'd wanted to avoid the blitz of exposure when she arrived in Sol City, so at the dock, she'd escaped the escort her parents had sent to accompany her home, had jammed her signal—a neat trick she'd used before to escape her family—and had taken the
southern
route.

Why had the scavengers moved here from their more hospitable western plains?

The answer had to be the wedding. Everyone was taking advantage of the gathering of wealth and power. For the next week, Sol was the center of the universe.

Communications were offline. Booms knocked everything out. But if she moved quickly, maybe her stupidity at flying solo would be mitigated by her superior survival skills.

The ship had settled vertically, making escape a climb. And her shoulder already hurt.

Mica locked her jaw and reached, threading her fingers through the gaps in the grate. She heaved her weight up by fingers and toes, the neuro dropping below her. Sweat dripped down her back and between her breasts. Pain radiated through her arm—pinched a nerve there, which would add to today's fun. Arriving at the ship's neck, she rested on the wall, now the floor. Her survey pack was in her quarters, too far to fetch. That's where her shoes were, too. And proper clothing to keep out the cold, dirt, and parasites.

Mica grabbed for the aft
hatch's emergency release, dangling for a moment, while the panels shifted to open. A cubby alongside contained a standard-issue red survival pack. Red for emergency. Red for find-me-too-fast-and-easy.

She gripped the shoulder strap in her teeth, tasted bitter, and pushed onto the hull. The air was frigid, but above freezing. Branches grasped the ship. Leaves waved at her every shift of weight.

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