Page 7

Crack!

The ground shakes. Far beyond the walls of the estate, I hear the rip of the city’s anti-air defense guns sounding out. High above us, the hurtling asteroid is detonated into fine dust – sparkling in the night sky like fireworks.

I release the breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding.

Sadly, moments like that are all too common here.

Marn has a crime problem – because there’s a reason people come here to make their fortune.

Marn is ideally located for ambitious fortune seekers, because the planet is the only safe port of harbor from which to access the teeming asteroid fields that surround this part of the solar system – drawn into a spinning ring across our orbit by the gravity of our sun.

It also makes Marn an unwitting target of them.

For the most part, the neighboring planets of this solar system – all barren and desolate – protect Marn from the spinning chunks of flaming space-debris that periodically fall from the asteroid fields. Their mass draws the rocks to their lifeless surface.

But occasionally, some do get through – and then it’s up to the anti-air defense guns to blow those rocks from the sky; before they can impact the planet’s surface with the force of a hydrogen bomb.

Every few months, we’re faced with an extinction-level extraplanetary threat from those hurtling space rocks – but, at the same time, the impact of one of those huge asteroids is the very thing that’s promising to be my ticket off this dangerous planet.

Located on the periphery of the Aurelian Empire and the Human Alliance, Marn is governed by the universal laws of salvage – as in, what you find, you keep.

Entrepreneurs like my father came to Marn and bought huge tracts of barren, useless wasteland stretching across the planet’s surface. The land wasn’t bought for what was on it – but whatmightbe on it at some point in the future. The regular impact of those asteroids deposited all manner of ore, minerals, and valuable materials onto the barren rocks; and whichever family owned that tract of land was entitled to harvest and claim whatever landed there.

My father had long ago staked the claim on thousands of acres of seemingly useless desert for just such an endeavor; and that meant he was entitled to the previously-undiscovered bounty of Orb-Material that an asteroid deposited there – the largest such discovery for more than a century.

I still remember the day my father stumbled home with his eyes wide open, telling me breathlessly that everything would be different now – everything would change.

Since then, he’s tripled security – and my life has never been the same.

“Are you alright, Lady Carani?” Gerard demands. I nod desperately, still protected by his weighty arm.

There’s a shout across the gardens.

“Natali! Get inside! Now!”

It’s my father’s voice barking out from the manor. Gerard helps me up and hustles me inside.

“Why do I have to go in?” I hiss at Gerard. “They destroyed the asteroid – we’re fine.”

As terrifying as each plummeting asteroid is, they’re rare enough for me not to be constantly anxious about them, while frequent enough for me to have learned to trust the skill of the planet’s anti-air defense gunners in destroying them.

For that reason – now the danger has passed – I don’t understand why I have to go inside. It’s not fully dark yet, and won’t be for awhile – and even given what limited freedom I have, I’ve still grown used to being able to spend my days outside in the sunshine, at least – walking the gardens or reading by the pond.

But as Gerard hustles me towards the doors of the manor, I know something’s up. There was a sharpness to my father’s tone of voice when he hustled me inside. He wants his voice to project confidence – but I know him well enough to detect tension beneath the surface.

I duck through the front doors – feeling my father’s eyes on me as Gerard hustles me inside.

Great. Twenty-one years old, and I’m still getting bossed around.

At least my father’s payinganyattention to me. Ever since my mother died when I turned five, my father’s been married to his job, instead.

My mother never wanted to bring me to Marn in the first place. She knew the dangers – not just of this asteroid-assaulted planet, but also the risk that my father would lose himself in his pursuit of wealth and influence.

I miss my mother so, so much. I can still remember her warmth – her hugs, her love. She loved me more than she loved herself. I just wish she’d got to see me grow up. Her death rocked my father – I know he felt so guilty for never having been able to give her the security or wealth he’d promised her when they’d got married. When she died, he grew even more obsessive and ambitious – promising me every day that he was going to give me the future I deserved.

But the truth is, I’d have chosen a father over a fortune any day of the week.

“Why did I have to come in?” I complain. “It’s not yet dinnertime, father.”