Showing results for "Hinterland" in Science Fiction

When Lieutenant Iari hears screams in the night, she expects to interrupt a robbery or break up a fight. Instead she discovers a murder with an impossible suspect: a riev, one of the battle-mecha decommissioned after the end of the last conflict, repurposed for manual labor. Riev don't kill people. And yet, clearly, one has. Iari sets out to find it.

A young hero comes of age in the crucible of war and galactic struggle. When Allen Allenson, scion of a noble family that has fallen on hard times, gets a mission to roust the power-hungry Terrans from a "wild" star sector where they're encroaching, he jumps at the chance to show his individual worth, improve his family's fortunes - and gather enough lucre to make a good marriage. But the wily Terrans are not so easily persuaded by a young colonial they think of as a "rube".

As Jonesbridge descends into chaos, Myron seizes an opportunity as a member of a mobile recovery squad sent to salvage metal. He wanders the Nethers, where he meets a nomad who seeks out people for delivery to a mysterious place called Mesa Gap in exchange for fresh water and supplies. On their journey they encounter dangerous groups of cultists and fanatics as well as refugees as desperate as Myron for a way out.

Myron enters the Jonesbridge Industrial Complex as a worker, a prisoner, commanded to harvest the scant resources that enable the powers that be to continue waging an unwinnable war. When Sindra - a fellow prisoner and a spirited fighter - joins him at the salvage line, he finds a new reason to live and to escape. Even though any attempt to leave will lead to execution, Myron and Sindra plan a daring escape.