Spaceship engineer Davi Edmara blinked as the distant solar system came into view.

  For all the stories Davi had heard about the Coth XRH system, she had expected cloudy stars and grey, lifeless, pockmarked planets. She certainly hadn’t expected a small yet stunning sun, its aqua rays of light dancing through belts of multicolored stardust. Twenty-one planets spun large orbits around their centerpiece — some of them little more than swirling clouds of dust and gas, some of them gleaming an icy blue or a strange mix-match of purple and red. They seemed to float, frozen in their orbits, small specks of light against inky black space.

  It almost took Davi’s breath away.

  Even now, after spending nearly three straight Earth-years of her short seventeen-year life in space, it still took her breath away.

  She let herself marvel for a moment, for just a second forgetting everything — forgetting that she and her companion were crammed into a one-person lifepod, forgetting that they were barreling through space towards one of the most dangerous known systems, forgetting the passenger slumped over in her back seat…

  Captain Clare shifted and groaned. Davi tore herself back to the present moment. She stared at the rapidly-approaching figures.

  Of the twenty-one planets in Coth XRH, only eight were close enough to their small sun to support any organic life forms. Of those eight, only five were inhabited by advanced sentient beings.

  Advanced sentient beings who would love to shoot down Davi’s little lifepod and harvest it for parts. Or capture her for their ever-dwindling armies in their ever-growing wars.

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  There was a reason no one aboard Davi’s ship had wanted to go within a lightyear of the system. She didn’t want to be here either.

  Behind her, Captain Leonard Clare moaned softly. Davi risked a quick glance over her shoulder.

  In the few hours since they’d left the ship, his skin had taken on a dewy, purplish tint. A soft sheen of sweat glistened over his brown and his peppered hair hung limp over his mouth, which was screwed up in pain.

  Davi turned back to the small window. They were almost within range of the riptide — a shimmering stretch of dust and asteroids that traveled at high speeds, and could tear a ship to shreds if its pilot were inexperienced or distracted.

  With trembling hands, Davi input her coordinates and readied herself to maneuver through the rubble. She didn’t want to be here. She glanced back at her captain — at the man who had, once upon a time, taken a chance on a thirteen-year-old scrapyard intern with fast fingers and a desperation to prove herself — and steeled her nerves. She had to do this.

  Their ship wasn’t equipped with the most up-to-date medical diagnostics. He needed medical help — real, on-planet medical help.

  Unfortunately, Coth XRH was the closest system with advanced society. Warring, dangerous, criminal-ridden society on four of them — but Davi wasn’t aiming for those four.

  She narrowed her gaze on the smallest planet and the one closest to the startling aqua sun. Red and covered in swirling clouds.

  Elba ii.

  Davi Edmara took a deep breath, gripped the controls, and swept into the tide.