Crash Course

A logistics problem just became a conspiracy . . .

Fiona Russell is overseeing the logistics for Paxe's rebuild of his Class 5 battleship, but when the slow delivery of parts dries up to nothing, she's forced to go down to Balco, the planet beneath the way station she controls, and find the root cause of the problem. The trouble is, she more or less took Larga Ways from the Balcoans in an audacious power move the year before, and some of them are still not over it.

Strange maneuvers on the border just became a flirtation with war . . .

Grihan battleship captain Hal Vakeri's job is to patrol the space boundary between the Grih and the Garmman, but when his ship picks up huge ships on the Garmman side, only for them to disappear faster than any ship should be able to, he realizes there's a problem. Either the Garmman are playing games, or they're getting more serious than the Grih are ready for.

And both issues are about to come crashing down around them . . .

When it becomes clear that Fee and Hal's problems have the same players at their core, they'll be forced to walk the line between diplomacy and conflict, and hope that Larga Ways is still standing at the end of it.