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climb back on the Skimmer.

    These little beauties can toggle between hover and ground mode with the flick of a switch. Speeding over the ice is the closest thing on earth to flying, and it carries a unique thrill. Any other time, I’d beg him to break some records on the tundra—final remnant of the Jax I used to be—but right now I need to get this sorted out.

    “Back to headquarters, I guess.”

    “You think Tarn can help you?” he calls over the roaring wind.

    I shrug, knowing he’ll catch the movement as well as the accompanying thoughts. Tarn will offer to “look into the matter,” but my hope of recovering that 100K hinges on how things go on Ithiss-Tor. That’s politics for you, a filthy polyglot of one hand washing the other until everything’s unclean.

    Suddenly glum, I rest my chin against March’s back. If I succeed, they’ll kill my mother. If I fail, I’ll be jobless, penniless, and the laughingstock of the tier worlds, assuming the Bugs don’t execute me for some breach of etiquette.

    And that doesn’t begin to factor in the danger we’ll be in, trying to get to Ithiss-Tor. I didn’t realize how much the clockwork Corp patrols factored into keeping the star lanes safe. I hope pirates and raiders will be too busy jacking cargo vessels to mess with a small cutter like ours.

    A surge of heat beneath me catches my attention, but it’s the high-pitched whine coming from the Skimmer that alarms me. I hear March mutter, “Shit,” as he lets go of the controls and rolls hard left. Since I’m holding on to him, I fall as he does.

    We hit the ground and tumble, careening into packed snow and stacked garbage cans. My hip feels like it has ground glass embedded in it. The Skimmer continues in its flight, but it slows without a hand on the throttle. Midair, it shudders and then blows into shards, raining fire and ash down on us.

    I cover my head as the larger pieces plummet to earth. The icy air smells of burning metal. Ah, shit . Ira’s gonna be pissed. Hope he doesn’t get in trouble, poor bastard has enough problems. Then again, if being an ambassador means anything, I should have the power to promote him out of it.

    “You all right?” If I had a credit for every time March has asked me that question, I wouldn’t be mourning my missing money.

    “I’ll live.” I can’t restrain a whimper as he pulls me to my feet. “What are the chances this was a routine malfunction?”

    Mouth compressed to a white line, he shakes his head. “Slim to none.”

    I test my left hip, the one that took the impact, by taking a step, and fire streaks up my thigh. To cover this, I try to sum up our situation, ticking off the points on my gloved fingertips. “So one faction—the Conglomerate—wants me to succeed on Ithiss-Tor because they want to strengthen their position as the galactic governing body. Another faction—the Syndicate—wants me to fail because periods rife with chaos are good for the smuggler’s bottom line. And an unknown faction doesn’t want me to get there at all.”

    March nods his agreement. “This was meant as a preventive measure. I’m not sure if they thought they’d end you like this or just put the fear of Mary in you.”

    I snort. “That’d take more than a bunged-up Skimmer, at this point.”

    “They don’t know you like I do.” With careful fingertips, he traces a feathery touch over my brows, and I feel that lovely little spark. Now’s not the time, though. “Can you walk?”

    I rake a quick look around the alley. “Do I have a choice? This looks like Wickville, where auto-cab stands are few and far between.”

    His face looks sharp and harsh within the shadowed frame of his black hood, but his eyes soften his whole mien. March swings me up into his arms. “You always have a choice, as long as I’m around. If you’d rather, we’ll hop a ship to Maha City, claim some land according to the New Homestead Act, and plant rutabagas or something. Is