Chapter 1
Scout Shannon had never been off the surface of her home world before. She had never even been to the spaceport by the capital city, although she had been near enough to see the starry brightness of the rockets charging up into the sky. Once there had been many—or so she had been told—but since the war that had broken out before she was born, very few ships were launched up into orbit anymore, the domain of the Planet Dwellers’ enemies the Space Farers.
On the infrequent times when she had heard the low rumble of rocket engines, she’d always stopped wherever she was—usually on her bike making a delivery or carrying a message—and turned to watch the shimmering pinpoint of light rising up from the prairie. She remembered the rumble being so low it almost couldn’t be heard, but sh
