Dark Sky [Paperback]

In the sequel to the thrillingDark Run, whichPublishers Weeklycalled “a terrific debut,” Ichabod Drift and his crew sign on for a new smuggling job that soon goes south when they are separated and caught up in a dangerous civil war.

When Ichabod Drift and the Keiko crew sign on for a new smuggling job to a mining planet, they don’t realize what they are up against. The miners, badly treated for years by the corporation, are staging a rebellion. Split into two groups, one with the authorities and one with the rebels, Drift and his crew support their respective sides in the conflict. But when they are cut off from each other due to a communication blackout, both halves of the crew don’t realize that they have begun fighting themselves…Dark Sky

THE GRAND HOUSE

The Grand House on New Samara was exactly what its name suggested. Luxurious without being ostentatious, it eschewed the garish, dancing holos or blinking neon used as advertisements by those gaming establishments that lacked its pedigree. The outer walls were plated a rich, deep green so dark as to be near-black, with only the most delicate touches of decoration here and there: a few tiny, winking lights which served merely to outline and define its bulk, tasteful uplighting on the two small balconies open to the sky and, most important of all, no visible name. The Grand House was an imposing, dark green iceberg taking up a sizeable plot of hugely valuable land in the middle of the richest district on all New Samara: if you didn’t know what it was, you didn’t belong inside.

The tower at one end, not so tall as the surrounding skyscrapers but sharing their curved aesthetics, was a hotel affordable only to the rich. There was no requirement to visit the gaming floors while l3;