Navvy Dreams

The debut of a SPACE OPERA series with the world-building complexity of SUNEATER, the puzzle box mystery of HARROW, and a strong female narrator like Heinlein's FRIDAY.TAKE A JOB. FALL IN LOVE. TRY NOT TO BLOW UP SUNS. My name's Polla Ottrava. I'm a registered smuggler and hotshot hyperspace pilot with a navigational symbiote ("navvy") implanted in my arm. Its name is Second. With dear Second, I'm the best pilot I know (probably). Without, I'm just a farmgirl from a backwater planet who's moved back in with her folks. Between the lover I abandoned and the crime boss I cheated, I had no choice. In my twenty-eight years I've made a lot of bad calls, but that's relative, isn't it? I mean, I've never blown up a binary star with space magic. I've never harnessed a fleet of alien ships and used 'em to terrorize perfectly respectable arms dealers, either. I've also never unleashed a shapeshifting biophage, nor ended even one civilization. The woman who did all that was Ledas-stinking-Starfire. Ledas: the rebel Kamen-lord, spoiled Terran princeling, and failed revolutionary. A year ago, someone killed her. Now her widower's ravaging planets. I guess for revenge. Who cares? This isn't her stinking story... It's MINE. I'm Polla Ottrava. I've taken a job I wasn't allowed to refuse. My employers are war criminals who swear they're saving the galaxy. They say I'm the only one who can fly their bloodship. They say we're heroes. They say they'll pay me. They say a lot of crap. Only some of it's true... *** IN HER OWN WORDS... I knew they were liars from the start, so why didn't I run? No high-minded reason. Sympathy for Lieutenant Navigator Sai? Of course. Sympathy... and attraction. But he'd made his bed, and I had no illusions about saving him from it. So why didn't I run? You've never asked, you cannot ask, but I imagine you asking all the same, you with your cold voice and your unrelenting, useless logic: "Why didn't you run? You owed them nothing. Even then, you knew they were liars, deserters, and thieves." I didn't think. That's it. That's the entire reason. I. Didn't. Think--