Summary
A humble laborer is caught in the tensions between Earth and Titan, the now-colonized moon of Saturn, in a standalone novel set in the universe of Titanborn ("Sci-fi noir at its finest!"--David Simpson, author of the Post-Human series).
Kale Drayton knows his place. As a Ringer born on Titan, he's used to keeping his head down and his mouth shut--no matter how much the Earthers abuse him or his own kind berate him. So when he's caught stealing from a wealthy merchant, he's lucky to be sentenced to low-paying maintenance work on a gas-harvesting ship instead of life in a cell . . . or worse.
But when his mother is quarantined, Kale finds himself backed into a corner. To pay for her medicine, he needs money--the kind of money he'll never make sweeping floors and cleaning ships. So when he receives a mysterious offer asking him to do a simple job in exchange for his mother's treatment, Kale takes a chance once more. All he has to do is upload a program onto his employer's ship and all of his problems will disappear.
What starts as a straightforward smuggling gig soon reveals its shattering repercussions. The people who hired Kale are more dangerous than he suspected--and he's more important to them than he ever could have imagined.
Praise for From Ice to Ashes
"Bruno uses skillful worldbuilding and rising tension to construct a fast-paced, action-packed tale of the far future." -- Publishers Weekly
"A relentless sci-fi thriller with characters that leap off the page and a chilling ending that will leave you breathless." --Nicholas Sansbury Smith, USA Today bestselling author of Hell Divers and the Extinction Cycle series
"Rhett C. Bruno has created a wonderful tale of intrigue and conspiracy, one that throws an underdog into the deep end and keeps us at the edge of our seats. Fans of The Expanse are sure to love From Ice to Ashes ." --Justin Sloan, writer on Telltale Games' Tales from the Borderlands series and bestselling author of the Reclaiming Honor Series
"[Rhett C. Bruno is] a master at world building, character development, and the art of storytelling. . . . Tragedy, noir, ethical action saga . . . Whatever it is, Bruno spins it with consummate skill." --Perihelion
" From Ice to Ashes is a powerful story of oppression and discrimination, expertly painted in the colours of a science-fiction future set among the moons of Saturn." --By Rite of Word
Praise for Rhett C. Bruno's Titanborn
"A fun romp around the solar system . . . Raw and gritty . . . A thoroughly enjoyable read . . . Don't miss out on this sci-fi gem!" --M. Pax, author of the Backworlds series
"Bruno expertly weaves action, capitalism, smuggling, fragile alliances, and revolution around the hard choices of a life-worn man who regrets always following orders." -- Publishers Weekly
Author Notes
Rhett C. Bruno grew up in Hauppauge, New York, and studied at the Syracuse University School of Architecture. He is the author of Titanborn, From Ice to Ashes, and the Circuit series. To learn more about Rhett C. Bruno's books, sign up for his newsletter.
Excerpts
Prologue Peter Sildario, captain of the Sunfire, fell forward onto Maya's naked chest. The middle-aged Ringer was lying on her back near the edge of his bed, one bony arm pinned under his body and the other gripping the blunt end of a shiv carved out of a rusty metal bolt. She'd stuck it in the captain's throat, and not even his fat fingers could keep the blood from pouring all over her. At first his body twitched while she held it there, then it went still, and then it grew colder and colder. She tried to slither free, but the layer of sweat and blood smeared across her pasty skin didn't help. His cumbersome Earther body was just too heavy, deep as the Sunfire was flying within the atmosphere of Saturn. Her ribs grew sore under his weight. It made it difficult to breathe, and after a minute she imagined that she might suffocate. She'd never wanted to be a maintenance worker on a gas harvester in the first place and had only done so by request . . . Now she was going to die here. She wasn't as afraid as she thought she'd be; she only wished she could pass on far away from the captain's foul stench. Three pairs of gloved hands slipped between his body and hers just before the weight caused her to pass out. They pried him up just barely enough for her to slip out from beneath his sagging belly. She tumbled to the floor, gasping for air. The captain was rolled back onto his chest, half-hanging off the bed with his face dipped in a deepening pool of his own blood. "We heard screams," a Ringer com operator named Vick said as he ran in, his tone panicked. He too was born on the icy surface of Titan, and had a permanently crooked nose from its being broken one too many times. "What the f*** did you do, Mai?" "Trass, he's dead," said Joran, like Maya, a Sunfire maintenance worker. Maya ignored them. She lunged at the captain and punched him in the side. The fat on his stomach jiggled, but the weighty corpse barely budged. "How does that feel, Captain!" she screamed as she struck him again. "You like that! You want it harder?" Gareth, the third Ringer who'd helped dislodge her, grabbed her by the shoulders and tore her away from the corpse. Working with the engines made Gareth the strongest of them despite his also being a Ringer, so he picked her up and sat her on the red-stained bed. 'Are you all right?' he signed with his long, thin-fingered hands. His tongue had been sliced off at the back of his throat by the Earther captain lying dead before them, so he couldn't speak. Maya glanced down. Her boiler-suit was torn along the back, so far down so that it wrapped around her thighs. Rows of finger-shaped marks along her slender hips stuck out against her white flesh as if drawn on with a pink highlighter. She was almost entirely exposed to the germ-infested air, a rare sight for a Ringer outside of the Lowers. Her three saviors were all clothed from head to toe in boiler-suits, and wearing sanitary masks and gloves as was customary. "I'm fine," she panted, throwing her arms back through her still intact sleeves. Gareth helped her. The fit was loose from having been stretched time and time again by the voracious captain. Vick took a step to help as well, then regarded the bloody captain and stopped. "You've really done it now," Vick said. "They'll space us all for this." "He deserved worse," Maya growled. "Others will have heard the screams," Joran said. "We've got to get you out of here." "Yeah, where are we going to go?" Vick asked. He was sweating even more than Maya, his gaze glued to the body. "I hear Pluto is lovely this time of year." Gareth shot him an angry glare as he finished helping her back into what was left of her outfit. "Just shut up, Vick, and let me--" Maya was interrupted by the three-man Sunfire security team suddenly appearing in the room's entrance. All of them were Earthers, painting short, broad figures compared with her tall, slender one. They wore dated suits of Pervenio Corp-fashioned armor, but their shock-batons were top-of-the-line, tips crackling a vibrant blue. "You skelly bitch!" one of them yelled. They rushed into the room, weapons raised. Gareth didn't hesitate. He ripped the shiv out of the captain's neck and charged. He was naturally weaker than the Earthers, but he'd grown up a brawler in Titan's Darien Lowers. Joran quickly followed, and though he wasn't a fighter, he knew how to hold his own as a distraction. Vick wasn't as lucky. He froze somewhere between fleeing and fighting, and got prodded in the side by a shock-baton. His convulsing body toppled forward, vomit spewing from his mouth. The mess slowed the guard coming at Maya and gave her enough time to think. She'd been invited to the captain's quarters a few times before she'd had enough and killed him, and she knew he kept a loaded pulse-pistol in a stand by the head of his bed in case the crew got rowdy. She sprawled across the mattress and fumbled through the drawer until her reedy fingers found the rubberized handle. She whipped around and saw a shock-baton speeding toward her head. She caught the Earther's burly arm before it shocked her, while at the same time he grabbed her pistol-hand and shoved it upward. Born on Earth, under Earth-like G conditions, he was multiple times stronger than her. Both of her arms were ready to give out when she decided to pull the trigger. The shot hit a power conduit running along the exposed wall behind them. Electricity coruscated through the air toward the baton's lit end. She squirmed away from him just in time to escape the current as the guard screamed. His back wrenched, and he shook violently. While he was incapacitated, Maya reached around him and put a second bullet into the head of the guard kicking Vick's curled-up body. Gareth and Joran didn't need her help. The former was plunging his shiv into their guard's chest over and over as the latter held him down. With the wailing, electricity-filled Earther stuck in front of her, Maya was trapped between him and the wall. She tried to slide her thin body around him without making contact, but as she did there was a crackle, followed by a deafening bang. The power conduit overloaded and went off like a stick of dynamite centimeters away from the right side of her face, launching her across the room. Maya rolled over, her vision foggy, her ears ringing. There was no pain. Shadows raced toward her, screaming her name. Vick reached for her face, appearing horrified as he hesitated to touch her. She ran the tips of her fingers across her cheek. Still she felt nothing, but when she pulled them away charred flesh was stuck beneath her nails. She clawed at her face again, this time peeling away skin as if she were a wax sculpture held to a torch. Gareth pulled her to her feet while Vick yelled for her to focus. She pushed them aside and grabbed a baton off the floor. One of the Earthers was crawling toward the gun. Her vision was still cloudy, but she didn't need to see straight to hit one of their fat bodies. She spit out a glob of blood, skin, and liquefied sinew, then cracked him across the head with the baton over and over until his legs stopped twitching. Excerpted from From Ice to Ashes by Rhett C. Bruno All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.