Excerpt: Burnt Worlds

I have received the last feedback for Burnt Worlds from the last beta reader.  Some technical details, a few minor continuity cockups whoopsies, and some stylistic thingies.  All in all, it's excellent feedback, and with one final edit I'll incorporate it and That Will Be That.

In the meantime, here's a tiny excerpt.  Several readers have mentioned this bit:  Chief Black explaining how a jump drive works:

The Chief smirked.  "Want to know my theory?  I don't think anyone has the faintest clue how it works.  I think someone was trying to invent, I don't know, a new dishwasher or something, and accidentally made a jump drive.  Wrote up a hundred pages of bullshit, collected their Nobel Prize, and retired.  Everyone else just makes copies of the failed dishwasher, and as long as it keeps working, no one asks any questions."